Caleb Love, the fifth year star shooting guard for the University of Arizona Wildcats men’s basketball team, made a half court shot at the buzzer to tie the game 70 – 70 against the Iowa State Cyclones, ranked #3 in the country at the time. The shot sent the game into overtime and ended-up being the catalyst for Arizona to finish the game on an 11 – 0 scoring run to win the game. Arizona’s Coach, Tommy Lloyd, called it “great theatre”. All who watched, including my wife and myself who are Arizona fans, were ecstatic by the shot and the resulting win for the Wildcats. Caleb Love himself said this about the shot:
“You just got to give it up to God at that point,” Love said of his shot against the Cyclones. “We practice half-courters in shootaround, you know, that’s the fun of it. We do that shot at practice, and like I said, you got to give it up to God, and that was all him.”1
I’m a huge Arizona basketball fan, since the days my son attended school at the University of Arizona and we’d go to games together at the famed McKale Center. I’m also a Caleb Love fan who appreciates his skill and moxy. He has struggled this season to consistently find his shooting touch but he has not stopped shooting. In fact, before he made the half court shot, he was 1 – 10 from behind the arc during the game. The good thing about the Wildcat’s season so far is that they are good enough to win games when Caleb is not hitting his shots. But they needed him to hit his half court heave just to survive to fight in overtime.
I’m a part of a Men’s Bible study group. I thoroughly enjoy getting together with the guys each week to study God’s word, hang out and talk, and pray together. Most weeks I am the one tasked to lead our study so I put together a list of questions that we work through as we read scripture. The other night we were discussing John 9 in which Jesus heals the blind man (blind from birth) and deals with the Pharisees who are seeking to hold-on to the law and their power over the people they purport to spiritually serve. In fact, the Pharisees were intent on killing Jesus. 2 They were hostile toward Jesus because of his disregard for their religious traditions, his association with people they considered sinners, and because their pride and arrogance blinded3 them from considering Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
We got hung up on on John 9:4 which states: “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.” We agreed that this was Jesus’ calling us to be, as The Message translates this verse: “…..energetically at work for the One (God) who sent me (Jesus) here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over.” The metaphor speaks to the work day being limited. Therefore, our time to work on behalf of God in His kingdom in the lives of others is limited.
The problem is that I asked this question about this verse: “Can verse 4 present a slippery slope for some believers?” My thinking was that we can easily be caught-up in thinking that we must keep going strong in our witness for God. We can start to equate the number of people we help, the times we offer encouragement and guidance, the times when we share about our love for Christ, as not being enough. We feel that we must do more and I think for some that drive to do more can incorrectly come from a heart looking to in some way earn salvation. Those directly involved in ministry can get caught-up in thinking that what I’m doing is just not enough. One more visit, one more effort to help, one more proclamation of faith is needed to somehow satisfy God and prove my faith.
Unanimously, the guys did not buy into the possibility of my slippery slope. As I write this I remember their well-thought out comments being much more complimentary of all works for God. Fast-forward to the following week during our study I mentioned that this week’s questions did not have a slippery slope question. 🙂 We subsequently got into a discussion of the previous week’s College Football National Championship game in which Ohio State crushed the undermanned Notre Dame Fighting Irish. In his article entitled Everybody Was Talking About Jesus Monday Night, even Scott Van Pelt, 4John Stonestreet describes how it seemed like everyone was talking about Jesus on Monday night following the game, including the pundits on ESPN that featured the famous sports commentator Scott Van Pelt and the famous college football analyst and commentator Rece Davis.
The full article is copied below in footnote 3 and can be summarized as follows: Van Pelt and Davis acknowledged the importance of the player’s and coach’s Christian faith. Outspoken coaches and players testifying to their faith in Christ EVEN when the outcome of the game did not go in their favor. These players and coaches appropriately connect their shared faith with their character and their experience as people gifted by God with athletic and coaching ability. As Stonestreet rightly concludes, the rule and reign of Christ includes His sovereignty over all things in our lives, and can mean a whole lot to our relationships, our character, and power our hope even in those times when….. the shot does not go in and we lose the game.
So, I engaged with the guys on another slippery slope as I ended up sharing my concern that not all testimony of otherwise faithful athletes is based on good, solid Christian theology. The guys rightly loved what was said by the QB’s after the game and the fact that it got America’s sports community talking about Jesus. My concern that sometimes the praising of God after a game can be construed by rational people (Christians and non-Christians) as some sort of “faith leads to God’s favor” was quickly discounted by the men. After all, Christ is being proclaimed! I certainly agree that in many instances statements like the ones attributed to the Ohio State and Notre Dame QBs, their coaches, and the head coaches of North Carolina and Houston are powerful witnesses to the reign and majesty of Jesus.
Here’s where this all ties into Caleb Love’s half-court three pointer and his subsequent statement giving his successful making of that shot up to God. Caleb asserts that the making of the shot was all Him (God). What should we think about Caleb Love’s assertion? Ideas matter; words matter; and how we as believers articulate our faith matters. I feel like I may be going down a slippery slope again with no reasonable place to land. Am I wrong in being concerned that sometimes we wrongly equate God’s engagement in our lives with positive results only? God promises salvation through his son Jesus. We also know that life includes suffering and pain and just plain bad results. Does a statement like Caleb’s send the wrong message that belief in the God of the Bible means that he’ll help you make shots to win games? Given my recent proclivity to find slippery slopes that people in my life whom I love and respect find irrelevant causes me to seek this “heat check”. 5
So, please send me an email and let me know your thoughts – karltucker4@gmail.com. I promise that I’ll respond.
- See ESPN article with Caleb’s quote here. ↩︎
- See John 8:37 where Jesus acknowledges “Yet you are willing to kill me , because you have no room for my word.” and John 11:45 – 53 which ends with John writing “So from that day on they plotted to take his life.” ↩︎
- See John 9:35 – 41 where Jesus states his mission that the blind will see and those who see will become blind. Those who did not know about Jesus represent the blind who when they believe in Jesus they lose their spiritual blindness. They now see Jesus as their savior. The Jewish leaders claimed to see which Jesus points out means that they are stuck in their old ways of thinking about God. Jesus is saying that their pretense and self-righteousness has actually blinded them to the truth about Jesus. In fact, Jesus is the Messiah they have been waiting for. ↩︎
- See Breakpoint Daily, January 23, 2025. Copy of article as follows:
Everybody Was Talking About Jesus Monday Night, even Scott Van Pelt
By: John Stonestreet
As a fan of Duke basketball, I was pumped when the Blue Devils beat the University of Houston in last year’s Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. I was also pleased that cross-town rival University of North Carolina lost. As a Christian, however, I celebrated the outspoken witness of UNC coach Hubert Davis and Houston coach Kelvin Sampson after their respective losses.
Outspoken faith has also been part of the story line in college football this season. This is especially the case with Notre Dame and Ohio State, two teams who put together incredible runs of victories to advance to Monday’s College Football Playoff National Championship game. Though I was rooting for the Irish to complete the comeback after a tough first half, it was not to be. Capping what must have been a very good day for J.D. Vance, Ohio State was just too much.
Though it’s not unusual for athletes and coaches to thank God after big games, faith in Christ was consistently and specifically credited for the culture of both programs. So much so in fact, that, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt and Rece Davis made it a point of emphasis in their post-game analysis. As Davis said,
We hear a lot of times people talk about their faith and people sort of dismiss it. These guys were sharing their faith and reaching out and baptizing guys on campus … not just football teammates. And it became something powerful, not because they thought it was going to be handed to them to win a game, but it changed their relationships. It changed selfishness and made it go away. … It didn’t guarantee they were going to win. And Notre Dame had a lot of that going on as well. We heard [Notre Dame coach] Marcus [Freeman] talk about that a lot this year … that it made guys selfless, and I think that’s the power in it. It’s not some magical thing … it helps you relate to your teammates differently.
The quarterbacks from both sides confirmed this analysis. Ohio State’s Will Howard, accepting the Offensive Player of the Game, said, “First and foremost, I gotta give the glory and the praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” He then went on to talk all about his teammates and coaches, emphasizing the strong relationships that made this year so special.
Emotionally wrecked from the loss, Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard spent his press conference also describing how much he loved and respected his teammates. In fact, he carefully emphasized how impressive they were off the field, from his offensive line to the wideouts to the backfield. He then added,
Us and Ohio State were the two teams who praised Jesus Christ the most, and I think we strengthened each other in our faith. … I’m happy to see Godly men come out on top no matter what the circumstance is. I’m happy to praise Jesus in the lowest of lows.
In addition to the time given to the role faith played for both teams by players, coaches, and the media, this was the other unusual part of the post-game praise reports Monday night. Athletes and coaches often thank God for wins, but acknowledging God’s sovereignty and goodness after a tough loss is far rarer. Leonard’s words reminded me of what North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said after the tough loss to end their season back in March:
There’s a reason for all seasons, and He’s the reason for all seasons. And I’m meaning Jesus. And those reasons are good, irregardless if it’s a sunny or cloudy day. All those reasons develop my character, refine my faith, and make me the person, and the husband, and the dad, and coach that I want to be.
Within a Christian worldview, the rule and reign of Christ extends to all of reality, including areas of life sometimes dismissed as trivial and unimportant. Certainly, sports is given a place far beyond its due in this cultural moment. For many, it is an idol. However, the Biblical teaching about Christ as Lord over every aspect of human existence brings clarity to how we ought to think about things like sports. If the Lordship of the risen Christ is the defining truth about life and the world, then all human relationships are transformed. Most importantly, our relationship with God is made secure by the work of Christ on our behalf.
Also, our sense of value and worth is no longer dependent on our performance or how we measure up to the arbitrary categories of our time, but rather, who we are is grounded in the reality that Christ is restoring us into His image. Our relationship with others is, as Coach Freeman described, about being “selfless” and “putting others before yourself.” With those relationships properly ordered, our relationship with other things around us, including the mundane or seemingly trivial, can also be properly ordered.
Thus, I believe we can finally answer that annual question that plagues us … does God really care who wins the Super Bowl (or the College Football Championship or March Madness)? The answer is yes, because He not only cares for those who win but also for those who lose. ↩︎ - In the sport of basketball, whenever a player makes consecutive baskets, usually from behind the 3 point arc, it is said that his next shot is a “heat check” that gives the player the right to shoot the ball from long range without that shot being questioned as a bad shot. In my case here, I’ve been taking some long shots recently that I’ve called slippery slopes and I’m asking for some input. A “heat check” if you will from those who may have a thought or two on this. To be honest, my big concern is that I’m making something out of nothing here. ↩︎