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...
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...
The announcement that the Cleveland Browns were moving to Baltimore after 30 years in Cleveland devastated many people. Among the many Browns fans interviewed, one man sat in his pickup truck and wept...
Isaiah 40:31, Philippians 4:4-7, Ruth 1:16, Luke 10:25-37, Mark 4:35-41, Philippians 4:6-7, Isaiah 41:10
Lord – You are good …and Your goodness knows no bounds. When we were lost, You sought us out, found us and brought us home. When we were alone, You came near to us, and You gave us a new circle of fri...
**Spoiler Alert:**This review contains some minor spoilers about the plot of Ted Lasso . Content Alert: Ted Lasso contains adult themes, sexual content, and strong language. I’ve read at least ...
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 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 ...
The great San Francisco 49ers football coach Bill Walsh, when asked about legendary wide receiver Jerry Rice said, “Rice was considered too slow for NFL greatness.” But, when you studied the film fr...
I am a huge football fan and there have been several times in my life where I have either met or have happened upon an NFL player. Whenever this occurs, I can never get used to just how big these peop...
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...
Most of us have heard of Babe Ruth, but have you ever heard of Babe Pinelli? Pinelli was an umpire in Major League Baseball who once called The Great Bambino (Ruth) out on strikes. When the crowd bega...
The American Golfer George Archer had a relatively successful career on the PGA tour, winning thirteen PGA tournaments, including the 1969 Masters. As he drew closer to retiring from the sport, he was...
Arnold “Red” Auerbach was one of the winningest coaches in NBA history. He won 9 championships as coach of the Boston Celtics and was named NBA Coach of the Year in 1965 and NBA Executive Coach of the...
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...
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 . ...
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 American Baseball player Moe Berg was more than just a great catcher. Berg had received graduate degrees from Princeton University and the Sorbonne in Paris, knew several languages and later serve...
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...
The US Golfer George Archer had a relatively successful career on the PGA tour, winning won thirteen tournaments, including the 1969 Masters. As he drew closer to retiring from the sport, he wasn’t ex...
George Bush Sr. (41) enjoyed the game of golf, even if he wasn’t necessarily very good at it. Following his presidency and his return to private life, he began to notice something: It’s amazing how ma...
When Pearl Harbor was bombed, one of the Americans who volunteered to serve his country was Bob Feller. Bob was a 23-year-old pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, a phenomenon who had already pitched a ...
Luke 19:1-10, Luke 7:36-50, Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 6:23, Matthew 18:21-35, Psalm 103:10-12, 2 Corinthians 5:21
Millions of golfers know the name of Harvey Penick. His first book, Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, became a surprising best-seller, selling more than 1 million copies in 1992, quickly earning the ti...
The Benedictine nun Joan Chittister recounts a story she once heard by a communications professor, which she said fundamentally changed the way she thought about success and failure: A young boy was...
In the sport of cycling, one of the most important things necessary to be successful in a race is the ability to manage the timing of when “to burn a match.” This is a phrase that all bike racers know...
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...
Matthew 18:20, 1 Peter 2:5, Hebrews 10:24-25, Acts 2:42-47, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 4:15-16, Romans 12:4-5
Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own sermons, as I was trying to help a congregation see itself not as a building, but the body of Christ. It has been adapted for TPW. No...