Sports and Competitions 10-6

NUMBER TEN - CAIN AND ABEL COMPETE TO PLEASE GOD (GENESIS4:1-15)

The brothers Cain and Abel both brought sacrifices before God, but Abel's sacrifice was better than Cain's and God let them both know it. Cain didn't like being beat, so he removed the competition by killing his brother.

NUMBER NINE - GOD AND SATAN COMPETE FOR BRAGGING RIGHTS (JOB 1-2)

In the Book of Job, Satan and God challenge each other to a contest - a bet. Satan thinks that Job is too good to be true and given enough suffering, his evil side will come out. God does not agree so the bet is on.

Job was given a crud load of suffering and loss without knowing why things were going so poorly.

As Job's friends gathered around, they shared their world's best counseling methods, utilizing the best wisdom and the greatest self-help available which pretty much came down to "God is fair, turn to Him and you will prosper again." But Job didn't like their advice and said it was cheap, which got his well meaning friends upset, so they accused Job of being a terrible person who deserved what he got.

Job became suicidal, told his friends they were jerks, that the suffering was not fair, and that human reason, self-help therapy, and tradition was fundamentally wrong and useless in his face of such suffering.

At the end of his competition, God restored everything to Job and let his friends know that they were jerks; but no more was said of Satan and God's competition.

NUMBER EIGHT - DAVID AND GOLIATH

As the king of Israel, King Saul was the best qualified, the most armed, and the tallest man in all of Israel, so when this monstrous man called Goliath challenged anyone in Israel to a cage match, he was hoping the king of Israel would take up the challenge. Instead the tallest man in Israel sent a young man who had very little training in the cage.

The battle began with trash talk and then should have moved on to hand to hand combat. Swords, clubs, shields, and daggers were the usual weapons of choice, however, David brought only a sling and a few stones.

Of course we all know the story - David hit the giant in the head with a stone, and knocked him off his feet. Before Goliath could regain his senses, David grabbed the giant's sword and with several whacks cut off his head, lifted it high for both sides to see that he won the contest.

NUMBER SEVEN - ELIJAH CHALLENGES 450 PROPHETS OF BAAL TO A TEST BY FIRE

As today's world is getting more and more diverse, people are getting used to having different religions around. In Elijah's day, in his world, there were pretty much just two religions focusing on two different Gods. Baal and Yahweh.

Elijah, who worshiped Yahweh challenged 450 priests of Baal to a competition. Both sides were to build altars, place offerings on those altars and call on their gods to consume those offerings. As in the match with David and Goliath, there was trash talk involved, and as in David's match, the loser or losers were going to die.

The priests of Baal cut themselves and danced in a frenzy, but nothing happened. However, when Elijah prayed, God answered by consuming his offering with a fire.

NUMBER SIX - SATAN CHALLENGES JESUS TO A DEMONSTRATION OF HIS POWER

After Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, God led him into the desert to be tempted and tested by the devil. When he was being tempted, the devil gave him three tests.

-Jesus was challenged to use his powers to satisfy his own needs by turning a rock into bread.
-Jesus was challenged to claim God's Word, throw himself off a tall building, and prove that God would protect him as the Bible promised.
 -Finally, Jesus was tempted to avoid suffering and death by taking the road to fame, wealth, and power. 

In all three trials, Jesus denied his own feelings and desires and trusted God to meet his needs.

THE TOP FIVE CRYBABIES IN THE BIBLE

NUMBER FIVE - JONAH HAS A PITY PARTY (JONAH 4:3)

"Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."

Jonah is one of the few prophets in Israel who was successful. Most of the other prophets throughout the history of the nation failed to keep back God's wrath. The problem for Jonah was that he didn't want to be successful. He wanted to fail, so he tried to run away from God's presence, was thrown into the sea, swallowed up and puked out by some fish, and went to Ninevah to tell them that God was going to destroy the place in 40 days - which was what Jonah hoped God would do.

Jonah knew that if Ninevah, which was the most vile of all cities, was warned they might change their ways, turn to God and escape disaster. He preferred the vile city to be destroyed. As he feared, after preaching the people turned away from their sins, fasted and prayed, and God spared them. So Jonah went up on a hill overlooking the city and pouted, stubbornly waiting for God's promise to destroy the city even though he knew he would be waiting in vain, for as he feared and as he expected, God turned back on His promise to destroy Ninevah.

NUMBER FOUR - HEZEKIAH GRIEVES HIS OWN DEATH (ISAIAH 38:5)

"Go tell Hezekiah, 'This is what the LORD, The God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.'"

King Hezekiah got very sick and when the prophet Isaiah came into the presence of King, the prophet told the king to get things in order, for he was going to die. The prophet left the room and the King wept, pouring out his heart to God.

Before the prophet could leave the building, God gave Isaiah a new message; so the prophet turned back and told the king he was going to live another 15 years.

NUMBER THREE - JEREMIAH HAS NO FRIENDS (ISAIAH 9:1)

O that my head were a spring of water 
and my eyes a fountain of tears!
I would weep day and night 
for the slain of my people.

Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. He certainly had a passion to see his nation prosper, but he knew that his country was on its way out. He prayed to God for its deliverance, but God told him to stop praying 3 times. He argued with God for the nation's survival, but God's decision was firm. He warned the people, hoping to see them change the outcome of what was to come, but they rejected his advice.

Jeremiah's passion and message separated him from others. While they partied and had great times; he spoke of doom. While they married and invited others to celebrate, he was left uninvited. No one liked him, and that rejection took its toll. He remained single although he wanted to marry and have children. He was an outcast in a nation that threw away their most important person. He was thrown in prison and hated.

Jeremiah was a failure to all who knew him and he was unable to get his people to save themselves from disaster. In every way, he seemed to be a failure. but he was one of the greatest prophets who ever lived.

I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation (Jeremiah 15:17). 

NUMBER TWO - ELIJAH RUNS AWAY (1 KINGS 19:4)

Elijah sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, LORD,: he said. "Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died."

Elijah was one of them most powerful prophets ever to live. He was a miracle worker able to create a famine that lasted 3.5 years. He was also able to call down rain to end the famine. In one of the Bible's biggest contest, Elijah challenged hundreds of prophets for another god to a contest. If either of them could call fire down from heaven, theirs would be the true God. Elijah won the day, slaughtered all the other prophets and celebrated victory.

Unfortunately, his victory was short lived. The Queen demanded Elijah's death in return for her many prophets, so Elijah ran away into the wilderness an sought to end his life.

In the wilderness, God let him know that he was not all alone and that their would be a better future to come.

NUMBER ONE - JOB WANTS TO DIE (JOB 3:3)

May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, "A boy is conceived!"

Job was the victim of a contest between God and Satan. Satan was sure that under the right circumstances he could get Job to turn against God and he convinced God to a challenge. God accepted the challenge with certain limitations. So Satan took everything and everyone away from Job, leaving him in extreme pain.

Job reacted with heartfelt, pain filled desire to have never been born.

CONCLUSIONS (PSALM 30:5)

Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

Depression, suicidal thoughts, deep sadness, and crying out to God were common with our Bible heroes. Most of them pouted and cried because like all of us, there were times when things did not go their way, but in then end, things turned out okay. In fact, weeping sometimes got a hold of god's attention.

Top Five Competitions/Sports/Games in the Bible

FIVE COMPETITIONS AND SPORTS MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE

NUMBER 5 - ROMAN SOLDIERS CAST LOTS FOR A GAME OF CASTING LOTS (John 19:24)

Before the dice was invented there were lots.  Lots were sticks , cards, coins, knuckle bones from sheep, pottery, stones or other devices - each crudely designed with letters and symbols.  Priests, leaders, and common folk cast lots to determine God's will in decision making with such things as choosing a king (1 Samuel 10-20-24), replacing Judas (Acts1:26), dividing land (Numbers 26:52-56), and ending strife (Proverbs 18:18).

When Jesus was hanging on a cross, the soldiers who put him on the wooden bars divided his clothes among themselves.  But there was one piece of clothing Jesus had that was special, so they cast lots to decide who got to keep it.

NUMBER 4 - SAMSON LOSES IN A GAME OF RIDDLES (Judges 14:14)

Creating and solving riddles was a very competitive game in the ancient world.  In a world where poems and music were the centers of many competitions (eventually included in the Olympics), there was one riddler who stands out in the Bible as one of the best.

Samson challenged 30 Philistines to a contest of riddles.  After both sides agreed to the rules and awards, Samson presented the riddle:
"Out of the eater, something to eat;
Out of the strong, something sweet."

The Philistines had seven days to solve the riddle and whoever lost would have to provide 30 expensive garments to the winner.

The solution to the riddle was based on Samson's own experience.  Samson had found honey from a beehive that was built inside a lion's corpse. So the solution to the riddle was:
"What is sweeter than honey?"
"What is stronger than a lion?"

The Philistines couldn't think of an answer, so they turned to Samson's fiance who was also a Philistine and they threatened her. Samson's girlfriend harassed harassed him over and over until he broke down and Samson gave her the answer - of course he told her not to tell anyone - but she told one of the Philistines; and when the seven days were up, the 30 Philistines provided the right answer to Samson who lost the contest.  To get the 30 garments, Samson killed 30 other Philistines and took their clothes.

NUMBER 3 - NEW TESTAMENT WRITERS USE GREEK COMPETITIONS AS ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH (HEBREWS 12:1-2)

The Olympic styled games were considered taboo by many Jews because of the violence, the nudity of those competing, and most of all because they came from the Roman/Greek world.  Nevertheless at least 2 of the New Testament writers knew quite a bit about the games and used them as illustrations in their writings. It is very possible that Paul and the writer of Hebrews attended one or more of the games.

Hebrews 12:1-2 compares the Christian walk to running in a foot race.  The crowd of onlookers are compared to those men and women of faith who lived and died in the past.  Removing sin that slows down the Christian walk is illustrated by weights used for training that must be removed for the real competition.  The mental focus needed to run was compared to the Christian life of keeping one's focus on Jesus.

The Apostle Paul often used illustrations of boxing and running in his writings, illustrating the importance of discipline, following the rules (Galatians 2:2, 2 Timothy 2:5), striving to be the best Christian possible (Philippians 3:13-15), the importance of training, self control, and reaching for a prize that is better than the honor of receiving a wreath made from an olive branch (1 Corinthians 9:25-27).

NUMBER 2 - ESTHER WINS A BEAUTY CONTEST (ESTHER 2:1-17)

Today's beauty contests are highly competitive venues focusing on talent, intelligence, and beauty. Winners of these contests move on to other contests, win cash prizes, local or national recognition, college tuition, and a host of other awards.

2,500 years ago a powerful Middle Eastern king held his own beauty contest bringing in the most beautiful women from all over the world.

These women spent one year being pampered and covered in oil and spices to prepare them for one special night each woman could spend the night having sex with the king who was the one and only judge. Night after night the king took one of the contestants into his chambers and had sex with her to see if she would win the contest. If he liked her, the king would bring her a second or third time in his chambers,.  When the king was content after having sex with all the girls, he made the decision and the winner became the queen.

Among the contestants was a young woman named "Esther," who was a Jew. She was simple, humble, and incredibly good looking.  She won the contest and became the queen.

As a queen she lived well off in the palace, able to respond to every wish the king desired; and if she wanted to see her husband, she was able to take her life into her own hands and request to see him. If her husband was in a good mood (which was not easy to predict), if the king was in a good mood, he wouldn't behead the queen for troubling him.

NUMBER 1 - WAR GAMES - FRIENDLY COMPETITION GOES BAD (2 Samuel 2:12-17)

Just after King Saul's death, two Israeli generals (Abner and Joab) and their armies met face to face and agreed to a contest.  Each group brought 12 men to the contest with no prize in mind, the contest was simply for entertainment - the 24 men were there simply to entertain the troupes and the generals.

As soon as the game began, both sides could easily see that the soldiers were trained in the same school; for each man on both sides grabbed his opponent by the head and speared the other with his sword.  In seconds the game was finished with a tie.  All 24 competitors lay on the ground dead.  Seeing this, the fans went wild and turned on each other. Total chaos followed with fans on both sides slaughtering opposing fans. In the end it looked like a European football (socker) game.

CONCLUSION

These are the top five sports I see as mentioned in the bible.  Do you see something else?

Three Embarassing Bible Verses about Sexual Parts of the Body

NUMBER THREE - EZEKIEL 23:20

There she lusted after hers lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Although this verse seems to be about some prostitute lusting some guy's balls, in reality, the prostitute is a metaphor for God's people who lusted after the sexual organs of other gods.The metaphor is extremely graphic - suggesting that a large penis with lots of sperm was very attractive to women of ill repute in the ancient world.

Today this kind of talk is limited to some work places, groups of friends, some television and many movies.Talking about private parts is not acceptable in Western churches, bible studies, or in public or political discourse.

I have been to hundreds of churches in dozens of cities and four countries. I have heard thousands of sermons in my lifetime., but only one that spoke directly to or about the penis. When I lived in the Congo I heard an African preacher give a message about the consequences of alcohol reminding the congregation that alcohol gets people into fights - and fights can get some poor drunk kicked in the balls - and getting kicked in the nuts gets the gonads to swell up.

People in the ancient world as well as in the Congo see the penis and its functions as just another part of the body. Although we would never preach about a man's penis, the ancients had no problem with the subject.

NUMBER TWO - SONG OF SONGS 7:7-8

Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. I said, "I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit." 

The Song of Songs made it into the Bible because it was believed to be a metaphor for our love of God. However, any close reading of the book clearly shows it is about the erotic love between a man and a woman. Because this is so obvious, many Christians today see that the Song of Songs is a set of poems about a young married couple. But even that is an attempt to tame the book down to modern and Western religious values. If Song of Songs is a series of poems, while some of those poems suggest a young married couple, others are obviously about an unmarried couple.

In the verse above, a young man writes about the pleasures of feeling up his girlfriend.

Anyway we look at it, the Song of Songs celebrates the early onset of romance between a man and a woman. Even as movies and books of today focus so much erotic pleasure in falling in love, the Bible shows us that the early stages of romance and falling in love are a gift from God.

NUMBER ONE - GALATIANS 5:12

I wish those who are disturbing you might also get themselves castrated!

Circumcision was a procedure whereby the foreskin of a man's penis was removed by a Rabbi usually when a child was 8 days old. Paul was wishing that his opponents would be castrated / cut off / removed from the people they they preached to.

As the Apostle Paul created one church after another around the Mediterranean Sea, Jewish scholars of his day who were already Christian went behind him trying to help new Gentile Christians to get in touch with God's covenant that He made with Moses in the desert. These Jewish Christian theologians, who were called Judaisers,were convinced that the new Gentile Christians needed to be circumcised because circumcision was the sign that one belonged to God, circumcision was a commandment by God, and circumcision was the human response to God's covenant that He made with His people.

Paul did not think Gentiles needed to be circumcised, so he argued against the Judaisers writing a letter to his churches telling them to avoid them. Toward the end of his letter, his frustration with the Judaisers became very clear when he briefly utilized a pun suggesting that those who want you to cut off the tip should go ahead and cut off their own entire penis. This pun is also a metaphor - "I wish they would just go ahead and cut themselves off entirely."

CONCLUSION

Different cultures deal with the human body in different ways.  We don't like talking about the private parts in our culture and in our time. In their world, it was acceptable.

Three Bible Scandals

There never seems to be a lack of scandals lately. Christian celebrities, Hollywood actors, musicians, politicians, clergy and average people get exposed to a world of different scandals.

Because the Bible was written about real people in the context of real communities, it has its share of scandals  The following is a list of the top three Bible scandals.

NUMBER 4 - UNKNOWN ADULTERER IN THE BOOK OF PROVERBS (PROVERBS 7)

Proverbs 7 tells the story of a religious woman who faithfully served to God in her church.  She faithfully fulfilled certain promises to God and brought food into the temple for a loving sacrifice to her God.  There was food left over from her temple worship so she took the food home and invited her boyfriend over for a snack.  The problem with this romance was that she was married.

Seduction works both ways.  A man can seduce a woman just as much as a woman can seduce a man. In this case it is the woman who seduces the man.  Either way, no one gets seduced who doesn't want to be seduced.

The young woman promised that no one would know about their affair because her husband was gone, but at least one person watched them through his window.  He saw the young man and the married woman in plain daylight for the whole city to watch.  It seemed like the perfect picture of eroticism, with both the man and woman  pushing boundaries and moving in closer to each other, focused so much on their attraction for each other that they didn't notice that they were being watched, neither did it occur to them that they were nowhere secret as they thought.

As he watched from the window the writer (who had been around for a while) knew that this picture of romance was more like the picture of cattle unknowingly going into the place of slaughter.  The lovers were like 2 mice lured into mouse traps loaded with cheese - the taste of food was good, but the snap of the trap was deadly.

Proverbs 7 ends the story with a poetic warning to his readers: 

Adultery is a highway to the grave,

Leading down to the chambers of death. 

So these are my top five scandals in the Bible.  What do you think?  Are there scandals you think are more scandalous than these in the bible?

NUMBER THREE - FATHERS AND SONS HAVE SEX WITH THE SAME TEMPLE PROSTITUTES  LYING ON TOP OF GARMENTS TAKEN BY PLEDGE (AMOS 2:7)

The prophet Amos was appalled at the behavior of people around him.  He saw creditors take all that was valuable from those who could not pay their bills. And the most valuable possessions one had in those days besides their houses and their families, were the few clothes they had - especially their cloaks because those cloaks not only kept them warm during the day, cloaks also served as blankets protecting them at night.

The creditors were business men who had so much money that they could lend to those who struggled day by day to pay their bills.

Today if you don't pay your bills, your car or house will be taken by the banks; in those days your cloaks were taken first, then your children were taken away, and finally you and your spouse would be taken and sold into slavery.

Amos wrote about certain wealthy creditors who took their sons into buildings designed to worship other gods. There were prostitutes in those places - both men and women - who helped people to experience unity with the gods of nature.

These same creditors had cloaks from those who owed money and brought those cloaks with them to worship. They carefully placed these cloaks on the ground and took turns with their sons having sex with the same temple prostitutes.

While the higher class of society accepted this picture as normal, Amos spoke for God and he spoke for the poorer classes, calling it scandalous. 

NUMBER TWO - AMNON RAPES HIS STEP-SISTER (2 SAMUEL 13)

There were a lot of people who lived in David's castle.  There were cooks, servants, body guards, workers, many of King David's wives, and David's children of all ages.  Amnon was David's oldest son and out of all the people in the castle, Amnon  liked Tamar the most; in fact, he had a crush on her. Unfortunately for him, Tamar was his sister.  Well actually she was a half sister, because Amnon's dad had several wives.

Night and day Amnon thought about Tamar. He grew so obsessed with her that he couldn't eat until one day his friend gave him an idea.

On his friend's advice, Amnon pretended to be sick and asked his dad to send Tamar into his room to feed him.  Amnon's dad thought it was an odd request but agreed, so Tamar went into his bedroom, and while she prepared the meal, Amnon grabbed her, pulled her into bed with him, and raped her.  Then a strange thing happened.  Upon completion of his conquest, Amnon's obsession with Tamar turned into hatred and he demanded Tamar to leave his room.

Amnon destroyed Tamar's life.  No man would ever marry her knowing she had been raped by her brother.  She plead with Amnon to take her as one of his wives. She said this not because she loved him, but because it was the only shameless life available to her - in her culture - after being raped.  Even the Law of Moses said that if a man raped a woman, by law he should offer to marry her.  But Amnon wanted nothing more to do with Tamar.

With her life ruined, her closest brother (who had the same mom and dad) one of Amnon's younger brothers killed Absolom for raping his sister.

NUMBER ONE - DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (2 SAMUEL 11 & 12)

President Clinton told the world that he "did not have sex with that woman" as he messed up some young White House aide's dress. And for that people wanted him out of the White House.  Ironically, many of those same people hold King David, who in his day did far worse, as a hero of their faith.

David faced two big scandals in his life.  He narrowly escaped the first scandal, but fell head and heals into the second one.  Both scandals involved a woman and both scandals ended up with David marrying another man's wife. But before we get into all that, it is informative to get a closer look into what kind of man David was.

When he was young, King Saul was made king.  Saul was the tallest man in Israel with the most weapons - so when this huge warrior from the Philistines challenged Israel to a cage match - one on one - everyone on both sides looked to Saul for the match; but Saul knew he had no chance in the ring with Goliath, so he did what many leaders would do, he offered a deal to anyone who could survive in the cage with Goliath - the prize? Saul's daughter in marriage and no taxes to the family of anyone who would fight and kill Goliath.

David who was a young man, good looking, and with red hair took the challenge, went into the cage with Goliath, exchanged some trash talk, and then killed the guy using unconventional tactics. Seeing a helpless man, struggling to get his bearings, on the ground; David took the man's sword, and with several blows to his neck, chopped his head off. As onlookers on both sides looked in unbelief, while the head was still dripping with blood, David picked up the bleeding head and held it high for all to see.  For the rest of the day David walked around the Hebrew camp holding on to his trophy.

David turned out to be a great and vicious warrior - even the Bible says he was a "bloody man." Because David was better at killing than Saul, his life was threatened, so he took off and hid in the desert. Meanwhile people ran out to the desert to join him. There were people running from the Law, people who didn't want to pay taxes, and people who couldn't pay their bills.

Running from place to place, David demanded local farmers to feed his army of runaways, but one in particular remained loyal to King Saul and refused to help David and his men. So David decided to slaughter the men and boys on his farm. It turns out that the man's wife was not voting for King Saul in the next elections and it turns out that she favored King David's party, so when she had the opportunity - and that opportunity came when her husband got drunk - she sent a donation to David and his men. Her act which was contrary to her husband's wishes saved a lot of lives in her family that day. Because of what she did, she helped David to escape a major scandal - slaughtering a nice conservative family.

Lucky for David, her husband had a stroke, and God killed him. So David married her, and became king when King Saul died.

Even though David escaped one scandal because of another man's wife, David was not able to escape a second scandal dealing with another man's wife. After several years as a king, David entered his mid-life crisis and while watching from his balcony, he saw a nice looking woman taking a bath on the top of her roof (for that's where people bathed in those days).  She was hot, so David had his guards bring her into his home where he had sex with her and then sent her back home after he was satisfied.  Unfortunately, a few weeks later Bathsheba who was that woman he had sex with sent a note to David, telling him that she was pregnant.

He couldn't hide the affair as long as the husband lived, so David had him killed to cover up the illegitimate pregnancy.  I suppose David felt that he was doing the only right thing by covering up an embarrassing political faux pas.  I suppose he felt like he represented faith and leadership and it was important to protect his iconic image.  Murdering Bathsheba's husband seemed the right thing to do.

Despite his best efforts, King David's affair leaked out in social media and David lost his popularity, he lost his kingdom to his own son who quickly became more popular with the people; but after a short civil war and after David's general killed the people's choice, David and his men were able to get back into leadership. And the people resigned themselves to David's rule, accepting the fact that the man they really wanted in leadership was now dead.

CONCLUSION

Scandals oftentimes carry unseen consequences even in the Bible.