Leadership Teams

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Chapter Three

Sports and Spiritual Warfare Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his

aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the

Lord will give you understanding in everything.

(2 Timothy 2:3–7)

litz, bomb, blown away, formation, trenches, neutral zone, red zone, offense, defense, attack, press, assault, battle, battle-plan, field general, no man’s land, battle-tested, and so on. Anyone who listens to sporting figures,

analysts, and commentators knows that the language of athletic competition and the language of military combat share a vocabulary. There is a sense in which all athletic competition is an artificially designed mock battle. Of

course, there is a danger in the comingling of sports and warfare language. Actual warfare is horrific, and in comparison, sporting battle is merely trivial. Nonetheless, when kept in proper perspective, the shared language can be helpful for the Christian since the biblical story line is a story of spiritual war. Thus, it is not surprising that the Bible seizes both military warfare and sports competition as analogies for Christian living.

The Christian life spiritual warfare. The biblical story begins with serpent-inspired conflict in the garden andis ends with a glorious celebration of triumphant victory in a new heaven and a new earth: “There were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever’” (Rev. 11:15). When Christ returns he will consummate his kingdom and reign victorious over “that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan” (Rev. 20:2) and put a final end to his parasitic kingdom opposition. The church lives as the outpost of the kingdom of Christ in the time of the overlap of the ages, the already/but not yet of the kingdom. Therefore, the Christian lives in the context of a cosmic spiritual battle, though the warring kingdoms are not evenly matched and the outcome in Christ is secure (Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:13). We are called to fight against sin as good soldiers of Christ Jesus who proclaim the gospel no matter the cost (Eph. 6:12–17; Phil. 1:30; 2: 25; Heb. 12:4; 1 Pet. 2:11; Jude 3; 2 Tim. 2:3–4; 4:7).

Onward Christian Soldier and Athlete

The New Testament language for sports competition is instructive and mirrors the language of warfare. The word

comes from the Greek word which means “to compete” (2 Tim. 2:5). Our word comes from theathlete athleo, agony Greek word , which means “fight, struggle, or conflict” (Phil. 1:30; Col. 2:1; 1 Thess. 2:2; 1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:agon

7; Heb. 12:1), and related to is the Greek word , which means “to fight or strive against” (Luke 13:agon agonizomai

24; John 18:36; 1 Cor. 9:25; Col. 1:29; 4:12; 1 Tim. 4:10; 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:7). comes to us from the GreekGymnasium word , which means “exercise or training for competition” (1 Cor. 9:24–27; Gal. 2:2; 5:7; Phil. 1:30; 2:16).gymnasia According to Paul, if athletes agonize to fulfill determined temporal goals, how much more should he and others agonize in gospel ministry? These qualities are why “Paul is fond of both military and athletic metaphors,” as Ralph Earle notes. Both the athlete and the soldier need single-minded focus and the incentive of victory. Each must1 endure hardship and agonizingly strive in preparation and disciplined training for conflict. The Dictionary of Biblical

provides an excellent summary of the New Testament lessons Christians should glean from athleticImagery competition:

Athletic images conjure up a number of stimulating associations, including rigorous training or exercise (1 Cor. 9:25; 1 Tim. 4:7–8), singleness of purpose (1 Cor. 9:26), delayed gratification (1 Cor. 9:25), streamlining

Prince, David E.. In the Arena : The Promise of Sports for Christian Discipleship, B&H Publishing Group, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/liberty/detail.action?docID=4648384. Created from liberty on 2025-07-11 12:22:32.

for maximum performance (Heb. 12:1), self-control (1 Cor. 9:27), perseverance (Heb. 12:2) and endurance (1

Tim. 4:8). Athletic endeavor also involves intense competition with lofty objectives (1 Cor. 9:24) and high stakes (Eph. 6:12), and it requires faithful adherence to a prescribed set of rules to avoid disqualification (2 Tim. 2:5; 1 Cor. 9:27). In spite of all the hard work, the end result is transitory fame. But for the Christian the crown to be won is imperishable (1 Tim. 4:8; 1 Cor. 9:25).2

If you are a sports fan, I am confident that you are already very familiar with at least one biblical Greek word,

even if you have never studied New Testament Greek. It is the Greek word , or as you are probably morenike familiar with seeing it written, NIKE. Nike is probably the most recognizable sports brand in the world. Phil Knight

and Bill Bowerman chose the Greek word for the name of their athletic shoe company because it carries the ideanike

of victory, conquering, and overcoming. Craig S. Keener explains the use of the various forms of in the biblicalnike book of Revelation: “‘Overcoming’ (especially a military or athletic image of conquest or victory) here involves persevering in the face of conflict and hardship; this is all that the Lord requires to secure ultimate victory” (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 5:5; 6:2; 11:7, 11; 13:7). The Scriptures make a clear and positive connection between3 sports, warfare, spiritual warfare, and the pursuit of victory. Competing is not sufficient; it is of utmost importance to desire to win the contest within the rules of engagement.

It should surprise no one that General Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964), a military leader who loved athletics, had the following statement carved on the stone passageway that leads to the gym at the U.S. Military Academy:

Upon the fields of friendly strife Are sown the seeds That, upon other fields, on the other days Will bear the fruits of victory.4

General MacArthur went so far as to order the student body to participate in intramural athletics and urged congressmen to recommend gifted young athletes to West Point.5

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841–1935), a combat veteran of the Civil War who later served on the United States Supreme Court from 1902–1932, told the Harvard graduating class in 1895, “In this snug, over-safe corner of the world, we may realize that our comfortable routine is no eternal necessity of things, but merely a little space of calm in the midst of the tempestuous untamed streaming of the world.” Holmes urged Americans to “be ready for danger” because peace is always fragile and we must always be prepared to sacrifice and fight for it. He counted athletics as one vital way Americans can prepare to be ready. He also endorsed physically demanding and tough combat sports by asserting, “I rejoice at every dangerous sport which I see.”6

One of American football’s early champions and innovators was a Christian coach named Amos Alonzo Stagg (1862–1965). He had been a theology student at Yale training to become a pastor but struggled mightily with preaching and decided, “After much thought and prayer, I decided that my life can best be used for my Master’s service” as a football coach. Stagg was convinced that he “would be going away from rather than into [Christ’s]

vineyard by being ordained.” According to Stagg, football reflected military warfare because it was “a game of war7 within the limitations of the rules and of sportsmanship.” Stagg wrote, “As I view it, no man is too good to be the8 athletic coach for youth.” The discipline, focus, courage, and characteristics it takes to be a competitive athlete or9 loyal soldier also pertain to Christian living, and believers who enjoy sports ought to have eyes to see.

Sports: Abstracted from Christ or Summed Up in Christ?

Sports are a good gift from God, but like all of his good gifts, sports are corrupted and broken in our fallen world. Anyone who thinks that sports automatically cultivate good character simply is not paying attention or purposefully ignoring reality. Sports as ultimate turns a good thing into an idol. Idols are almost always good gifts of God that are treated like God—as the ultimate source of satisfaction. An idol carved out of wood and worshipped corrupts God’s gift of wood. The same is also true when God gifts one of his image bearers with exceptional athletic ability, only for the athlete to respond by getting his or her identity and sense of worth from athletic gifting and success. When this happens, God’s gift is turned into an idol. Whenever Christ is not at the center of our lives and personal identity, an

idol quickly fills the vacuum. Sports treated as the end for which we are created are corrupting and character- destroying.

When Satan tempts, he does not need you to deny Jesus openly to corrupt your character and mute your

testimony. Displacing Christ from the center of your life and using him as a means to an end, rather than the end for which you are created, will work just as well for his hellish purposes. Christ is to be the Christian’s identity, context, center, and end; so all other desires, including sporting desires, are subordinate to Christ. That Christ-exalting fact should be liberating and not confining because it means that nothing can steal our contentment, including sporting failure and losses. Anyone who says, “Christ is useful,” is worshipping and serving self, not Christ. The person who is worshipping and serving Christ understands that every circumstance is simply a unique setting to declare Christ as all-sufficient, beautiful, and glorious.

But herein lies a pervasive problem. Far too often, it is not only Christians who consider sports a waste of time, who struggle to see a place for sports in their faith commitment, but those Christians who enjoy athletics often treat sports as a sort of guilty pleasure. In other words, they abstract sports from following Christ as a disciple or they simply attempt to use Jesus for athletic empowerment and success. The problem is that Jesus never promised us athletic success, and he certainly never signed up to be a subcontractor on our sports kingdom building project. Our responsibility is to “take every thought captive to obey” Jesus (2 Cor. 10:5)—including our thoughts about sports. No matter our present address, Christians are elect exiles—sojourners—whose citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20; 1 Pet. 1:1; 2:11). Our background, nationality, family identity, and interests like sports are not ultimate, but they do serve as concrete markers of our experience of God’s expansive grace as long as we see them through the lens of Jesus Christ

and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

I Can Fumble and Strike Out through Christ Who Strengthens Me

I have always been somewhat amused but also troubled every time an athlete quotes Philippians 4:13 right after he or she scores the game-winning touchdown, hits a game-winning home run, nails game-winning free throws, or kicks the game-winning goal: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Have you ever noticed that no one ever quotes that verse after the game when he or she gave up the game-winning touchdown, struck out to lose the game, missed free throws that would have won the game, or missed a wide-open goal kick that would have sealed his or her team’s victory? This phenomenon among Christian athletes reveals the way too many Christians who play sports think about their Christian commitment in relationship to sporting competition. It seems that they think about Christ only in relation to their successes as defined by playing well and winning. Such an approach flows from a triumphalist and self-referential understanding of their Christian faith.

In Philippians, the apostle Paul is calling for Christian joy and passionate living in the midst of the most difficult trials and circumstances. When Paul writes the letter to the Philippians from a Roman prison (AD 60–62), he wants the believers in the church at Philippi to understand that Christ is his identity and the center of his life: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). He also wants them to know that the context of his life and his goal, the

end for which he exists, is Christ:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. . . . But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:8, 13–14)

Paul exhorts, “Brothers, join in imitating me” (Phil. 3:17) so that you can “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). By way of application near the end of Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, he declares, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:11–13).

In the next verse Paul writes, “Still, you did well by sharing with me in my hardship” (Phil. 4:14 ).HCSB Elsewhere, the apostle Paul declares, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). Are you beginning to pick up on

a theme? A proper understanding of, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me,” would lead to quoting it in the midst of athletic failure more often than during athletic success. The issue is never whether or not you score the touchdown, but how you trust and glorify Christ when you score the touchdown and when you do not. In other

words, the issue is one of spiritual warfare. The problem is that many Christians do not think about their engagement with sports in terms of spiritual warfare to the glory of God, but rather as God helping them to be more successful. But what if failure provides you a strategic and unique opportunity to glorify God?

Baseball provides many helpful lessons for those engaging in spiritual battle because it is a game that inherently

means dealing with failure. “There is more Met than Yankee in all of us,” as Roger Angell poignantly wrote in The . Every person who has ever played the game of baseball has been a consistent failure. It has beenSummer Game 10

more than seventy years since the Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams, finished the 1941 baseball season with a .406 batting average. Williams’s failure rate of 60 percent means that he failed less often than any batter in the seven subsequent decades. In fact, only five other players in the live ball era (since 1920) have matched the success of his 60 percent failure rate. Babe Ruth, known for hitting 714 home runs, struck out 1,330 times in his Major League Baseball career. The Cy Young Award is baseball’s most coveted honor for the game’s best pitcher each season, yet the award’s namesake lost 316 games as a major league pitcher. Baseball requires a kind of moral courage that keeps persisting in the face of inevitable repeated personal failures. That is the sober, unalterable reality for Major League Baseball Star Mike Trout and every little leaguer as well.

Baseball does not fit well with the current trend of sports leagues that do not keep score and where the goal is for everyone to be successful and know that they are always a winner. Such a notion does violence to a game that is

structurally committed to constant reminders of the participant’s finitude and allows no room for such utopian fantasies. One of the reasons baseball was slow to embrace instant replay (2008, the last of the four Major North American Sports Leagues) in the sport is that a game marked by chronic managed failure propagates no delusions of human perfectionism in its players or its umpires. When a baseball purist asserts, “Bad calls are a part of the game,” he is saying something about the warp and woof of the game.

Only genuine baseball fans understood the reaction of Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga during the 2010 baseball season when he was one out from throwing a perfect game (it would have been the twenty-first in Major League Baseball history) and veteran umpire Jim Joyce made one of the worst big-moment calls in baseball history. Joyce, inexplicably, called the batter safe at first base. When the next batter was retired, Galarraga was saddled with the most disappointing one hitter in the history of the game. How did Galarraga respond to the injustice? When it happened he offered a stunned grin and after the game he said, “He is human. Nobody’s perfect . . . I want to tell him not to worry about it.” That moment was a beautiful window into what makes baseball unique.

Persistent, daily plodding in the face of chronic managed failure, driven by future hope, sounds a lot like my daily Christian walk. The apostle Paul wrote, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Rom. 7:15). But he went on to write, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! . . . There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 7:25; 8:1). The reality of his

persistent failure and limitations did not paralyze him because he knew his story fit into a larger picture of the story of Christ. In the kingdom of Christ, “all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose,” and those who love God are being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:28–29).

Every 162-game baseball season—a seven-month exercise in hopeful, managed failure—is a faint echo of the glorious promise James offers to all who have put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2– 3). Everyone has the tendency to compare the highlight reel of others’ successes to our daily failures and lose heart. But baseball, for those of us who love it, provides a constant reminder that everyone (even the superstar) strikes out, but the game still goes on. Angell was right, “There is more Met than Yankee in all of us,” and there is a glimmer of a greater glory that historically frequent losers like the Mets keep taking the field. But we must also realize that sometimes sports become an idolatrous weapon wielded against God.

When Sports Become Our God

For many of us, our cultural story and family story includes a love of sports and allegiance to certain sports teams. I don’t have to sit around and wonder how I became an Alabama football fan or Atlanta Braves fan. I am both because my father cheered wholeheartedly for both. We went to games at Bryant-Denny Stadium and Fulton County

Stadium. We wore Alabama shirts and Braves hats. My mother made special meals on big game days, and we celebrated the victories of the teams with which we identified. It is a part of my story, my place. As hard as it is for me to imagine, if I had been born in a different region, I might even appreciate soccer and other sports that hold little interest to me now.

However, there are those whose preoccupation with sports becomes all-consuming, turning a good thing into something ultimate—a competitive religion. Below are some guidelines to help you decide whether or not you are corrupting God’s good gift of sports. Is your commitment to sports as a participant or fan becoming a substitute god rather than a means of delighting in God?

Do you enjoy sports as a good gift of God even when your team loses? Finding idolatrous excesses in one’s devotion to sports competition as a player or excessive devotion to a

particular sports team as a fan is not difficult, tragically, even among professing Christians. In my home state, the Alabama-Auburn rivalry has been connected to incarceration, divorce, violence, and recently, the poisoning of majestic trees that were a part of one of the grandest traditions in college football. For such people, allegiance to a favorite team is not an enjoyment of God’s good gift of athletics or a rooted cultural identity marker but an obvious idol. Most who read this chapter will never contemplate such atrocious acts; however, idolatry that is subtler is no less an act of rebellion.

If you cannot delight in God with thanksgiving for a hard-fought contest when your team loses, then you are perverting God’s good gift of athletics and teaching those around him to do the same. Christian parent, if you cannot root like crazy with your children for your favorite team—only to see them lose—and afterward laugh and play in the yard with your kids, you have a problem; it’s called idolatry. I have known children who desperately wanted their dad’s favorite team to win, not because they cared all that much, but because they knew their father would be sour the rest of the day if they lost. Such behavior is pathetic for one whose identity is in Christ.

Do you sever your participation in sports or cheering for your favorite team from your Christian commitment?

I once knew a godly man who just happened to have season football tickets for the local college team and invited me along to attend a game. During the middle of the game, I was stunned when he blurted out an occasional profanity that I had never before heard him utter. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. His demeanor was also aggressive and rude to those around him. When I saw him later at church or at his job, he was back to the godly and faithful man I had always known. At the stadium, the outcome of the game was functionally his lord, which is a problem for one who confesses that Jesus alone is Lord.

If your behavior at a game would make it awkward for you to shift the conversation to your faith in Christ, you are making an idol of sports. I have known Christians who prefer to watch games alone because they did not want

others to observe the way they act during the games. Moreover, when sports are used as an excuse to neglect God and Lord’s Day congregational worship, they are not a tool in discipleship but rather a distraction from discipleship. Abraham Kuyper’s dictum should shape our interest in sports, “Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”

Does your involvement in sports inspire you to faithfulness in your vocation and endeavors?

Paul seizes the metaphor of sports as a key image to explain Christian living because success in athletics demands purposeful self-sacrifice and requires self-discipline for a cause greater than the individual (1 Cor. 9:24–27; Phil. 3:

13–14; Gal. 2:2; Eph. 6:12; 2 Tim. 2:4–7; Heb. 12:1–2). A Christian approach to sports as a participant or as a spectator involves being inspired to delight in the Creator through witnessing the honed physical gifts and agonizing determination of his image bearers who compete with excellence. Therefore, Christians should be challenged to offer similar purposeful discipline and sacrificial devotion in their vocations and endeavors.

How many Christians rigorously critique the job performance, dedication, and work ethic of the coach of their favorite team while simultaneously complaining about their jobs and excusing their own lack of work ethic and dedication? Such is a sad commentary on their lack of commitment to the priority of the kingdom of Christ in their daily lives. Where this kind of Christian hypocrisy is happening, the love of sports has become detached from the

Christian life and transformed into a barrier rather than a bridge to glorifying Christ. Christian fans should watch and enjoy the beauty, effort, and focus that the sporting contest brings out in its participants, and should be challenged to agonize in similar fashion for the glory of Christ in their own vocations (Col. 3:17).

Gift or Idol?

When I teach at conferences and seminars about a proper Christian engagement with sports, I usually begin by asking some questions. First, I ask people to raise their hands if they have ever served in the military. Then, I ask the attendees to raise their hands if they have ever made a living as a farmer. Finally, I ask those in attendance to raise their hands if they have ever competed in athletics and consistently watch sports. Every time I have done this, only a few people raise their hands in response to the first two questions, but almost every single hand in the room goes up for those who have competed in athletics and have consistently watched sports.

In 2 Timothy 2:1–7, Paul lists soldier, athlete, and farmer as the three key metaphors for the Christian life (also 1 Cor. 9:6–7, 24–27). Then Paul commands, “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Tim. 2:7). Paul says it is not enough to read these things, but we must set our minds on them and ponder them. The outcome of proper meditation on these metaphors will provide practical, apologetic, and evangelistic fruit for Christ’s followers. It would seem imperative for us that since most contemporary Christians

with whom we minister only have a personal point of contact with one of those metaphors, it would serve us well to have a biblically informed understanding of athletics and competition. Paul does not consider thinking through the relationship of sports to our Christian life a trivial matter. Rather, Paul counts it as an aspect of our spiritual battle.

The Christian church historically has struggled with its relationship to sports. This struggle is appropriate since we are called to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). Unthinking rejection or unthinking embrace of sports is a failure of Christian discipleship. I believe that the Christian with a rightly ordered, Christ-centered worldview is uniquely in a position to enjoy athletic competition as a good gift from God and his or her sports loyalties as a demonstration of providential rootedness in time, place, family, and community. Nevertheless, for one’ s view of sports to be rightly ordered, he or she must be aware of the danger of rendering it an idol rather than a gift. We can make an idol out of country, family, or allegiance to our favorite sports team. Nevertheless, the gospel does not obliterate these cultural realities. Rather, the gospel reinterprets all of them in light of the gospel story and our responsibility to seek first the kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33; 1 Cor. 2:2).