In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul uses the analogy of an athlete competing in a stadium for a laurel wreath. He says in verse 25, "And every person competing controls himself with everything," and what is really interesting is in verse 27, he's very specific about what he's competing against when he says, "but I give my body a black eye and lead it a slave..." As he writes about in his letters to the Romans and to the Galatians, his own body, neurology, and biology is what has to be brought into submission to Christ, and Paul is clear that this is an ongoing competition which he's determined to win and is determined that the Corinthians understand the need to up their game if they're going to win it too.
"Everyone runs, but only one gets the prize." There are only two competitors in this competition, your own body's psychology and drives, and Christ within you, and you must train and fight to keep your own body's psychology disengaged and enslaved to Christ's. It is like the Native American parable of the two wolves fighting within the man, the one who wins is the one he feeds.
In the next passage in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Paul is kind of not so subtly explicit in his warning to the Corinthians about their behavior and the temptations they were facing. First, he identifies the ancient Israelites using them as a type for Christians, using the not so subtle imagery of the Israelites engaging in types of the Sacraments of Baptism (being baptized into Moses with the cloud and the sea) and Holy Eucharist (spiritual food and spiritual drink). Then he warns the Corinthians not to engage in things like idolatry, whoring, tempting Christ, grumbling, and so on just like they did and faced disastrous consequences from God (twenty three thousand fell, they were destroyed by snakes, they were destroyed by the one who makes women shriek from the loss of their men and children).
Notice that this passage is immediately after Paul talking about competing like an athlete against his own body so he wouldn't be found unproven or disqualified. After saying these things about competing against his body, this is then a further explanation of his reasoning, and he is essentially saying be careful not to treat your union with Christ unseriously or callously like the ancient Israelites treated Yahweh and everything they had been inducted into with contempt. Disastrous consequences will follow. It is the same thing he said in Romans where he said that if God did not spare the natural branches, he may not spare you being a grafted branch either.
A Christian treating Jesus Christ with contempt, treating Him like a joke, knowing who He is, what He's done, and knowing his or her union with Him is blaspheming the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit within them. It is the same as the man at the wedding feast who wasn't wearing the wedding clothes, and will evoke the same response from God. It is the same warning as Hebrews 10:26-31, "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the Living God."
Paul tells the Corinthians, "A temptation hasn't gotten you except what is human; and God is trustworthy who won't let you be tempted beyond what you're capable of but will make together with the temptation also the way out with being able to bear up under it."
That way out is always submission to Christ within you, and asking and trusting Him to act and speak through you just as He asked and trusted the Father to act and speak through Him. All the temptations which we face are things which trigger the malfunctioning human survival responses of fear, aggression, feeding, and sexual drive to react to things to which we are attached or things to which we are averse. Every human being descended from Adam experiences these responses regardless of what triggers them and God has already made the way out through joining you with Jesus Christ through Baptism into His death, burial, and resurrection. Ask Him, remain in Him, and turn over all control to Him and trust Him in that moment, every moment.
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