Slave or Disqualified?

Last Friday Bear and I were discussing several Bible verses when 1 Corinthians 9:27 was referenced. Paul stated, “… but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

A few of our thoughts emerged, such as

1. Whenever we fast or pray on our knees instead of in a comfortable chair, or wake at dawn to pray instead of during a first cup of coffee, or give up certain foods for season, or even refrain from physical intimacy from our spouse for a short time, at least three things will happen. You will glorify God, you will train your body to respond to your will, and you will sin. Sin? I realize this is a bitter pill to swallow, but if the great theologians of past and present are correct, and if decades of life experience in my own self can be trusted, I will sin. I will sin by making my discipline the end, not God. I will sin by telling others of my successes. I will sin by being proud of my accomplishments. Even if I don’t dwell on these things; even if I repeatedly return thanks and glory to God, I will wrestle with these and other manifestation of my sinful flesh even as I conduct godly disciplines in an effort to grow in maturity.
2. It was interesting to note Paul’s hierarchy of our experience. By coupling this verse with other verses we found a progression.
1. At a base level Paul disciplines his body; his fleshly lusts and ‘darling sins’ (1 Cor 9:27). The word ‘discipline’ in the Greek means to beat black and blue; and this for the sole purpose of learning strength, patience, endurance over his physical being. Daniel did much the same thing when he resolved not to eat the ‘king’s choice food or wine’ (Dan 1:8).
2. The next level was Paul’s discipling of his mind. He took ‘every thought captive to the obedience of Christ’ (2 Cor 10:5). I believe the best definition of ‘being a disciple’ is not in a listing godly disciplines but rather in the daily, moment by moment practice of ‘taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Christ’. Further, he strove to be ‘transformed by the renewing of his mind’ (Rom 12:2). An on-going renewing by the washing of the word over every impulse, thought, and desire.
3. This striving in the outer and inner man led to the culmination of Paul’s life goal; to be Christ’s slave (Rom 1:1)
4. So the progression is this; the outer man is a slave to the inner man and the whole man is a slave to Christ.

The secular world looks through the window of Christian churches and sneers, “They’re a bunch of hypocrites”; using this as a reason to reject what we believe instead of what we’ve become. But a hypocrite is far more polite than what Paul warns for himself. To not be disciplined in body and mind does not leave him a mere hypocrite but ‘disqualified’. The words and contexts used in the New Testament for this Greek word ‘adokimos’ are; depraved, unapproved, rejected, worthless, and to ‘fail the test’.

God has granted me a life to sanctify.

The deeper I study, the more I learn and experience, the more I must fear God, reject my daily personal sin and take every thought captive so I will not be disqualified.