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apostle, speaking of charity, says 'It is not (easily) provoked' (1 Cor.
13:5).
The earnest contending, that Jude so desired should mark those he
addressed, is none of these. The word he used is epagonizomai, a compound of
epi, 'upon', or 'for', and agonizomai, 'to strive', as in the Greek games.
The word agon meant, primarily, 'a place of assembly where games were often
celebrated, hence a stadium, a course; then the race or contest itself' (Dr.
E. W. Bullinger). So in an old sermon we read, 'They must do their
exercises, too, be anointed to the agon and to the combat, as the champions
of old'
.
In English, 'to agonize' can mean either 'to torture' or 'to suffer; to
writhe with agony' or 'to contend in the arena, to wrestle'. The word occurs
in the New Testament in seven forms as follows:
(1)
Agon.
Contention, contest, race.
Six occurrences.
(2)
Agonia.
Anxiety.
Only occurrence Luke 22:44.
(3)
Agonizomai.
To strive, to fight.
Seven occurrences.
(4)
Katagonizomai.
To subdue.
Only occurrence Hebrews 11:33.
(5)
Antagonizomai.
To strive against.
Only occurrence Hebrews 12:4.
(6)
Epagonizomai.
To contend earnestly.
Only occurrence Jude 3.
(7)
Sunagonizomai.
To strive together.
Only occurrence Romans 15:30.
In Hebrews 12:1 Paul speaks of 'the race that is set before us', using
the word agon, and urges his readers to lay aside 'the sin that so easily
besets us'; and in Hebrews 12:4 he uses the compound antagonizomai, 'striving
against sin', even to resisting unto blood. Thus we perceive that the
conflict is intense. When, moreover, we observe that this word is linked to
the one employed to describe the Saviour's conflict in the Garden of
Gethsemane (Luke 22:44), accompanied, as it was, with sweat like 'great drops
of blood', the stoutest heart might well quail at the possible intensity of
the ordeal which the term can indicate. It is this word agon that the
apostle uses, together with agonizomai, when he wrote:
'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the
faith: henceforth ... a crown' (2 Tim. 4:7,8).
Writing to the Corinthians, Paul makes full use of the rule and
practice of the Olympic games, and, in the hope that it may stimulate the
reader to fuller understanding and effort, instead of the A.V. of the
passage, we give Weymouth's rendering: