Referees are rarely out of the sports news.
They certainly garnered plenty of attention during the football World Cup. With the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system making its competitive debut, there was even more opportunity to scrutinise officials’ decisions.
Red card?
For example, England fans felt Colombia’s Wilmar Barrios should have been red-carded for his headbutt on Jordan Henderson in their second-round match. But referee Mark Geiger opted for just a yellow card and chose not to watch the footage at pitchside himself. Throughout the match, Geiger was repeatedly surrounded by Colombian, and often England, players protesting the decisions he made. Such scenes are sadly all too common in modern football.
Respect
But what does the Bible say about referees – and officials in general? Most Christians have a sense that they should at least respect the referee, even if they find it hard not to join in the dissent. But what about ‘playing the referee’? Aren’t professional fouls and sneaky play just part of being ‘savvy’?
Let’s start with our attitude to referees. Jesus said: ‘Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Luke 6.45, NIV). So if we get frustrated with the referee we need to look at our hearts. It’s easy to react without thinking on the sports field, especially when a decision goes against us. It is hard to do in practice, but we need to think first before we consider criticising the referee or umpire. Indeed, how we respond to authorities, on the sports field and elsewhere, can be a significant witness to those who don’t yet know Jesus.
Submitting to authority
In 1 Peter 2.12-16 Christians are urged to live ‘good lives’ that cause people to glorify God – that is our goal. Part of this is submitting to ‘every human authority’ and for Peter’s original readers this included the emperor Nero.
Roman authorities under Nero were pretty scathing of this small Galilean cult (as they saw it) and Jews and Christians alike were shocked at the emperor’s extravagance and immorality. So to call Christians to respect and submit to such a person would have been massively counterintuitive.
This is not to compare referees to an immoral Roman emperor, but it is to make the point that if Christians were called to submit to the authority of such a person, then surely we should gladly submit to referees who, with a few very rare exceptions, are people trying to do their best for the good of the sport.
Manipulating the ref?
What about ‘playing the ref ’? If we mean responding to their calls in the game then that is fine, but if we mean trying to manipulate the referee to get him or her to favour you in some way, or getting away unnoticed with as much prohibited behaviour as you can, then this clearly isn’t ‘submitting’.
Our attitude to the referee and umpires as well as our actions should be clearly different. We should not be trying to get away with as much as we can without getting caught – this is hardly distinctive or God-glorifying. Instead, we should act in a way that affirms their authority and promotes the good of the game.
That will mean things like not rushing to criticise the referee in the changing room after the match, praising him or her when they officiate well and encouraging your teammates to do the same. After all (apart from ultimate frisbee), if there’s no referee then there’s no game!
