Athletic events were an important part of Greek and Roman cultural life.  Field and track events were well known, and stadia were marked out to set the limits of the competition.  The games in Olympia in Greece are the origin of our Olympic Games.  So Paul used the illustration of a runner who had been doing well but was then pushed off the track by somebody else (1 Corinthians 9:24).  The runner represented the Christian, the track was the Christian way of life following Jesus, and the aggressive competitor would have been a false teacher, probably someone who demanded that all Christians should be circumcised.
 
Paul said that whoever had obstructed them was not the ‘race official’ (Jesus starts us in the Christian race and is waiting for us at the end - Hebrews 12:2).  No, the person who had distracted them was a malicious cheat who was trying to get them to take the wrong track so that they would fail to reach the finish.
 
There are many people who will try to make us divert away from running towards Jesus, or who will try to persuade us that we are on the wrong track. Others are quite aggressive and try to force us to abandon Jesus. Whatever their motivation, they are pawns in Satan’s hand, even if they do not know it. We should not be so naïve. Sometimes the pressure to wander off the track even comes from within us.

Let us recognise that every attempt to push us off the Jesus-track is not motivated by Jesus or a love for Him; and so let us ask for His help and be even more determined to trust and obey Him.  However good a start someone makes in the race, it is not won at the beginning; it requires a determination to continue to the end (Colossians 1:21-23).  Paul’s own testimony at the end of his life was that he had finished the race (2 Timothy 4:6-8).  So let us reject every voice that calls us either to believe less than the apostles taught or more than they taught – whoever they are – and continue the race fixing our eyes upon Jesus and keeping going in His strength towards Him (Hebrews 12:1-3).