Unshackled Moments ~ August 6 ~ Olympic Qualifications

The 2016 Olympic games are underway. The opening ceremonies aired last night to mixed reviews, and Virginia Thrasher has become the first gold medal winner of both the games and the United States, in the women’s 10m air rifle shooting. Some people may not care much or at all about the games. Some may have a favorite sport or a few favorite sports that they will try to follow. Some may simply concern themselves with their country's medal count and watching the highlights and back stories of the winners. Some will watch everything that they can. But regardless of how they feel about them or how important they may or may not seem, people all over the world are aware of the games.

This isn't new either. I don't know if Paul was a fan of the Olympics, as I am, or not, but there is no question that Paul realized this was something that his audience would be fully aware of and understand. Bible scholars place him in Corinth during the Isthmian Games, so he either wanted to preach to as many fans of the games as possible or he was also a fan. He referenced the competition or training for the competition as a metaphor to the spiritual life of a Christian in multiple epistles.

Probably the most familiar of these is I Corinthians 9:24-27 In some ways it is an excellent metaphor, and in others, it breaks down.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Now when I say it breaks down in some ways I am not knocking Paul's metaphor choices or his writing. Not at all. I use metaphors, and when I do I like to think that they work in the context and manner I am trying to use them. But if you look at them too closely and try to make them literally fit you'll have problems. Metaphors aren't literal; that's what makes them metaphors.

The metaphor of the games still works today. First, in order to compete, you must be chosen/called/qualified. No one gets to just walk up and say that they want to compete and get to. Tied with that is the citizenship qualification. Olympic athletes do not have to compete for the nation of their birth, but they must become a citizen of whatever nation they compete for. This year there is a lot of attention on refugees that have lost their countries, become citizens of new countries and are competing for the glory of nations that they were not born in.

We have been called to follow Jesus, and He has chosen us, called us and qualified us. We were refugees, lost and doomed to destruction, but we have been adopted and made citizens, with all the rights and privileges associated with that citizenship, of a new kingdom, the kingdom of God. We will be forever associated with our new home. If the old country is mentioned at all it will be as part of what it was like, the war, the death and destruction, the violence, the starvation, the bondage and misery that made us flee from the country of our birth and seek safety and refuge and to be of service in the kingdom of God. It will  be a compare  and contrast, calling others to join us in the greatest place, the only place where there is truly life worth living. We run our race to draw attention to our new home, and to let the others we left behind know that they  can join us. We are refugees no more. We have a home, and this world is not it. We are qualified, by grace, to run for Jesus.

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