Last Sunday's message introduced the series we're beginning on the Lord's Prayer. This week is, "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name." I did some reading in the commentaries on that sentence this afternoon and one of the lines that struck me: "Unfortunately, many modern Christians find it very difficult to delight in the privilege of addressing the Sovereign of the universe as 'Father' because they have lost the heritage that emphasizes God's transcendence."
Amen!
Mid-morning I went for a bike ride. I haven't been happy with my times lately so I pushed it pretty hard for 15 miles. My average speed was back up where I want it but I sure felt cruddy afterward. When it gets hot it's almost impossible to drink enough while exercising and I think that's what accounts for the way I felt most of the afternoon.
The world is full of people who oppose biblical truth, including the truth of the gospel. But as we noted in our adult class last week, "What did you expect??" I get impatient with Christians who get indignant and offended when Christianity is maligned in the public square, including the media.
Have you not read your Bible?? Didn't you get the part about Satan being the prince, the power of the air, and the natural man (as in, the majority) rejecting the things of God?
Quit whining.
I expect opposition from the opposition. Doh!
But what angers me is when we do it to ourselves, or one dressed as a sheep turns out to be a wolf. That's when the real damage comes.
Jim Tressel, the now ex-coach of the Ohio State football team, is a case in point. Here's a guy who read Bible passages to his team, prayed with players, talked about how life was about more than football, that the spiritual dimension was the key...
And he was openly breaking all the rules. He knew it, his players knew it, the university administration knew it and boosters throughout Ohio knew it.
Sports Illustrated didn't break the story but they've put together the most systematic presentation of the case. The NCAA has very strict and clear rules on what a student athlete can and cannot do re. receiving funds and special treatment. Jim Tressel, despite his earlier denials, didn't just know his players were breaking those rules, he facilitated it. It's now known that his players were receiving cash, cars, tattoos and all kinds of freebies because they were Ohio State football stars. Many of them were given official Ohio State gear which they then traded for goods and services... some of it with a value enhanced by Tressel's autograph.
Good ol' investigative reporting has uncovered this pattern of behavior by Tressel dating back to schools where he coached years before arriving at Ohio State. Whenever the NCAA got wind of problems he claimed ignorance. He wasn't aware his players were acting outside the rules. And (here's the worst part) because of his reputation as a fine, upstanding God-fearing Christian with a clear testimony of faith, the NCAA accepted his explanation without further investigation.
It's all out, now. The documented pattern of misconduct and blatant lies to deny involvement is so overwhelming that he "resigned" yesterday - although it's widely accepted that the university gave him that option or they would be firing him. It was the university's last-ditch attempt to avoid what in NCAA terms is called the "death penalty," getting banned from competition for a year or more.
Jim Tressel is a hypocrite. He preached spiritual values and biblical standards to his players and to the press even while he was gaming the system and lying about it.
I'll take a dozen Stephen Hawkings over a single Jim Tressel.
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