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25. πᾶς δὲ ὁ ἀγωνιζόμενος. Every man that striveth in the games. R.V. The words might refer to the race. See Heb 12:1. So Plutarch has ἀγωνίζεσθαι στάδιον. But 1Co 9:26 decides in favour of the R.V. rendering. The temperance of which the Apostle speaks was no light matter. For ten months had the candidates for a prize at these games to abstain from every kind of sensual indulgence, and to undergo the most severe training of the body. See Horace, De Arte Poetica, 412, and the well-known passage in Epictetus Ench. 29 θέλεις Ὀλύμπια νικῆσαι; … δεῖ σ' εὐτακτεῖν, ἀναγκοφαγεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι πεμμάτων, γυμνάζεσθαι πρὸς ἀνάγκην ἐν ὥρᾳ τεταγμένῃ, ἐν καύματι, ἐν ψύχει, μὴ ψυχρὸν πίνειν, μὴ οἶνον, ὡς ἔτυχεν· ἁπλῶς, ὡς ἰατρῷ παραδεδωκέναι τῷ ἐπιστάτῃ.
ἡμεῖς δὲ ἄφθαρτον. Cf. 2Ti 2:5; 2Ti 4:8; Jam 1:12; 1Pe 5:4; Rev 2:10; Rev 3:11. There was no impropriety in this comparison. The Greek games were free from many of the degrading associations which gather round those athletic sports so popular among ourselves. They had the importance almost of a religious rite, certainly of a national institution, and they were dignified with recitations of their productions by orators and sophists. Herodotus is even said to have recited his history at the Olympic games.