Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you are also called, and have professed a good profession before many witnesses.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Let godliness move you to justice, continence, gentleness, that you may avoid childish acts, and that rooted and grounded in grace you may fight the good fight of faith. Do not entangle yourself in the affairs of this life, for you are fighting for God. For he who fights for the emperor is forbidden by human laws to enter upon lawsuits or do any legal business or sell merchandise. How much more ought he who enters upon the warfare of faith to keep away from every kind of business. Let him be satisfied with the produce of his own little bit of land, if he has it. If he has not that, let him be content with the pay he will get for his service. .
In another place the apostle says, “And all those who will live godly lives in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” Then, to help prevent people from renouncing godliness when they are persecuted, he urges them to cling to the faith. “You, therefore, continue in the things you have learned and been assured of.” Just as brothers become strongly knit together when one helps another, so faith and godliness, coming from the same family, cohere together. A person who gives his attention to one of the two is strengthened by the other. Consequently, wishing Timothy to live godly to the end and to fight the battle in faith, St. Paul says, “Fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life.”
Recall your glorious profession which you made before God, the angels and men. Remember the august company, the holy chorus of virgins, the assembly of the Lord and the church of saints. Call to mind also your grandmother, old in Christ but still young and strong in virtue, and your mother, vying with her in the Lord and striving by new and unusual toils to destroy former habits. Remember also your sister, who is likewise both imitating and aspiring to surpass them, and who by the advantage of her virginity is outstripping the virtuous actions of her elders and is industriously summoning, both by word and by life, you her sister, as she thought, to a contest of like eagerness. Recall these, and also the angelic chorus singing with them to God, the spiritual life in the flesh and the heavenly life on earth. Letters , To a Fallen Virgin.
Fight the good fight. Literally, strive a good strife. St. Paul oftentimes brings this comparison of men striving for a prize.
And hast confessed a good confession before many witnesses, not only when baptized, not only when thou wast ordained a bishop, but by thy constancy and sufferings and persecutions, says St. Chrysostom, though we know not the particulars. (Witham)
Timothy had made profession of his faith at his baptism, at his ordination, and during the whole course of a life which, through many labours and persecutions, had been dedicated entirely to promote the faith. (St. Thomas Aquinas)
Like him let us also combat, if we aspire after the same triumph and prize.
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life. Lo, there is your reward, whereunto you are also called, and hast professed a good profession, in hope of eternal life, before many witnesses.
That is, do not put that confidence to shame. Why do you labor to no profit? But what is the temptation and snare, which he says, those that would be rich fall into? It causes them to err from the faith, it involves them in dangers, it renders them less intrepid. Foolish desires, he says. And is it not a foolish desire, when men like to keep idiots and dwarfs, not from benevolent motives, but for their pleasure, when they have receptacles for fishes in their halls, when they bring up wild beasts, when they give their time to dogs, and dress up horses, and are as fond of them as of their children? All these things are foolish and superfluous, nowise necessary, nowise useful.
Foolish and hurtful lusts! What are hurtful lusts? When men live unlawfully, when they desire what is their nei...
In like manner, O blessed, consider whatever is hard in your present situation as an exercise of your powers of mind and body. You are about to enter a noble contest in which the living God acts the part of superintendent and the Holy Spirit is your trainer, a contest whose crown is eternity, whose prize is angelic nature, citizenship in heaven for ever and ever.
