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"A woman . . . . . spent all her living upon physicians" (Luke 8: 43).
"He divided unto them his living" (Luke 15: 12).
Biosis gives us "manner of life" (Acts 26: 4), and bioo "live", in the sense of manner
of life (I Pet. 4: 2).
Very near to the meaning of the Apostle in II Tim. 2: 4 is the word biotikos:
"And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with
surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life" (Luke 21: 34).
We have not arrived at a stage in our studies where we can "point the moral". All our
time and attention has been devoted to the acquisition of some Scriptural conception of
the terms employed by the Apostle. But before we are ready to gather the lesson
intended by the Apostle we shall need to examine the figures of the athlete and the
husbandman. These we must consider in a subsequent article, and we trust that no reader
will consider the time ill-spent that endeavours to ascertain the meaning of the words
"which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (I Cor. 2: 13).
#15.
The Athlete and the Husbandman (2: 5, 6).
pp. 182 - 185
We have examined the words used in the first of the three figures employed by Paul in
II Tim. 2: 1-13, namely "The good soldier". We now pass on to the remaining two,
"The Athlete" and "The Husbandman".
To pass so easily from the figure of the soldier to that of the athlete is a transition
quite in harmony with the Apostle's thought and teaching. The classic example of course
is Eph. 6: 11, 12, where the Apostle sees no incongruity in speaking of one clad from
head to foot in armour and equipped with sword and shield, as engaged in "wrestling".
"Strive for mastery" translates the Greek word athleo. This word covered all the
public games, such as running, wrestling and boxing, in which competitors met and
struggled for the victor's crown. In Heb. 10: 32 we have the word athlesis, "a great
fight", associated with endurance and suffering. The exhortation that follows this
enumeration of sufferings refers to the "great recompense of reward" (Heb. 10: 35) which
awaited the sufferers. In Phil. 1: 27 and 4: 3 we have the compound form, sunathleo,
"To strive together", and the whole of the epistle to the Philippians is written in the
atmosphere of conflict and race, with a prize in view.
When we come to the references made by the Apostle to this conflict and crown in
II Tim. 4: 7, 8, we shall have to extend our studies. Meanwhile we pass on to observe
what is particularly said of the athlete here. As with the figure of the soldier, so again
here the Apostle might have chosen for notice many qualities. He could have referred to