TIGER'S FALL

TIGER'S FALL

 

The news reports have been full of stories of Tiger Woods lately, and his fall from the pedestal people had placed him on. He was a real sports "idol" to many, truly one of the world's best golfers, and probably the richest! At last count seven women have come forward to confess that they had all been involved sexually with him since the scandal started, and who knows how many more may join their ranks? What can we followers of Jesus learn from all this exposure about these disclosures?

 

I suppose the first thing we might note is how many times scripture warns about worshiping "idols" of any sort. It seems we love to make idols out of sports figures that have developed their skills in any given sport, without bothering to checkout their character! I would think Tiger would certainly be a case in point. He may have attracted various big name sponsors, who have been willing to invest large sums of money for the right to use his name to advertise their particular products, but what happens to them now? Will they withdraw their support, and apologize to the public for their part in promoting an adulterer? I doubt it!

 

We in the body of Christ have been guilty in the past of doing this very same thing. We have promoted certain people who seem to be gifted as an evangelist, or someone used by God in ministry in some unusual way, and lifted them up and placed them on a pedestal. Only to find out, perhaps months or years later that they have been living a "double life"! I won't mention any by name, but we can all think of several such cases in the past few years. Our track record as the "church" in this regard has not been good, and shows a critical lack of proper discernment! When are we going to learn that you can't judge a man by his gifting, but only by his character? Jesus said we can tell a person by the fruit showing in their lives. Our job is not to be judges, or even policemen, to check up on people to see how they live, but to simply be "fruit inspectors". We should all be able to do that, and report back to Jesus whenever we see some bad fruit that might contaminate our brothers and sisters in the family of God. We should do thus, instead of spreading rumors throughout the church about the results of our inspection, based on scriptures like (Gal 5:22)! I'm sure the world would be a better place if we could just discipline ourselves to do that.

Sincerely submitted.

Dave Jamer