Does society and even Christians make sports an idol

[Guest K9Buck]

I am guilty as charged. 

Somehow, I doubt that there are sports teams in Heaven.

[Neighbor]

6 hours ago, Margo1945 said:

personally, I think too much emphasis is put on sports and its "fantastic" players when some have found medical cures or have done something else outstanding .. I think many do make sports and some of its players idols or very close to being such .. I, also, think people would be better off instead of being couch potatoes and get out and play some sport yourselves and do so honestly

 

 Hi, Well the comparison is interesting,  however there is also those that think "big" pharmaceuticals or "big" medical gets too much money.

And that big banks make too much, or that big stockbrokerage firms are bad or....

Personally I think that a worker is worth their wage. If a worker ( player of a sport) brings in the advertisers that want to reach me I think it just fine that they get a piece of the pie, some do get  a really big piece and that is okay with me. I do not want to hold down the income of another so that mine does not look so small by comparison. Now, do I wish my own father's medical inventions paid off  even more handsomely by comparison to a major league baseball pitcher? Sure. But hey a new jaw or eye socket made of titanium just doesn't have the pizzazz to advertisers of soap beer and cars that a 18 game winning baseball pitcher does. Just a fact. I am happy with my lot in life, and that someone with a better deeper pocket buys first row season seats, doesn't use them then discounts them on the internet and I get to buy them relatively cheaply  if I pay attention to the offerings.  

I do not want anyone to be held back from getting what the market will bear for their perceived worth  to another. What business is it of mine what another secures from their "master". Do I idolize anyone? No! I enjoy life though, for God is good. God has always provided the perfect need for me, even when I didn't especially appreciate the lesson to be learned at the time in my poverty, nor in my wealth. Hard come easy go is not a motto, but has been a fact for me. Praise God for the opportunities before me even today.  

Maybe I'll get out the sticks and play a round of golf, see if I am any better today than I have been all my life. Well maybe not-

Take care,  play the game and double down on the certainty that is our Lord and savior Jesus, for the best  most fun game of all is played for sharing of the gospel of Jesus the eternal life with God. It is a very serious game requiring much skill and much practice and has wondrous reward to the heart, mind, spirit and soul. Some are gifted greatly in it, others not so much.

Playing through, thanks.

[Neighbor]

42 minutes ago, K9Buck said:

I am guilty as charged. 

Somehow, I doubt that there are sports teams in Heaven.

Sure there is! Why I even once painted a mural of heaven that showed a "Street Of Gold" leading to  the county club even had a 19th hole. Church kids loved it, the teachers kept it for future use in a play.

Little sidetrack: They loved the humor of a seal  blowing a shofar along with the other trumpeters lined up in pageantry at the gate to heavens abodes. that I had painted in the smaller details. It was part of a the narrow path vs the wide road skit the kids were doing. Thing was  two panels each 10 foot tall and 8 wide. I was supposed to make it 8' tall by 10' wide. Made it hard to get on stage through the trap doors . So little did I know at the time.

I had risked putting in small details in what should have been  simply a stage back drop imagery.  I Put in the 19th hole and the seal blowing on a shofar, well just because that  is me. I get a kick out of silly things. No one took offense even. Why generally most anything  causes someone to take offense. And the kids they had a grand time learning of the principles of keeping to the pathway, with some positive motivations  and not all do not do's.

There was a separate panel with the attractions of darkness, for which I painted a carnival at night scene to represent the calls to stray. What I put in there, oh my, just subtle stuff; but it made for an interesting representation of the call to the dark side. The teachers would not let me paint over it at the end of the play so that it could be used to paint yet another stage back drop latter. They took it to their Sunday class room and used them as lesson boards. Seal and 19th hole and carnival booths and all.

Perhaps conservative evangelism  presentation got rocked a tiny bit there by it,  but I was pleased that anyone wanted to keep  stage backdrop panels to use in their classes.

Sports at heaven? Gee I hope so. I hope Heaven is not a bore for eternity. I'd kinda like to hear Paul give some more sports analogies even. Or more fully explain his only one wins the race so run it as to win, and finish well.  I'd like to ask, aren't there many winners in this race? Did I miss your fuller intent in the analogy?

[Neighbor]

9 minutes ago, Betha said:

It is not only Sport that 'christians' idolise especially on God's Holy Day.....but anything and everything has priority with them on the Sabbath but GOD ! AND THEY HAVE SET IT SO ! They have moved the basic foundational Cornerstone planted by God at Creation Gen 2v3 and then wonder what is wrong ! It is more than 'sickening...it is spiritually criminal. 

And the Lord will have to come 'as a Lion, with a sharp two-edged sword to smite/correct all nations Rev 19.

Another happy Christian speaks?

Woe, woe ,woe! No joy, no joy, stop with the joy, there is no joy in Christianity stop with the joy.

 

Me,- I always loved spring training when the Phillies came and stayed at the hotel. And the big time major leaguers would come and visit and encourage some of the up and coming AAA guys. and a few Christians among the minor leaguers would gather in the lobby to read and fellowship away from the young wilder guys acting up in their rooms sneaking in company.  It was a fun part of life. And when Dallas Green won the world series (1980) he came and stayed six weeks to just rest quietly. He was so exhausted. He was a very humble and nice man.

Sports figures are real people, with real cares, real wants, and real needs. Some know the Lord Jesus just like many others that do not  make a living at sports. They all have the same need as the rest of us. Many of thenm are bold servants of Christ Jesus.Many do all that they do to the glory of God. They  are very dedicated to that personal goal.

[Amigo42]

18 hours ago, ReneeIW said:

 I was tickled by what you said about ESPN. You should hear sports radio.

I credit sports with keeping me out of trouble. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and was addicted to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. While other college kids were out partying, I was bonding with my brothers and watching sports and staying up all night watching ESPN. A male in my family said football helped him break his addiction from pornography, he needed to focus that energy somewhere else.

Aren’t there games or bloodsports mentioned in the Bible? I think if sports is a healthy way to bond with people and to have a healthy habit, it’s great. When you want to kill the members of the team that beat your team, then it’s an idol. 

That's great that sports helped you while in Chicago.  I'm sure it is a blessing to a lot of people.  I just see so many people make idols of sports, and really when we think about it, people are paying homage to their idols when they wear sports jerseys, etc.  I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wearing jerseys, I just think some people place too much energies into those things.

[johnthebaptist]

19 hours ago, Amigo42 said:

What do you guys think?  Especially at this time of year and even beyond it seems like Americans focus and talk so much about sports.  It's almost sickening to hear these analysts on ESPN talk about sports like they're dissecting a lung or something.  I mean it just SPORTS!!!  Contrary to common thinking, it ain't life.  Sorry, I just get so tired of people putting so much energies into these stupid stuff of this life.

We need to keep ourselves entertained, I believe. Sports seems to me to be a harmless way to do that.

[Blood Bought 1953]

Well, it used to be considered great entertainment and sport to feed Christian woman and children to lions.Thanks be to God, those days are gone for the most part ( ISIS would have no problem bringing back those times) I enjoy sports, but like anything else - “ all things in moderation”.One can turn Anything into a God......the worshipping of Sports is just a little more visible ... 

[Neighbor]

9 hours ago, Margo1945 said:

I am not thinking so much of the money but more of the acclaim a sports' person gets for pushing a puck or throwing a ball or the like as compared to life-saving things done since as finding cures for some cancers, finding ways to more economically make drugs needed for some peoples' cancer and other medical treatments so as to make them easier to access, finding ways to eliminate illegal and illicit drug use, finding ways to resolve some world issues such as poverty and all its consequences, and many many many more things .. my mother used to say it was great that hockey players spent Saturdays signing autographs for kids .. yeah, right, they were there to have the kids worship and adore them and they got paid enough to give back to the public .. anyway, I still maintain that sports should stop getting all the acclaim they do and that said acclaim should go to those who make a REAL difference and that it would be better for couch potatoes to get out in the neighbourhood and play ball just for fun - not for money and not to win win win at all costs .. the focus on sports has always been disproportionate to what sports offer .. they offer NOTHING that compares with REAL LIFE CHANGING OFFERS .. and just as an aside, what about all the wrongful drug use in sports, the violence in all the fights, the sexual immorality, the  abusive treatment by coaches and others, .. are these part of "GOOD CLEAN SPORTS" .. I don't think so

anyway, I have had my RANT .. lol .. 

Hi,  Yes the extreme in compensation can ruin a game by motivating cheaters to cheat. It is severely hurting baseball right now with the sign stealing scandal.  But that is part of life lessons too. some careers have evidently been made by the cheating some championships won. That means others have lost out  until now to cheaters. To fans of a sport that is sad. Doesn't amount ot a worship idolizing of anything, just it is a fraud perpetrated. And that is a shame. It is not a matter of worshipping idols.

As to the great medical advances or inventors, they get a reward too, in satisfaction of giving a blown up Vietnam vet a new face. I Siamese twin a chance to live not joined at the head with their twin, as well as a horribly injured traffic crash victim getting new eye sockets, skull, cheeks, and lower jaw, plus every severe bone break sufferer a way to repair it that  did not exist before.

It may take that 19 years of fighting for full federal government approval. It may take 40 test operations on,  yes animals. It make take six full years of training of future surgeons at the major medical schools,  plus the staffing  at the six major trauma centers in the USA. It may also take so much capital investment that only a  team of  two so fully dedicated to the goal will invest the hours per day the capital to keep  it up through the process, the building of factory facilities and  more training centers. 

There probably isn't enough money  to motivate  anyway. It is a love, a determination that is in some individuals. And ya know, it probably is much the same with just throwing the world's best curve ball. It is simply not all that many get to know about titanium mesh jaws. Thankfully for most that is so.

One cannot decide for another what is fair compensation, the market place does that. Fair? Sure, fair enough, unless one is only motivated by money coming to themself, and then there is no fair, there is never enough. 

[Neighbor]

2 hours ago, Margo1945 said:

some claim to be TRUE CHRISTIANS

 I suggest that many are  some are bold, some are not so bold instead they do glorify Christ without bringing attention to themself first. As example the wonderful amount of time so many  spend at Children's Hospital visiting the kids there.

There are of course the Tim Tebo's and the Ben Zobrist's  that come to be known by many and are so busy and open in their sharing  of our Lord that their names come easily to mind in a refute of the idea that  sports figures are self absorbed individuals. They are simply very talented and driven to do all that they do  in the best manner possible to the glory  of God. They work harder than almost all of the greater populous is willing to to do. They have worked hard for years and years at it.

Seems to me they do not deserve condemnation by others, but instead some respect and even admiration. Their drive would be fine for most anyone to emulate. I especially appreciate  Scott Hamilton, and recommend His books  one "Finish First winning changes everything" is a terrific motivational book that shares of God, our Lord  providing encouragement to excel more than all the rest in whatever one does including and especially in worship of our Lord and savior. I have shared his book with my own grandchild.