Spiritual Discipline-Sports and Exercise

In Jesus’ day, there were athletes. The Olympics started in Greece before Christ was born. Usually, their training was for the purpose of becoming better soldiers, but such events as chariot racing also occurred. In Rome spectator sports were offered to the general populace, including things more evil than what is permitted today. There is no record that Jesus gave any attention to these things, although Paul refers to them, using the athlete as a positive image for faithful Christian discipleship. (1 Corinthians 9:24, Galatians 5:7, Hebrews 12:2)

God created our bodies and designed them, in fact, to be much stronger and more efficient than they are now. But does the pursuit of strength or muscle-building purely for its own sake, or the use of many, many hours of time either practicing the sport or watching someone else do so make us better servants of God and humanity? There have been some sports heroes who did use their strength and fame to better the world. There have been some who dedicated their sport and their bodies to God. The film Chariots of Fire tells the story of a famous example of using sports as a witness to the world. So it doesn’t behoove us to make hard and fast rules in this as in any other cultural arena.

What did Jesus do? Jesus or any of His disciples, male or female, would have laughed if you’d invited them to join your sports club. Jesus walked the length and breadth of the Holy Land day after day. And so did his enemies, those priests and lawyers we think of as overfed and self-satisfied. His disciples fished by hand, kept house, hauled toddlers, walked miles, rowed boats, made everything they used from clothing to dishes to furniture, ground grain between stones, and thought nothing of following Jesus from Galilee to Judea and beyond the Jordan (Matt. 19:1) or hurrying on foot to a secluded place He’d gone by boat (Matt. 14:13). He walked back and forth from Bethany to Jerusalem daily during the last week of His life, and so did those with Him. If they heard our doctors advocate “at least a half hour of physical activity a day,” they would assume we were sick.

Questions to ask: Why am I devoted to this sport? What is my motivation? What am I accomplishing? Can I use my sport or exercise to build bridges between people and people, or people and God? Am I spending time I ought to spend on other things? Conversely, am I spending time in inactivity or sedentary pursuits that I could use strengthening my body and my health? What does it mean to love God will all my strength or might, as Deut. 6:5 enjoins?