Super Bowl Sunday vs. The Lord’s Day: Where Is Your Worship?

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Is Super Bowl Sunday really the “best Sunday of the year”? Or does that mindset reveal something about what we truly worship?

In this episode of Career Conversations, Jeff Robinson and Travis Kearns discuss a question many Christians don’t often stop to ask: When does football become idolatry? As the NFL promotes slogans like “Sundays are for football,” believers must wrestle with a deeper issue—what is the Lord’s Day actually for?

This conversation explores:

• What Scripture teaches about the Lord’s Day
• Whether watching football on Sunday is sinful
• The difference between enjoyment and idolatry
• How historic Christians viewed Sunday worship
• Why every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday
• Whether Super Bowl Sunday can ever be the “best” Sunday of the year

Referencing voices from church history like John Bunyan and Eric Liddell, Jeff and Travis think through how modern evangelical culture may have drifted in its understanding of worship, rest, and recreation.

This episode isn’t about condemning sports—both hosts love football. It’s about examining the heart. When does something good become something ultimate?

If you’re a Christian who loves sports, this conversation will challenge and encourage you to think biblically about the Super Bowl, the Sabbath, and the glory of Christ.

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Transcript

Framing The Super Bowl Question

Jeff 0:07

Welcome to Career Conversations. I'm your host, Jeff Robinson, with my co-host Travis Kearns, and today we're going to talk about something that normally we love talking about, and that is football. And normally we're talking about tigers and bulldogs and things like that, but today we want to talk about the big football game that they had over the weekend that America it almost takes as a national holiday, and that is Super Bowl Sunday. It uh as we, Travis and I talked about this as we listen to all the things surrounding advertisements and the even what the announcers uh discussed during the game, uh, we want to just consider some questions about the Super Bowl, and not really the halftime show. No, that's the sort of the flavor of the month. We're not interested in talking about that so much, but just answering the question: when does football become idolatry? Uh and uh looking at our own hearts, our own minds here as two uh Southerners who love college football, we're glad they don't play on Sunday. That's for sure, right, Travis. So but uh yeah, uh is it a good use of the Lord's Day? Uh what do we think about statements like football is what unifies us in this country, uh, or things like Sundays aren't for football. So, Travis, uh, you this this was a really good idea you had, so I'm gonna kick it to you and let you kind of introduce this a little a little more depth for us.

“Sundays Are For Football” Claims

Travis 1:31

Yeah, sure. So before the Super Bowl started during the pregame, um there were a number of commentators, there were some NFL ads, uh, things like that. Um in fact I heard Chris Collins were say this a few times. Um, and of course, as I mentioned, those NFL ads said it as well. Things like what you just mentioned. Sundays are for football. Um one thing I heard three or four times, the greatest Sunday of the year, the best Sunday of the year, is Super Bowl Sunday. Uh and then heard things like if there's one thing that can unify us all together, it's football. Uh football brings families together, football brings friends together, on and on on it goes. Now, the thing is, is to some degree you can't blame the NFL for this because they're business. Uh they're not in this just to provide football for everybody to enjoy, they're in it to make a dollar. Um, they're a normal business operation, just like Major League Baseball, just like NASCAR, just like the NCAA for college sports. Um but I don't know that I've heard another sports organization speak about their sport in the same way the NFL did about the Super Bowl prior to the game, during all the pregame um talking and commentating and bloviating um that you know, especially things like Sundays are for football uh or the best Sunday of the year is Super Bowl Sunday. Um so that's that really struck me pretty strongly thinking, again, not to blame the NFL because they're a business organization. This is what they do, they're trying to advertise their product. But how many uh people were hearing that and buying that and saying things like, yeah, Sunday is for football? Um it it just struck me as something that we should talk about and how we should or rather ask the question, how should we think about this as Christians? Are our Sundays for football? Uh is the best Sunday of the year from a Christian perspective, is the best Sunday of the year Super Bowl Sunday? Uh I would venture to say that we would answer absolutely not uh that the best Sunday of the year is not Super Bowl Sunday, regardless of who may or may not be playing, regardless of the halftime show or halftime shows, however many there are. Um but what is this all about? So that's where the idea came from. Yep.

Idolatry And The Christian Heart

Jeff 4:05

Well, and to be and as I said, or to be clear, we we both love sports, uh love football. I uh am a former sports writer and uh have even had to examine my own heart, especially with me, it's been baseball. Uh is is this something that I love too much that it has replaced Christ on the throne of my own heart. So I this is something uh issue I've had to think through a lot. And of course I do think it is different for Christians and uh and the secular world uh with as as far as how we use Sunday, because you know, what we we believe every Sunday is sacred, and sacred in the sense that we go to worship, we use it for worship. We uh we we believe that's the day that God is set aside for the worship of himself for his people and uh and rest. And so uh we uh as evangelical Christians, that's how we use Sunday, and so our Sundays aren't for football, even if we watch football. And that's not our our purpose here, is also not to decide whether or not we think it's a sin to watch football on Sunday. I don't think either one of us that believes it is. I I don't I know there are Christians who disagree with that, and that's fine. That's uh there's a place for uh variety among evangelicals, I think, when it comes to what you know what we do with the Lord's Day, even if you're a saboteuran or not. Uh but uh but we you know we use the Lord's Day for the as the Lord's Day. Uh now there was a time, uh particularly Major League Baseball, in the time uh 75 years ago or so, when men like Branch Rickey, who owned the Dodgers, and and uh Christy Mathewson, one of the uh early star pitchers in big league baseball, would not, uh Matthewson wouldn't pitch on Sunday because of his Christian commitments, uh and Branch Rickey uh would not attend Dodgers games. Or he was also a general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Pirates and other teams. But of course, Branch Rickey is best known for bringing Jackie Robinson to the big leagues at 1947 and breaking the color barrier. And uh what a wonder wonderful day that was. April 15th, 1947. I think that should be a a national holiday because of what it did for civil rights and what it did for sports, and and and really our that that discussion is so much better than the woke discussions we have about race today, in my opinion. But that's another podcast or another time. Maybe in April we'll do that, Travis. Uh, but uh yeah, I I I think uh, you know, we no one thinks about that, it seems like anymore, with the appropriateness of calling saying that Sunday is for football. Uh, but it was a time in sports history. There have been NFL players back in the you know, maybe 50s and 60s who would not play or or or who who had trepidation about playing on the Lord's Day. And uh, of course, football's always been on the on the Lord's Day. And of course, the the most famous example of this is Eric Liddell, the great Olympic runner, uh the chairs of the fire movie who would not, who forwent or forego a gold medal instead of running on Sunday. So it's just not a discussion we have anymore, and uh I think uh that's just a product of uh a loss of how we think theologically about things like the Lord's Day.

What The Lord’s Day Is For

Travis 7:04

Yeah, you know, I just checked the uh the Baptist Faith and Message Article 8, is on the Lord's Day, uh, and it reads this is the Baptist Faith Message 2000. First day of the week is the Lord's Day. It's a Christian institution for regular observance. It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should include exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private. Activities on the Lord's Day should be commensurate with the Christian's conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. So it uh obviously the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 allows for um various other activities insofar as the Christian's conscience allows it. Now, Jeff, the uh the institution where you and I uh did master's and doctoral work and then uh served on faculty and staff for a while at Southern Seminary, has, as you well know, uh other governing documents, theological governing documents, one of which is the abstract of principles. The abstract in the Lord's Day is very straightforward. It says this the Lord's Day is a Christian institution for regular observance. It should be employed in exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private, wresting from worldly employments and amusements, works of necessity and mercy only accepted. So not accepted, accepted. Uh so you get pretty different conclusions drawn by Baptists from across the years. Obviously, the abstract of principles written by South Carolina Baptists, initially ratified by South Carolina Baptists when Southern Seminary was founded here. Uh the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, not a South Carolina specific document, uh, but a national SBC document. So, yeah, there are some differences here. Uh I imagine 1689, the London Confession is uh probably closer to the abstract than it would be the Baptist Faith in Message 2000. Um not knowing that as well as you would off the top of my head. I imagine Westminster is probably the same among Presbyterians. It's closer to the abstract than it would be to the Baptist Faith in Message 2000, that worldly secular jobs, so employment and or entertainment should be uh unless absolutely necessary, should be um excused on those days and or on that day and used uh specifically for worship and private family study and devotion. Yeah. But yeah, the just the idea that the NFL would would go so far as to say Sundays are for football, uh and then the best Sunday of the year is Super Bowl Sunday. It's again not blaming the NFL. That's they're trying to make their money, um, but it was shocking to hear it nonetheless.

Jeff 9:43

Well, somewhere uh the Puritans uh in the old world and England and the New World uh here in America who settled this country, actually, are spinning in the graves that we're even having this conversation because they are devoted to the Lord's Day. Of course, if you don't know the Puritans where you've read a lot of you library listeners may uh are familiar, no doubt, with uh The Pilgrim's Progress, the book written by John Bunyan, and uh probably the second best-selling book after the King James Bible in the history of printed books. Uh and uh Bunyan was a Puritan, Jonathan Edwards was an American, Puritan Bunyan was in England uh a hundred years before Edwards. But uh in those days they they thought about the Lord's Day, they really honored the Lord's Day. There was it was uh a matter of church discipline to dishonor the Lord's Day. Uh and yes, you're right, the Second London Confession, which by the way, the abstract of principles is an abstract of the Second London Confession. And back in the founding of the SBC, a hundred years before that, here in America, the m most associations, like the one you're ahead of, and especially here in South Carolina, had their own confession of faith, and churches did. And it was some derivative of the Second London Confession, typically. Uh the Charleston Association in particular, and probably all the churches, most of the churches planted here in the upstate where you and I both are, uh, where we both serve, uh, where we're uh Charleston Confession churches. And the chapter 22 of the Second London Confession was on religious worship and the Sabbath day, and they called it the Sabbath day, the Christian Sabbath, which is, I don't think, a bad term. And there were eight paragraphs devoted to this. This is how seriously they took it. So just to say it's for football or for anything other than worship, the again, the the Puritans who who wrote this in second in 1689 in England, and their uh those who came after them, their sons and daughters, would have had a stroke. Uh just to give you how just here's the first paragraph. I'll read this uh for us. Uh one of eight again. The lot of nature shows that there is a God who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is just good, and doth good unto all. It is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the might. So, before I finish that, this this first paragraph, there was a fear of God. They established who God is, that this God is to be worshipped the one God, worshiped and loved and praised and feared. And so, again, I think they would have been afraid almost to ask this question. Should we be playing football? They'd say, no, we should be playing football on Sunday. They would have answered this. Uh, but it goes on to read, but the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination or devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations were in any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. And so they that that last uh those last few sentences are what uh came to be known as the regulatory principle of worship with Southern Baptists originally held to strongly. And so back in those days, uh that there wasn't football, it's somewhat anachronistic, I realize, to ask this question or weigh this on those scales, but they uh they took it much more seriously than we do. And so I think I think what you and I are feeling here is perhaps a uh kind of a a uh uh taking the Lord's Day lightly uh and and not even really considering what it's for. And do you think Baptists today, I mean you're over how many churches are in the are in your associate the three-year association?

Travis 13:13

We're at 104 right now. Yep.

Jeff 13:15

Of your the 104 churches and all the churches around you know the South, South Carolina, Deep South, how many of them think about the Lord's Day very seriously, would you say?

Travis 13:24

Oh, it's it's a tiny percentage, I would I would say. Most uh vast majority. Um yeah, I'd say it's a small percentage. If by seriously you mean uh, you know, Second London Confession, Abstract of Principles, uh Charleston Confession, uh in that way serious, yeah, it's a very, very small number.

unknown 13:44

Yeah.

Jeff 13:45

I wonder just how many though even think more than okay, we go to church and after that it's a second Saturday for us.

History: Athletes And Sunday Convictions

Travis 13:52

Uh I think it's I wouldn't say churches would say that, but I think it's a majority of the people in those churches would say that, yeah. I think what uh what we're really dealing with here is is kind of two questions. So I think the first question we're dealing with is the question of idolatry. Um Sundays for football is the best Sunday of the year, uh Super Bowl Sunday, because that's very idolatrous simply to say those things. Um that's kind of a m that might be more of the symptom than the problem itself. The problem itself is the second question I think we're asking, which is what we've been spending a little bit more time on, and that's the idea of the Sabbath generally, uh, or the Lord's Day um more generally. So uh yeah, I think it's I think it's two separate questions. I think it's two separate questions that that definitely deserve discussion um because it's a this is a it's not necessarily as contentious as other theological issues, but it definitely has some debate going on uh in theological writings. Um you know, so you see the the John Frames and the Wayne Grudums and the Beacon Smallies uh of the world. I won't include the old dead guys like you, like like uh Turretin and Von Maesterich, because we all know what they're gonna say. Uh they're gonna side strongly with Westminster for obvious reasons. Uh, but there is some at least discussion going on in contemporary uh theologies uh about the Sabbath. Not so much about idolatry, that's fairly well settled, I would say, but more about what the Lord's Day is and is not.

Jeff 15:31

Yeah, it's interesting that John Bunyan in his uh his uh powerful book he wrote, um Grace of Bounding to the Chief Among Sinners, which is his testimony, personal testimony. John Bunyan had a lot of lot many, many struggles, acute struggles with uh assurance of his faith. And he outlines that in there. And one of the one of the um uh one of the proofs he uh uses for what a a hellbound sinner he was and what a what a carnal-minded man was that he used to uh once in a while on the Lord's Day play a game of cat, which is sort of an early version of golf. It's not exactly like golf, but a game of cat. Uh and uh and and so it's just interesting how seriously they took it uh back then. And I do think, I mean, I'll I'll say this, I mean, I I was a a lover of the Puritans, and you know, I read them just about every day uh in uh in some forum. Uh you know, I I I d do I think they could go overboard with that? I do. I mean, I think, you know, to discipline someone for playing a game of cat would probably be a little overboard. Uh, you know, I think we've you know, but I think maybe we've swung with the the way we view the Lord and say now we've swung it all the way to the other side. Because even and I even wonder about this, how many I'll ask you, I'll ask you, how many churches do you think in the Three River Association have a Sunday evening service?

Travis 16:55

Uh not very many anymore. Maybe 20%. That might even be too high.

Jeff 17:01

Do you think that's the cause of the for this issue that they just think that they sort of tend to think of the Lord's Day as, hey, we go to church and the rest of the day belongs, you know, another Saturday or something like that, or is it a lack of attendance? What do you what would you think that's owing to? I don't know.

Travis 17:14

Uh yeah, I think it's more lack of attendance, um, which one of the one of the reasons for the lack of attendance could be either a misunderstanding or uh a misunderstanding of the Lord's Day or a lack of care of concern for meeting with God's people again. I don't know what those reasons are, but I think a lack of attendance, um, I think another reason is uh just to be frank, is overworked pastors. Uh, you know, if you're gonna I remember MacArthur saying one time when he was on campus at Southern that he spent 40 hours a week per sermon writing those sermons. Uh so let's just say you take half of that, you take 20 hours. If you're writing a Sunday morning, a Sunday night, and then a Wednesday night Bible study, you're 60 hours a week just studying and writing those messages. That's that's not a little amount of time. That's a full-time job and a half just in preparing and writing messages. Um so I think, you know, I think lack of attendance, um I think overworked pastors, I think lack of attendance is probably the biggest. Um uh whether or not it's due to a misunderstanding of the Lord's Day or something like that, I don't know. Yeah.

Confessions And Sabbath Views Compared

Jeff 18:30

And to be and also to be clear, raising that question, I'm not I'm not suggesting that churches that don't have uh Sunday service are wrong or they've gone down the uh some kind of slippery slope. I don't I I don't think that uh is necessarily true. The church I remember of, we have uh we have a once a month we have a Sunday evening uh we have a members meeting and we have a they'll have a sh uh a uh homily and things like that. It's uh you know, we sing, we do things that look like a or or worship time during that. It's just really good. Uh but I've not, yeah, I I I pastored two churches. A church in Alabama had uh Sunday evening service, and then the church in Louisville I pastored did not. And we had some people who want to start it. We tried to start it, but it just we would have eight people. Uh, out of 120 people, we'd have eight, ten people in addition, including my family. And so it was a thing where did we really want to prepare sermons for that kind of thing? And uh, you know, so I don't and I don't know what's what's behind that. Uh and uh one one uh one friend of mine has suggested is the proliferation of sports uh among you know that now uh little league baseball and you know pony league baseball, travel ball, they play on Sundays. Uh we did not let our son, my sons uh both were in fact my oldest son was a very serious baseball player, but did not play on the Lord's Day. We just agreed that wasn't going to happen, and and uh he played a Christian school, and they did not, as a general play on the Lord's Day. Anyway, once in a blue moon, they'd have practice. And he would go to that. We weren't legalistic about it, but we just agreed he didn't like it. And uh, of course, and he was one of the best players on the team. Uh and so uh I I I don't know. It does seem like we have a lot of other things to do, and this uh, you know, what we heard the Sunday from the the Super Bowl commentators of Sundays for football, it's just uh you know an assumption uh that even a lot of Christians I think would make uh as being, okay, it's fine to say that.

Travis 20:20

Right. Yeah, it's interesting, you know, if if um if we're looking at following scripture, um uh I I know uh Jeff, you and I have talked about the regulative principle, the idea that scripture regulates how our church is to function. If scripture says it, uh either implicitly or explicitly, we can do it. If scripture doesn't mention it, then we shouldn't. Um obviously if it says don't do it, we don't do it at all. Um but between the regulative principle and the normative, uh the idea of the normative principle, um so what we see though in the book of Acts is a movement after the resurrection from the day of worship being Friday sundown to Saturday sundown over to Sunday. And what you see throughout Acts is the early church is always mentioned as when they were together on the first day of the week. Which was always Sunday. Uh so there is this major shift on the day of worship. In fact, one of the arguments that early apologists use to show that Christ really rose from the dead is the idea of the change of the day of worship from Friday sundown, Saturday sundown to Sunday. Because the the early church, the apostles, who were Jewish in their upbringing for the most part, would not at all have even entertained the idea of moving the Sabbath from Friday sundown, Saturday sundown to Sunday, unless there was some big reason for this. And the big reason for it is obviously because the resurrection takes place on Sunday. So the day of worship is moved to Sunday by the early church post-resurrection for the simple reason. Fact of celebrating the resurrection every single week when they come together on the first day. So we see Sunday is not for football, Sunday is indeed for worshiping the Lord set apart specifically for that. What is then? Um maybe we should bat this around. What is then the best Sunday of the year? I think that'd be a fun question for us in the final few minutes that we have here. What is the best? Is there a best Sunday of the year?

Puritans, Charleston, And 1689 Roots

Jeff 22:31

See, I'm a baseball fan, so if the World Series was being played on Sunday, I would like that better than that. But that would I wouldn't I wouldn't call that the best Sunday of the year, you know, especially I would like that if the Reds were playing it in a Cincinnati fan, but uh or the or the Braves. But but no, I I I don't and I think the answer is it's every Sunday. I don't think there is I think I think the answer, the common answer would be Easter, of course. But I would argue that every every Sunday is a is a celebration of Easter. It's just as you just put it, there's a a transition. Uh of course a lot of this has to do with how you put the covenants and how we put the Bible together, but I think there is a transition to the first day of the week that's clearly made, and the certain certainly the early church tradition followed that, uh, and I think rightly so because I think the regulator principle demands that uh that we worship on Sunday. But I don't think there is uh a best Sunday of the year as far as it goes, because um uh, you know, I think for the world would they might say a more accurate statement the the the most fun Sunday of the year for the world is probably the Super Bowl Sunday. But the best Sunday is I I I love, I personally, and I'm sure you're in this camp too. You've been in ministry like me a long time. I love the Lord's Day. I love Sunday. I love going to church. It's not hard for me to go to church if we had a Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, Sunday night service. Uh it would be hard for me to go to all those uh because I've grown up that way and love it. And so uh to me, I I look forward to Sunday, whether I'm usually it especially if I'm preaching, but I look forward to Sundays and uh and so every Sunday is uh uh you know is uh is the best Sunday in my mind. And I don't think the Bible certainly doesn't mark out one Sunday as the best. I mean the best Sunday in history was the the the the first Easter when Jesus rose from that's the that's probably the greatest, most uh turn uh world uh sort of seismic uh Sunday in the history of the world that turned the world upside down. But as far as the best, uh besides that one, I don't think you can argue anyone's better than the other. They're all glorious if you understand it in a biblical sense.

Travis 24:26

Yeah, I would agree. You know, it's uh one of the things that uh to use a southern proverbial phrase, one of the things that's always chat mahide is uh is when you hear people talk about Easter Sunday as the as the best Sunday of the year, the b the biggest Sunday of worship, whatever, when it it's really not a commemoration on that particular day, that that's the day every single year that Jesus rose from the dead, which is why Easter fluctuates. It's all based on uh the lunar phases of the moon as to when that Sunday actually appears on our calendar. And from an umbrella way of looking at it, Christian churches have differed on their calendars with one Sunday or another Sunday, uh based on which church you're in, uh which larger Christian uh tradition you're in. But yeah, I'd I would agree wholeheartedly that every Sunday, uh the Sunday before Easter is just as important as Easter Sunday, is just as important as the following Sunday, uh, is just as important as the second Sunday in November, uh or whatever it may be, uh, that every single Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ. Uh and yes, churches, because of the push in American culture for selling greeting cards and candy, um you know, look specifically to that one Sunday of the year that's that's referred to as Easter. Um every single Sunday is resurrection Sunday. Every Sunday is the day when believers gather to celebrate the resurrection. Um which also I think brings up a whole nother point that we don't have time for today, but brings up a whole nother point of what is the corporate gathering on Sunday for? Is it should it be geared more towards unbelievers or geared more towards believers? Uh which again is something we can't we don't have time to deal with today. Maybe we do that in a in a later podcast, but I think that might be an interesting discussion as well. But nonetheless, I'm in full agreement. Every Sunday is the Lord's Day, not just one in the spring every year.

Jeff 26:34

Yeah, that is a good topic for a future podcast. I suppose we're out of time with this soon. And I I do, uh, there's a country song that came out a few years ago, and you know, love good old country music, and uh Craig Morgan wrote a song, What I Love About Sunday. You may remember that song. Actually, a friend of mine, Adam Dorsey, wrote for went to Southern Seminary with us, wrote that song. And uh, you know, and it goes through uh what you experience on a typical Sunday, starting with church uh here in the Deep South. And it does include football, which is interesting. Uh, but uh yeah, I love Sunday, and uh I'm I'm I'm glad we could uh that this raised the opportunity to talk about it, and I want to see, would love to see Southern Baptists take Sunday more seriously. Let's say that you don't have to hold to the regular principle, but take it more seriously. See it as the time of worship. Thank you for listening to this podcast of the Baptist Courier and Courier Publishing. Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms, give us a five-star review, and send any question you want us to consider to Courier Conversations at gmail.com. If you prefer to watch our conversations, check us out on YouTube by clicking the link in the description.