Our theme verse is 1 Corinthians 10:31. This is influenced by CJ Mahaney’s sermon on “Don’t Waste Your Sports”. It is important to remember that anything we do, sports or not, must be informed by the knowledge of God, and must be done as worship to God.

http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/CJ-Mahaney-Dont-Waste-Your-Sports-Sermon.aspx

Also, I had the opportunity to travel with an Athletes in Action basketball team this summer to Colombia, South America. Athletics provides a platform for Christianity that allows for the sharing of the Gospel that would not normally take place.

Also, another great sermon on sports is from Scott Lothery, a man who came to Christ through the Athletes in Action Baseball ministry. As a team, we had the pleasure of having him speak to us in Chicago before we set out for Colombia.
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Arlington_Heights_Evangelical_Free_Church/archives.asp?bcd=9/6/2009

http://www.sovgracemin.org/Blog/post/CJ-Mahaney-Dont-Waste-Your-Sports-Sermon.aspx

I enjoyed reading your comments on “A Simpler View of Sports”. Vern enlightening and interesting as I am one of a very few “woman” sports lover. Is this the little boy that played with my boys in South HOlland, Il in the sandbox.. God Bless your and your family…
Jan and John Vinke

I enjoyed reading your comments on “A Simpler View of Sports”. Very interesting and enlightening..Is this the little boy that use to play in the sandbox with my boys. God Bless you and your family as you serve God.
Blessing,
Jan Vinke ( John also)

Notably lacking in your assessment is any biblical foundation as well. How is sports any less redeemable than say arts? or literature? or cooking? or music?

Also, why does Paul use sports analogies in the Scriptures? Was he sinning by doing so?

Sports is very much an idol in the culture. Is that because of sports or the sinful human heart?

The problem with this is that Professor Hoffman desires the redemption of something that, at its core, is irredeemable. What he would like to think of as “…derivatives of the God-given play impulse-…” are really expressions of mankind’s fundamental opposition to God and to the rest of the human race. The venues and activities point to this. People oppose each other and engage in struggle for the purpose of “winning”. I recognize that sporting activity is not the only means by which this plays out. It also happens in political campaigns. But at least political campaigns produce governments; they may be good, or they may be bad, but at least there’s a product. Sporting activities, on the other hand, produce nothing.

If the argument is made that all human activity is tainted by sin, and can be made man-glorifying, I agree. But it does not follow that all activities can be transformed for the glory of God. Professor Hoffman tries to make a case for sports by citing rather arcane (at least to me) notions from Johan Huizinga and Hugo Rahner about using sports to inspire the “…Christian imagination…” and viewing sports as “…that Godward directed harmony of body and soul which we call heaven,” an expression of “man’s hope for another life taking visible form in gesture,”…..”. Notably lacking is any biblical foundation.

And the reason there’s no biblical foundation is that no biblical case can be made. The whole business of sports is irredeemable. By its very nature, it does not and cannot give glory to God. It bears no lasting fruit. Those Christians who make their living in sports will be remembered for their lives outside of sports, not for their accomplishments within it.