Tebowmania and Linsanity are two phrases that have become ever popular over the past year. What is it about the two athletes that has captivated the news and fans all over the country? Is it there playing ability? Their faith? Or the combination of them both? There are many other Christian athletes in every sport who play very well, but they aren’t making the news like Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin. I believe it comes down to how both of these guys are living their lives when they are not playing. It is how they are treating others and spending their money. Their Christian faith is not just a title they carry around, but it is actually impacting their lives. The media hasn’t seen something like this in the world of sports in a number of years and it is fascinating them. The gospel is advancing in way that it hasn’t before. Ross Douthat wrote a very good article and I have included part of it below.
Why is Tim Tebow such a fascinating and polarizing figure? Not just because he claims to be religious; that claim is commonplace among football stars and ordinary Americans alike. Rather, it’s because his conduct — kind, charitable, chaste, guileless — seems to actually vindicate his claim to be in possession of a life-altering truth.
Nothing discredits religion quite like the gap that often yawns between what believers profess and how they live. With Tebow, that gap seems so narrow as to be invisible. (“There’s not an ounce of artifice or phoniness or Hollywood in this kid Tebow,” ESPN’s Rick Reilly wrote last year of the quarterback’s charitable works, “and I’ve looked everywhere for it.”) He fascinates, in part, because he behaves — at least in public, and at least for now — the way one would expect more Christians to behave if their faith were really true.
But the fascination doesn’t end there. Tebow’s religion doesn’t just promise a path to personal transformation. It claims that every human life is actually a story with an Author, and that a genuinely Christian life should make that divine Authorship manifest.
So in Tebow’s case, the link between faith and football can’t actually be broken. The more that his professional career seems like, well, a storybook — with exciting up and downs, new opportunities and unexpected twists — the more credible his faith in providence becomes.
Just as Tebow’s link between football and faith can’t be broken the links in our lives should not be broken. The link between school and our faith, the link between work and faith, the link between friends and faith, or the link between our free time and our faith should always be evident and never broken. The gospel affects every area of our lives so why do we so many times live as if it only affects us on Sunday mornings? Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” and 1 Peter 2:12, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” The outpouring of preaching the gospel to ourselves daily is a life that is glorifying to God both inside and out. May we be people who live such good lives among the pagans that God would be glorified in whatever stage he has given us whether it be in front of thousands of people or in front of our neighbor next door.
