A number of years back I was an audio at a camp for young people. When the first group game time came, the leaders began by telling a parable predicated on Genesis 1-3. He described the joys of playing games in the Garden of Eden where the emphasis was simply on the joy of play. But one day the serpent entered the garden and tempted the Eden-dwellers with the idea of points. They gave into the temptation and began keeping score in their games and this resulted in all sorts of evils - competition, lust for winning, cheating, anger, and fights. They lost the simple joy of play.
The first choice told this parable to allow the young people know that week at the camp they'd be introduced to non-competitive games. There have been no points, no winners or losers, just the joy of play. But there clearly was one serious problem - the games were totally and completely boring. Day after day fewer and fewer of the young people turned up for the overall game time so at the last one there were only a number of young people there.
Is this an exact portrayal of a theology of sports? Obviously, I don't think so. I'd like to present a short and broad theology of sports. In the event that you don't that way title you are able to think of it as, "Why we should watch the Super Bowl!"
History may be summed up in three words: creation, fall, and redemption. So when you are considering the theology of a concern you will need to ask: What is its relation to or reflection of creation, of the fall, of redemption? In considering the issue of sports, I have added two further words to expand our consideration - incarnation and salvation (both of which are, needless to say, linked with creation, fall, and redemption).
Creation - 메이저놀이터 could have created everything to be gray and serviceable. Rather, He created a great diversity of color, size, shape, smell, texture, sounds, and tastes. Why did He do this? He made it happen so that the creation will be a reflection of His person and, specifically, His beauty. It is just a masterpiece of function and form. The creation is just a work of art.
Art is sometimes looked at as consisting of two types: visual art - like painting, sculpture, architecture, and, performing art - like drama, music, and dancing. The Lord included both visual and performing art in the creation. Visual Art: flowers, mountains, trees; Performing Art: oceans and rivers, planetary orbits, clouds. Some things in creation combine the two.
Sports really are a reflection of this creative activity of the Lord. In addition they combine visual art (painted fields/courts, team colors, and logos) and performing arts (the actual play). Sports reflect the function and kind of creation. There is beauty in a play that's run to perfection, in a well-thrown ball, in a diving catch, in turning a double play. Those things brings excitement and happiness because they're a reflection of what sort of world was designed to be. They are a show of art (or artistry, in the event that you prefer).
The Lord also created things in a certain order, not in a haphazard way, and He placed within the creation laws or rules by which nature operates. Sports also have an order to them and have rules by which they operate. Just like you can find consequences for rebelling against the created order (such as disregarding gravity), so are there consequences for not following the principles in sports. Sports reflect the type and principles of the creation. As in nature, this reflection, when done well, honors the Lord and provides the fan joy.
Fall - In the fall, man rebelled by sin, and the curse which resulted from that fall touches every part of everything - there is nothing that escapes. Which means that we'd expect to see evidence of the fall in sports and, needless to say, we do. There are sins of attitude in addition to sins of action.
The deadliest of those sins may be the idolatry of sports - when it holds the greatest invest the affection of the heart and in the considering the mind. When life is planned around when games are played or when a person's entire outlook is impacted by whether his team wins or loses, he's crossed the line into an unhealthy and sinful obsession.
Additionally, there are other wrong attitudes - when winning becomes the thing that matters when a person is going to do whatever it will take to be successful when personal glory becomes the end-all when people become arrogant or angry. They are all sins of the fall. The fall is reflected in sports by actions such as for instance the usage of steroids, fixing games, corking bats, bench-emptying brawls, and a bunch of other things.
Incarnation - We're embodied beings and the incarnation validates that our anatomical bodies tend to be more than merely containers for the souls. Even our eternal state will include bodies - glorified bodies but bodies nevertheless. The Christian life isn't about condemning your body but bringing it into subjection to honor the Lord.
Sports are among the things that help us to accomplish that. Playing a sport requires discipline and the disciplining of your body for sports can carry over into our spiritual lives. Sports require determination, delayed gratification, and a toughening-up of the body. Sports can also teach just how to make use of a team, just how to submit to authority, just how to encourage those not as naturally gifted as others, and how to hit hard. And they teach patience. Even time on the bench may be sanctifying.