The first
part of the digression closes with an ironic note that may echo Paul’s earlier
cry of “Woe” if he does not preach the gospel. Would it not be ironic, he says,
if after preaching to others he failed to practice what he preached, and at the
judgment, if he were found to be “disqualified” (adokimos, a technical
term of athletics in which a competitor fails the test or is thrown out of the
competition)? The implication is palpable: If Paul, the chosen apostle, can
anticipate that he might be found disqualified in the last judgment because he
did not exercise a training code and life appropriate to the gospel, then all
other athletes in the gospel must reevaluate their discipline and practice and
bring themselves into comportment with the gospel. With that, Paul closes the
largely positive part of the digression and turns to the story of Israel’s
exodus out of Egypt (10:1-13) as a means of advancing his argument with a
cautionary illustration precisely on this same point. (J. Paul Sampley, “The
First Letter to the Corinthians,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, 12 vols.
[Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002], 10:910)