Is competitiveness wrong?

Question:

Dear sir,

I found your article on videos, TV, etc. a most interesting, excellent work. I am troubled by my own shortcomings in all these areas. My questions are: Do most video games and movies not draw on the same need of excitement or exhilaration that people get from sports, hunting, or chess? In this regard, is the intensity of the sport, the aggression, and tactics, not mirrored in many video games and TV shows? If so, what does the Holy Bible say about any form of competition, in sport, intellect, or strategy games? Is our desire based on the total depravity of man, or as a result of bad habits? How do we actually live this life, which seems so far from what our great Lord Jesus Christ intended?

Thank you for your brilliant forum.

Answer:

If two things happen to share a common characteristic, that doesn't make both things wrong. It would only do so if it is the character itself that is wrong.

Based on what verse would you conclude that competitiveness is always wrong?

"Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified" (I Corinthians 9:24-27).

Paul drew an analogy with the competitiveness of sports to make a point about the amount of effort a Christian is to place in serving God. It isn't that we are competing with each other, but the emphasis is on the amount of effort. Yet, in making the comparison, there is no indication that all competitiveness is wrong. There are places where competitiveness doesn't belong, but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that all competitiveness is wrong.

The concept of man's total depravity is not one taught by God. See Total Depravity or Total Inability and Total Hereditary Depravity and Ezekiel 18:20.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email