Human strength, skill and courage are gifts from God that help people to carry out important work such as farming and building. However, God has also given these abilities for people to enjoy leisure activities such as music, craftwork and sport. God has given all things richly to enjoy (1 Tim. 6:17) and that includes sporting activities. But there are other benefits.
Playing sport can be an excellent way of maintaining health, especially in an age where many people have sedentary jobs. If we are healthy and fit, we are then more able to serve God and others. Because humans are designed to carry out physical work (Gen. 2:15), it is unhealthy for our bodies if we are too inactive.
Some sports also provide a good incentive to regularly get out into God’s creation. It can be very satisfying to explore the countryside at the same time as exercising and using sporting skills. Several sports are ideal for exploring creation, including running, cycling, horse riding and water sports. In recent years the infrastructure for running and cycling have greatly improved, giving many opportunities for enjoying God’s creation.
Sports also provide a means for children to improve skills and confidence as well as achieve a healthy physical development. Sports can teach children life lessons about teamwork, submitting to authority and coping with failure. And of course, sports provide many opportunities for enjoyable family activities.
The wonder of the human body
Sports demonstrate that humans are not a product of blind chance, but fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps.139:14). Sports also show the creativity of mankind in being able to invent such an incredible range of sporting activities. The sporting innovations of mankind reflect the fact that we are made in the image of a creative God.
Gymnastics is one of the best sports for demonstrating the extraordinary capabilities that God has designed into the human body. Even though many creatures can move gracefully, nothing matches the elegance of the human body in gymnastics. Gymnastics shows how the human body has great physical strength, flexibility, balance, agility, coordination, and mental strength.
Many sports show the incredible hand-eye coordination of the human body. God has given this ability to enable humans to be good at practical work like carpentry and needlework. But equally, God has given these gifts to allow people to enjoy music and sport. The split-second hand-eye co-ordination in sports like tennis, golf and cricket is astonishing at the professional level. A professional tennis player can intercept a ball travelling at over 100mph and return it with pin-point precision.
The dark side of sport
Like all of God’s gifts, sport can be corrupted and turned into something that can be unhelpful and even harmful. Some of the chanting at football matches can be good-humoured and harmless, but it can sometimes involve anger, mocking and crude language.
The sinful nature of human beings means we are quick to make idols out of sports. When you attend a top-level sporting event like a Premiership football match, you can often sense idolatry. As with Diana of the Ephesians, businessmen encourage idolatry knowing that their profits will increase (Acts 19:25). Wisdom is needed not just to choose which team to follow but also whose company to be with. The Psalmist David wrote that he did not want to sit with idolatrous people (Ps. 26:4) or sit in the seat of mockers (Ps. 1:1).
As well as idolising other people, it is also possible to idolise your own sporting performance and have sinful pride in your own achievements. On the one hand, it can be very helpful to have goals like getting 30 minutes of exercise per day. But on the other hand, some goals can be excessive and lead to pride or the unwise use of resources.
Other harmful aspects of professional sport include excessive wages, a huge betting industry and a takeover of the Lord’s Day. Sadly, Sunday is now seen by many as a day for focusing on sports rather than on God.
A godly attitude
A key principle that should be applied to sporting activities is to do all things for God’s glory (1 Cor. 10:31). When God is first in your life, then you will find that you get true pleasure from sport. When you seek God’s kingdom first, then you will find that sport does not become a snare or a source of temptation for you.
The Bible uses sport as an analogy for a spiritual race. Whereas running races have just one winner, every Christian will receive a crown of glory (1 Cor. 9:25). When you consider how much effort people put into getting sporting medals that will gradually decay, surely it is worth putting effort into seeking God, who can give an eternal crown.
Stuart Burgess has helped design Olympic bikes over the last ten years for Team GB.
Tabitha Carron has played rugby for Cambridge University.
