_THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE AS MILITARY SERVICE; AS AN ATHLETIC CONTEST; AS HUSBANDRY._
"Suffer hardships with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier. And if also a man contend in the games, he is not crowned, except he have contended lawfully. The husbandman that laboureth must be the first to partake of the fruits. Consider what I say; for the Lord shall give thee understanding in all things."--2 TIM. ii. 3-7.
St. Paul represents the Christian life and the Christian ministry under a variety of figures. Sometimes as _husbandry_; as when he tells the Galatians that "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" and that "in due season we shall reap, if we faint not" (Gal. vi. 7, 9); or when he reminds the Corinthians that "he that ploweth ought to plow in hope, and he that thresheth, to thresh in hope of partaking" (1 Cor. ix. 10). Sometimes as an _athletic contest_; as when he tells the Corinthians that "every man who striveth in the games is temperate in all things" (1 Cor ix. 25); or the Ephesians that "our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. vi. 12). Sometimes, and most frequently, as _military service_; as when he charges the Thessalonians to "put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation" (1 Thess. v. 8); or when he writes to the Philippians of Epaphroditus as his "fellow-soldier" (Phil. ii. 25).
In the passage before us he makes use of all three figures: but the one of which he seems to have been most fond is the one which he places first,--that of military service. "Suffer hardships with me," or "take thy share in suffering," as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier on service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life; that he may please him who enrolled him as a soldier." He had used the same kind of language in the First Epistle, urging Timothy to "war the good warfare" and to "fight the good fight of faith" (i. 18; vi. 12). Every Christian, and especially every Christian minister, may be regarded as a soldier, as an athlete, as a husbandman; but of the three similitudes the one which fits him best is that of a soldier.
Even if this were not so, St. Paul's fondness for the metaphor would be very intelligible.
1. Military service was very familiar to him, especially in his imprisonments. He had been arrested by soldiers at Jerusalem, escorted by troops to Caesarea, sent under the charge of a centurion and a band of soldiers to Rome, and had been kept there under military surveillance for many months in the first Roman imprisonment, and for we know not how long in the second. And we may assume it as almost certain that the place of his imprisonment was near the praetorian camp. This would probably be so ordered for the convenience of the soldiers who had charge of him. He therefore had very large opportunities of observing very closely all the details of ordinary military life. He must frequently have seen soldiers under drill, on parade, on guard, on the march; must have watched them cleaning, mending, and sharpening their weapons; putting their armour on, putting it off. Often during hours of enforced inactivity he must have compared these details with the details of the Christian life, and noticed how admirably they corresponded with one another.
2. Military service was not only very familiar to himself; it was also quite sufficiently familiar to those whom he addressed. Roman troops were everywhere to be seen throughout the length and breadth of the Empire, and nearly every member of society knew something of the kind of life which a soldier of the Empire had to lead.