Hi ,
It’s Olympic season (at last). Only a year late. But better late than never. The eyes of the world are on what’s going on over the ocean (for most of us).
As believers in Jesus, the modern Olympics give us a unique context to understand one of the Apostle Paul’s teachings. Paul lived at a time when the ancient Olympics were going on. More than once, he used the imagery of athletes competing to illustrate a point he wanted to make.
I want to look at one such example today. Because we’re going to see it played out again and again on our screens. We will be keeping statistics on this particular event. It will become the measuring rod for national performance (or failure to perform) throughout the entire Olympic games.
In 2 Corinthians 5:10, the Apostle Paul writes:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
On the surface this sounds like a scary scene. Standing before the judgment seat and getting our just reward. And Paul was writing to Christians, so this is a Believer’s Judgment. No one likes judgment.
How does this relate to the Olympics?j
In the Greek language, Paul uses a very specific word that the translators gave as “judgment seat”. That word is the “Bema Seat.”
The Bema Seat was the elevated platform where the judge of an athletic competition sat. In the ancient Olympics, there was a judge sitting on a Bema Seat for every event. It was the judge’s responsibility, after the competition was over, to bestow the rewards on the competitors.
This is where we get the image of the victor wearing the laurel crown. He got it from the judge of the competition. And he got it by standing at the Bema Seat to receive the word of the judge for the official results.
Fast forward two millennia to the modern Olympics. We have sort of changed things around, but now we have the athletes stand on a raised podium where they are bestowed with medals of gold, silver and bronze to reflect their performance in the competition. It’s the same process, only we’ve shifted the focus from the judge to the athlete.
Over the course of 16 days, there will be 306 medal ceremonies – or Bema Seat moments.
That’s 306 opportunities for us as believers to be reminded of what the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth.
Our time is coming. It is unavoidable. It may not be today, or even this year, but we should not let the distance to the event cause us to forget about it. We must give an account of our lives and rewards will be distributed accordingly.
In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul used the same athlete metaphor to make his point…
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. (1 Corinthians 9:24)
Run so that you may obtain it. That means live your life today (running the race) so that you may receive a great commendation from the judge on the Bema Seat.
What part of your life needs to be trained up some? What are you doing that isn’t Olympic caliber Christian living? Where do you need to up your training so that you can stand confidently before the judge?
Everyone who competes wants the gold medal. Otherwise why even be there? But that begins with how they train and how they run.
Let the Olympics be an ongoing reminder of what lies in store for you. You will stand before the Bema Seat and Jesus will present you with the rewards for the life you have lived. The day may be far off, but it is coming as certainly as every event in the Olympics results in a medal ceremony.
Today is the day of decision for you. How will you respond?
Blessings,
Dennis
