What Is the Point of Sports?

A pastor interrupted me during a seminar with a simple yet profound question: What even is the point of sports? Why do you care about it so much?

If you turn to most systematic theologies or books on cultural engagement, you might be left with the same question. Music, drama and literature are frequently acknowledged as legitimate areas of Christian reflection, but sports is often overlooked.

Yet sports is deeply embedded in society. Over nine million people actively participate in the UK alone, with millions more watching. Globally, its influence is undeniable. 

Is it maybe because the world of sports, what it values, how it behaves and the stories it tells seem to clash in many areas with the world of the Bible? 

The World of Sports

Consider the slogans of major sports brands, which reveal the values that underpin athletic culture (and a number of what I’d call half-truths):

• Nike recently told us that “Winning isn’t for everyone” while making it clear that winning was the primary purpose for all athletes.
• The Adidas slogan “Impossible is nothing” tells its customers that, with determination and hard work, you can do anything. 
• Under Armour’s “I will what I want” also promises that clear focus and effort will help you achieve your dreams. 

• Even individual sports have this focus, with New Balance recently encouraging athletes to “Run your way” – to dress how you want, run where you want and so on. 

It can be complex to talk about one “world” of sports. Even in the slogans above, you can see a divide: between team sports and individual sports or between elite athletes, for whom sports is a career and competitive, and leisurely athletes, for whom sports is less about victory and more about health and well-being. 

This raises questions for Christians: How do we pursue victory while loving our opponents? How can we dedicate ourselves to sports without compromising our faith? 

So how should we think biblically about sports?

Author Chris Watkin reminds us that “among the cornucopia of deities the God of the Bible is unique and therefore the Bible offers a unique understanding of society and culture, one that reflects who that God really is.” 3

So while there are a number of ways to answer this (and you can read about them in a new book soon), the answer starts with understanding the nature of God.

Sports Helps Us Meet God

Having studied Islamic theology, I’ve found that Islamic scholars struggle to identify a Quranic or Hadith-based perspective on culture in a positive light. Islam emphasises Allah’s transcendence and distance, leaving little room for a personal relationship with God in daily activities.

The God of the Bible, by contrast, is both transcendent and immanent—he reigns sovereignly but is also intimately involved in our lives. This truth gives all of our lives purpose, including the talents, gifts and passions of athletes and the games they play.

Many Christian athletes use the hashtag #AO1—audience of one—as a reminder that God’s opinion matters most. However, the phrase could unintentionally suggest that God is merely an observer, watching from the stands. Some sportspeople can have a problematic image of God that sees him like a coach: someone watching from afar and deciding if a performance is good enough to bless. It’s an image which emphasises his absoluteness.

It is important for Christian athletes, though, to know that God is not only in the stands as we play. He is in us, by his Spirit, like the air we breathe, enabling us every step of the way. God sustains us. God empowers us. God is with us, alongside us, in all the highs and lows of our sports. Incredibly, the good news of the gospel is not that God stayed “up there” but that he came down to dwell among us and within us by his Spirit. 

Sports, then, can be a means through which we encounter God and draw closer to him. 

Sports Is Challenged by the God of Love

A fundamental challenge to much of sports for Christians is: What does it look like to love while competing?

Tim Keller said that our culture is dominated by career advancement and power, and so relationships are hard and poor.2 Sports reflects this culture. 

Competition, by its nature, involves comparison. If it is used to elevate ourselves at the expense of others, it contradicts the character of God, whereby the three divine Persons can be described in comparison to each other but not in a way which leads them to division or jealousy. In the Trinity there is unity and there is a clarity of roles. 

Many of the problems found in sports come from an elevated view of self and a desire to win at all costs – to prove myself. For Christians, though, competition can be redeemed. It can be a context in which we can discover our strengths and weaknesses, refine our character, and learn about our place in creation. When viewed in this way, it becomes a tool for growth rather than self-glorification. 

It can become a way to love our neighbour. Love like that of the trinitarian God is agape (self-giving) love. When we think about our opponents, instead of reducing them to "the other" to be defeated, we can see them as fellow image-bearers of God—partners in a shared, creative endeavour.  

In sports opposing fans or opposing teams or match officials are often seen like this: 

• “They’re all cheats.” 
• “West Ham fans are all thugs.” 
• “The referee is useless.” 

However, as Watkin says, “The love relationships of the Trinity help us think about sameness and difference in a way that provides for distinctness, distance and honouring, as well as intimacy, knowledge and mutuality.” 3

Maybe here there is a new way to view an opponent. Not just as the “other” to be violently defeated but as someone in mutual relationship with us, also known and loved by God, uniquely created to image him and to help bring out the best in us as we do this creative activity of sports together. 

Sports Is a Gift

When sports and competition is spoken about in this way, it is attractive to the watching world. Rafa Nadal famously spoke of his rivalry with Roger Federer in this way: as one which made him better. Rory McIlroy has alluded to his love for the team side of golf, recognising it’s a more fufilling way to compete, helping and serving others and not just himself. 

Maybe competition redeemed, in the image of the trinitarian God, could teach the world something better than it often sees when it looks at sports. Sports like this would show the world more of what human flourishing is all about – a life marked by a sense of security in not needing to prove ourselves and by an outward focus on serving those we play with and against. 

Here, then, we begin to see why sports might hold such a prominent place in God’s creation. It is not a mere human invention or a cultural distraction but a good gift—one that, like all good things, can be distorted but also redeemed. It has been given to help us grasp more of his fatherly sovereignty and to reflect him in relationships of love – and, when we inevitably get it wrong, a tool to help direct us back to God.

Sports, then, is not just something we do. It is something God, in his grace, has given us—to enjoy, to grow through, and ultimately, to know him, our trinitarian God, better.

1. Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory, p. 34.
2. Timothy Keller, “Before the Beginning,” sermon on Genesis 1:1-3, preached at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on November 16, 2008, available at http://www.gospelinlife.com/before-the-beginning-6078.htm
3.  Watkin, Biblical Critical Theory,  p. 47.

Delve deeper into what the Bible says about sports in Spiritual Game Plan by Graham Daniels and Jonny Reid. The book is for anyone who enjoys sports, and shows how the gospel transforms our thinking, our playing and our watching.