And if a man also competes as an athlete, yet is he not crowned, unless he strives lawfully.
All Commentaries on 2 Timothy 2:5 Go To 2 Timothy 2
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
What is the world but an arena full of fighting? Therefore the Lord says in the Apocalypse, “To the victor I shall give the crown of life,” and Paul says, “I have fought the good fight,” and elsewhere, “No one is crowned unless he has competed according to the rules.” He who initiated the contest is actually almighty God. When one initiates a contest in this world, does he not prepare all that is necessary for the contest, and only after he has made ready the wreaths for rewards call those who are to contend for the crown, so that the winner may not meet with delay but depart after being given his reward? The rewards of man are the fruits of the earth and the lights of heaven. The former are for his use in the present life; the latter, for his hope of life eternal. Like an athlete, then, he comes last into the arena…. It is he who poises the blow, it is Christ who strikes; he lifts his heel, Christ directs it to the wound…. In preaching Christ he deals wounds to all those spiritual evils which are his enemies. Not undeservedly, then, does man enter the stadium last, and a crown is prepared for him so that heaven might go before him as being his reward.
