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Desiring God Blog Weighs in On March Madness, Competition, Etc.

Writer: goldenstateservicesj
goldenstateservicesj
Mar 23, 2015
2 min read

The Monday feature of the Worldly Saints blog focuses on a story from the sports world – current or historic. The point is to recognize athletes who are using their sports and athletic abilities to further the kingdom of God or to show how some athletes are wasting their days by not giving God the glory.


On March 23, 2012, Matt Reagan of Desiring God, wrote, “Are athletic achievement and fierce competition sheer madness for the Christian?”

“It’s a question essential not just for the celebrated Tim Tebows and Jeremy Lins, but also to a handful of unknown Christians playing in this weekend’s NCAA Tourney, and thousands (if not millions) of Christians worldwide engaged in highly skilled and highly competitive athletics. Achievement and competition are two related, but distinct, topics for the Christian. What follows is seven Christian reflections on athletic achievement and a pair of biblical observations related to Christians in competitive sports.

Seven Reflections on Athletic Achievement

  1. God could have created us to be just a pair of eyes, beholding his glory and being perfectly content — but he didn’t. He gave us bodies.

  2. There is a difference between enjoying our image-bearing for our personal fame, and enjoying it for his.

  3. How we enjoy image-bearing for his glory (1 Corinthians 10:31) is the issue.

  4. It is clear from 1 Corinthians 10:30–31 and 1 Timothy 4:4 that thanksgiving is a vital ingredient in the glorification of God through any particular enjoyment.

  5. Our enjoyment of God in the midst of athletic achievement is a critical component of his glorification.

  6. God is not fully glorified through any activity where he is not a person’s final Treasure.

  7. It may be possible to enjoy achievement as an individual, but as image-bearers of a Trinitarian God, achievement is not completed unless it is given away to, or shared with, another.”

Hield Buddy

To read the article in it’s entirety and hear more about how we can “redeem” the viewing and participating of sports, and I encourage it, click here.

 
 
 

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