Book Review: Bible Promises for Champions

Title: Bible Promises for Champions

Author: Gary Wilde

Publisher: Holman

Date: 2000

ISBN: 0-8054-9413-8

Length: 188 pages plus some pages intentionally left blank at the back for notes

Quote: “I hope that the next time you go out to play, it [this book] will help lift your heart in gratitude to God.”

Well…it’s a different approach to Bible study.

Seems Holman is the publisher of one of the new copyright Bibles whose unique, copyrighted wording has not received much attention yet, so they commissioned a selection of passages from their translation of the Bible on the themes of Fear, Courage, Faith, Power, Rules, Coaching, Defeat, Perseverance, Discipline, Faith, Victory, and Champions. Wilde does not presume to give his intended audience (high school athletes) any advice on how to use these passages for devotional reading or chapel talks; he just sets them up on the page, where some of them look completely out of proportion to the context of games.

Not that high school athletics don’t present moral challenges to which Bible teachings are relevant and appropriate. Wilde introduces each chapter with a little vignette showing a teen athlete faced with a moral decision. Do I please the substitute coach by throwing the ball right into another kid’s face, or please the regular coach (and my conscience) by throwing it over his head? Should I push myself to play on when I’m tired? Is the joy of hitting the ball worth the pain of playing with a knee brace?

Wilde wouldn’t like my answer to that last question. I've seen too many adults living with chronic pain because they pushed themselves too hard while still recovering from an injury. I say, if you want to walk with a limp or the rest of your life, at least damage your knee saving someone's life--something that is going to feel worth a knee.

This raises another concern for teen athletes and their parents. Even when you’re not part of an organized program, pressure just to resume the weekend activity a friend or relative enjoys sharing with you can be a problem. Maybe your walking buddies know you sprained an ankle and start counting 21 days for the ankle to heal so you can work or hike with them again…and your ankle is actually all better in just 16 days, but what nobody noticed at the time is that you also sprained a hip, and that damage will continue to make walking, sitting, standing, or lying less than 100% perfectly flat unpleasant for 160 days. This will be a long-term bore, no matter what happens. It can be hard for teen athletes to resist the pressure, much of which is coming from within, to go back to playing intense games when they need to be carefully stretching and flexing, paying attention to the pain and not letting themselves be distracted by any wish to win or look good. Teammates and even coaches who are not living in your body can start to think you have a morale problem rather than a muscle problem. I think Bible Promises for Champions could have used a chapter on Prudence.

My feeling, however, is that this book’s been padded to size by including a lot of passages that are not about the everyday ethical questions that do arise even in little children’s games, that could be considered disproportionate or even blasphemous in the context of high school sports. I know firsthand that teenagers are capable of seeing a certain difference in proportion, even when they feel an emotional resonance, between “Lover and friend hast thou put far from me” and “The party’s been cancelled because of snow,” between “If I perish, I perish” and “If we lose the game, we lose the game,” between “Consider it all joy whenever you undergo trials” and “Use it as a learning experience if you don’t win a game.” Teenagers are capable of seeing the differences. But when their hormones are running high, they forget to look. This book fails to remind them.

Because so much of what’s in this book are neither promises nor in any way related to athletic championships, I have to say I wouldn't recommend Bible Promises for Champions to teenagers.

Well, it was published. It exists. More than ninety percent of this book is recognizable, uncontroversial, uplifting and wholesome selections from the Bible, with chapter-and-verse references so you can study where each passage fits into its real context. Heavenforbidandfend that anyone should discourage teen athletes, or teen couch potatoes, from studying Bible passages like the story of Esther. It's too late to do more than warn them that, even though the New Testament addressed people who were familiar with their culture’s version of professional sports, and compared the Christian life to athletic training, the Bible is not actually about sports.