{"id":8709,"date":"2025-01-29T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=8709"},"modified":"2025-01-28T16:39:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T23:39:57","slug":"football-and-following-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=8709","title":{"rendered":"Football and Following Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Monday, January 20, Ohio State defeated Notre Dame for the College Football Championship. I’m a Clemson guy so I have a right not to be an Ohio State fan. Look it up<\/a>. That said, I had read before the game and again after the game that there were committed Christians on both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Stonestreet of BreakPoint wrote an article about the Christians on both teams. Click anywhere on the picture to see the whole article.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Here are some snippets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s College Football Playoff National Championship game…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though it\u2019s 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\u2019s Scott Van Pelt and Rece Davis<\/a> made it a point of emphasis in their post-game analysis. As Davis said,  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2026 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. \u2026 It didn\u2019t 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 \u2026 that it made guys selfless, and I think that\u2019s the power in it. It\u2019s not some magical thing \u2026 it helps you relate to your teammates differently.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The quarterbacks from both sides confirmed this analysis. Ohio State\u2019s Will Howard, accepting the Offensive Player of the Game, said<\/a>, \u201cFirst and foremost, I gotta give the glory and the praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.\u201d He then went on to talk all about his teammates and coaches, emphasizing the strong relationships that made this year so special. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The losing quarterback, Riley Leonard from Notre Dame said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Us and Ohio State were the two teams who praised Jesus Christ the most, and I think we strengthened each other in our faith. \u2026 I\u2019m happy to see Godly men come out on top no matter what the circumstance is. I\u2019m happy to praise Jesus in the lowest of lows.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that’s something we don’t see every day. It’s a false narrative that if we follow Jesus, we always come out on top. It wouldn’t even be possible in this case because both quarterbacks followed Jesus! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is good that God has people everywhere, even Ohio State! In fact, I already wrote about one football player reaching another at Ohio State – see Priests in ALL Places<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2.9, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out… (1 Thessalonians 1.6 – 8, NKJV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, January 20, Ohio State defeated Notre Dame for the College Football Championship. I’m a Clemson guy so I have a right not to be an Ohio State fan. Look it up. That said, I had read before the game and again after the game that there were committed Christians on both sides. John Stonestreet … Continue reading Football and Following Jesus<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-2gt","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8709"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8717,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8709\/revisions\/8717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}