2 Timothy 2:3 You therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. The old wrestlers did not decline ten months of laborious and abstemious training to make their bodies supple and their will indomitable; so much so, that "a wrestler's health" became a proverb. If Plato challenged his disciples — "Shall our children not have energy enough to deny themselves for a much more glorious victory?" ("De Leg.," 7:340), a greater man than Plato urged, "Now they do it for a corruptible crown, but we for an incorruptible"; and our ardour, self-denial, and moral training, or, as St. Paul calls it, our spiritual gymnastics, should exceed theirs, in some such ratio as our prize exceeds theirs; and thus, "if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." (J. B. Owen, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.WEB: You therefore must endure hardship, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. |
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