Paul is a free man, and nobody owns him, yet he chooses to make himself a servant to everyone. With Jews he lives like a Jew, with Gentiles like a Gentile, and with the weak he becomes weak. That’s not people-pleasing, and it’s not compromise. It’s a man who will do whatever it takes to reach whoever is in front of him for the sake of the gospel. Then he makes it personal: he runs this race with everything he has and disciplines his body like an athlete in training, because he refuses to spend his life calling others to finish a race he quit himself.
