I had always wondered if combat sports like boxing and MMA sinful? I know that MMA looks brutal on TV, but in reality, it is not as raw as it seems. No one in the UFC has gotten a bad injury that could of led to death. So is practicing such sports sinful?<\/p>\n\t
Like many things, it would depend on the purpose. The Israelites practiced warfare at the direction of the Lord, which is definitely violent, but it wasn’t done for entertainment. I used to do Tae Kwon Do, but I did it for exercise and to learn self-defense. What has to be watched for is chasing after a “sport” because you like watching people getting injured. Or worse, thinking that problems can be solved through violence. A qualification of an elder is a man who is not violent (I Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7).<\/p>\n
“A man of violence entices his neighbor and leads him in a way that is not good<\/em>” (Proverbs 16:29).<\/p>\n
“Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men who have purposed to trip up my feet<\/em>” (Psalms 140:4).<\/p>\n
“Their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, devastation and destruction are in their highways. They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their tracks; they have made their paths crooked, whoever treads on them does not know peace<\/em>” (Isaiah 59:7-8).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
None of these are in the same category as a violent sport where two challengers compete under rules. But I hope you can see how such events can get out of hand with some people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: I had always wondered if combat sports like boxing and MMA sinful? I know that MMA looks brutal on TV, but in reality, it is not as raw as it seems. No one in the UFC has gotten a bad injury that could of led to death. So is practicing such sports sinful? Answer:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1124,200],"class_list":["post-24351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-sports","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16084,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-watching-movies-or-making-jokes-about-sinful-things-really-that-bad\/","url_meta":{"origin":24351,"position":0},"title":"Is watching movies or making jokes about sinful things really that bad?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What about people who like action movies and stuff like that, or producers who make violent movies. I mean, you can like action movies but that does not mean that you support violence. There is a difference between making a joke about something and claiming that you actually would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24785,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-all-violent-video-games-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":24351,"position":1},"title":"Are all violent video games wrong?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: A while back\u00a0we discussed video games and movies, and I mentioned that my husband is an avid video game player. Anyway, I know the violence is wrong in games, but what if the characters that you are fighting in a game look more like animals or impossible-looking monsters, then\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32137,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-sinful-to-play-airsoft-laser-tag-or-paintball\/","url_meta":{"origin":24351,"position":2},"title":"Is it sinful to play Airsoft, Laser Tag, or Paintball?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I was just wondering is it a sin to play Airsoft? Airsoft is a game in which people shoot rifles that majority of the time are mock models of actual firearms that shoot plastic bbs. The objective, generally, is to shoot the other person with a bb and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25385,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-do-you-handle-a-violent-father\/","url_meta":{"origin":24351,"position":3},"title":"How do you handle a violent father?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am really disturbed. My dad who has been very violent since my mum joined him in a foreign country. He was broke and moved to this new country for business. Several years down the line, my mum came and joined him, but he has become proud and arrogant.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":52672,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-the-violence\/","url_meta":{"origin":24351,"position":4},"title":"Why the Violence?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 29, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Psalms 140 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Another act of violence, and people naturally want to know why. Why is this happening? What can we do to prevent it? How can we feel safer? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0People grasp at simple solutions and quick fixes that really don\u2019t fix anything and often\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19889,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/when-a-child-is-raised-to-be-violent-who-is-responsible-the-parent-or-the-child\/","url_meta":{"origin":24351,"position":5},"title":"When a child is raised to be violent, who is responsible, the parent or the child?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I recently stumbled upon your web site and enjoy it very much. I have a question of my own though that hasn't been answered fully for quite some time now. There are many children who are brought up into violent families such that they learn to imitate their parents\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}