During the ancient Greek Olympics, the judge of the contest sat on an elevated seat. After the contest was over the competitors came before him to receive their rewards. This was not a judicial bench ...
Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:8-11, Luke 19:36-44, John 12:16-19
Just under 80 years ago, a crowd gathered on a humid August day to commence what was to be an unparalleled event for its time. Hundreds of thousands of spectators, police officers, and soldiers gather...
Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman” was made famous by the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire . He was born to missionary parents in China in 1902 and educated in the United Kingdom. Though he made the Bri...
The city of Corinth was famous for the Isthmian Games, a festival of athletic contests and events similar to the Olympic games. At the end of each contest or event, the athletes would appear before a ...
If you were lucky enough to watch the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, you probably remember swimmer Michael Phelps bursting onto the international scene. Phelps won six medals in those ga...
Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 39:6, Luke 12:15, Acts 15:29, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:62, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:12, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 2:20
The true story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two British sprinters who qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games, illustrates two contrasting approaches to life and identity. Abrahams was driven by ...
The lesson that games can teach us is simple. Games aren’t appealing because they are fun, but because they are limited. Because they erect boundaries. Because we must accept their structures in order...
Lord Jesus, you are worthy of our gaze in every moment of this earthly race, this good fight for your glory. Keep our eyes fixed on you until our last days, when we are poured out as a final, joyful o...
Randy Alcorn relates meeting Margaret Holder, born to missionary parents in China and interned by the Japanese with Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman,” whose story is featured in Chariots of Fire . ...
I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the f...
There have been times, not least the time of the birth of Athenian democracy, when most of the people who thought and wrote about human wholeness concluded that no one could be a whole human being, no...
As a young boy, around the time my heart began to suspect that the world was a fearful place and I was on my own to find my way through it, I read the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the ninet...
Human spectacle making is like sorcery—an enchantment, a spell, the creation of an image that calls for a response from our inner longings. Idolatry is the original tele-vision, the bringing of a far-...
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set b...
In his book The Burden is the Light, Jon Tyson shares how, as a child, he had excelled as a runner, winning a number of races and even breaking state records. But everything changed when another athle...
Everything we do is about winning something or measuring one person against another or garnering goods in great quantity, not because we need them but in order that others can’t have them. We make lif...
Recently I’ve wondered about the connection between the English words “longing” and “belonging”. Isn’t belonging one of our greatest longings in life? Don’t we all have some deep, inner desire t...
We want everyone around us to believe we have it all together—and we don’t. We fear everyone else is living the lives they post and we are the only imposters. And so, the race is on. The race to perfe...
There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are gre...
Professional football players often get heated on the field, sometimes letting their emotions get the best of them when penalized by an official. Art Holst, a longtime NFL referee, recalls a Sunday ga...
In this excerpt by the Roman historian Tacitus, we get insight into the Jewish faith from an ancient, extra-Biblical account. We also see how the Israelites took the first commandment seriously: The...
To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.
ALL SINGING: (America the Beautiful, first verse) O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grac...
O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From ...
Every year when I was in school, we were required to go to “athletics,” better known as gym class. I always hated it because there was a possibility we’d play kickball or dodgeball or pretty much anyt...
The season of Epiphany is an invitation to follow Jesus into the ways of gratitude and joy,. We are no longer bound by the dissatisfaction of our consumer culture that tells us to keep striving for mo...