With the Olympics set to begin next Friday, it may be a good time for a Bible study.
No, I’m not going full Jerry Falwell on you. I just thought you might be interested in the biblical etymology of expressions used in the heat of sports competition.
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary“Etymologies are not definitions; they’re explanations of what our words meant and how they sounded 600 or 2,000 years ago.”
However, I’m going to take you a bit farther back because, as a spiritual columnist, I’m somewhat amused to hear people unwittingly quote the Bible.
So today, and just for trivial fun, I present some biblical sayings which might be inadvertently quoted by athletes at the Paris games.
For instance, when weightlifters talk about their “hard work and sweat” that brought them to the Olympics, they are making a veiled reference to Genesis 3:19.
It’s here that God tells Adam and Eve that because of their transgression, there will be no more free lunch. Their survival will require hard work because it’ll only be “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food….”
When a gymnast stumbles over his answers in a news interview, the reporter might suggest a favorable answer to his own question. Journalists call those questions “softballs” and will often add, “I’m not trying to put words in your mouth.” That news reporter is trying to evoke a printable quote as he unknowinglyplagiarizes 2 Samuel 14:3: “And Joab put the words in her mouth.”
In sports competition, a cyclist might revel in his rival’s failure by saying his competitor “bit the dust.” Those words convey the vengeful spirit expressed in Psalm 72:9 “…and his enemies will lick the dust.”
“Rise and shine!” is an admonition a few coaches may use to awaken their Olympians for an early morning training routine. They do so without realizing they are quoting the prophet Isaiah who said, “Arise, shine, for your light has come….” (60:1).
Or a swimmer in a tight race might modestly describe her win “by the skin of my teeth.” She is quoting Job 19:20, “I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.”
And when a track star tells us they are “just going to concentrate and run the race before them,” they make a vague reference to Hebrews 12:1: “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
When a high diver speaks in resigning tones of the poor scores received from international judges, they may choose their comment from two different verses.
“I have to trust ‘the powers that be’ they may say, without thought to Romans 13:1:“…the powers that be are ordained of God.”
Or as the diver looks to his poor showing on the scoreboard, he may unknowingly quote Daniel 5 as seeing “the writing on the wall.”
The humble relay racer knows hers is a team competition with no “I” in the word “team.” So, when asked about her chances in an upcoming race, she resists the temptation to brag saying, “Pride comes before a fall.” She perhaps knows she’s quoting Proverbs 16:18 “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
Of course, the one I expect to hear most often will be from coaches trying to lift the spirits of those athletes going home without gold medals. “You can be proud to have competed for the USA because ‘You fought the good fight!’”
Those words should inspire them just as they may motivate the rest of us couch potatoes to get up and move. After all, they are the words that inspired Timothy when the Apostle Paul told his co-pastor to, “Fight the good fight for the true faith” (I Timothy 6:12).
Go Team USA!
I owe inspiration for this column to Steve Prokopchak’s list of 30 Everyday Sayings That You Didn’t Know Originated from the Bible. See steveprokopchak.com.
Syndicated columnist Chaplain Norris Burkes began his chaplain career with both the active-duty Air Force and the Air National Guard until his retirement in 2014. He later served as a board-certified healthcare chaplain at Sutter Memorial, Kaiser, Methodist and Mather VA hospitals and continues to work with area Hospice. His column is syndicated to more than 35 accredited news outlets. Read past columns at www.thechaplain.net.
