The opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Olympics were held a couple of days ago in an empty stadium, but the real action is about to begin. Every four years, the International Olympics Committee (IOC) holds the Olympic Games in its selected city in order to showcase the world’s most conditioned individuals in athletic competition. The narrative, ever since the Olympics were resurrected in the modern era by  Pierre de Coubertin in 1896 in Athens Greece, was that man could engage in healthy competition rather than war. The “human spirit” is often celebrated as a component of these games and the motto, Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) captures the notion that man can do anything if he sets his mind to it.

The Olympic Games are the centerpiece of global athletic competition, but it’s also the epicenter of the most debauched sexual behavior by approximately 75% of its athletes.

What really goes on at the Olympics

In a 2012 ESPN article titled Will you still medal in the morning?, the author indicates that the Olympic village – the place where most athletes are housed during the summer and winter Olympics – is a facilitator for sex among many of the athletes competing. In fact, one Olympic athlete during the 2000 Games in Sydney, who maintained his Olympic quarters well after his competition was over, used it as a place where athletes could hook up regularly.

“I’m running a friggin’ brothel in the Olympic Village! I’ve never witnessed so much debauchery in my entire life,” said the athlete quoted in the article.

Fornication is so rampant that each host city’s organizing committee orders condoms by the thousands to give out like candy to all the competing athletes. According to other articles and firsthand accounts, the Olympic games have always been a place for athletes to get their freak on since its inception. Away from home, family and friends, these individuals in peak physical condition hook up with as many people as they can. It should be no surprise since most of these people are in love with the world and see themselves as beautiful physical specimens. Furthermore, with the Olympic organizers facilitating the sexual activity, what’s to stop them.

The ESPN article indicates that the organizers of the 2000 Sydney Games handed out 70,000 condoms to roughly 10,000 athletes but admitted that still wasn’t enough. A standing order since then has been that subsequent organizing committees would order a minimum of 100,000 condoms for participating athletes.

The ancient Olympics – where it all started

As many may already know, the Olympic games were created by the Greeks in 776 BC as part of a religious festival honoring Zeus. These games were held every four years until roughly 393 AD. This “spirit” of the Olympic games is much deeper than simple athletic competition

While there is nothing wrong with athletic competition in general, doing so under the auspices of honoring Zeus can run the gamut from questionable to breaking the commandments (Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me).

Let’s also look at the behavior of the Greeks when they persuaded Israel to abandon their customs, forget their law and live as heathens.

In First Maccabees, a glimpse of what Israel did as many of them began to follow the Greeks can be found in 1 Maccabees 1:11-15:

11 In those days went there out of Israel wicked men, who persuaded many, saying, Let us go and make a covenant with the heathen that are round about us: for since we departed from them we have had much sorrow.

12 So this device pleased them well.

13 Then certain of the people were so forward herein, that they went to the king, who gave them licence to do after the ordinances of the heathen:

14 Whereupon they built a place of exercise at Jerusalem according to the customs of the heathen:

15 And made themselves uncircumcised, and forsook the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the heathen, and were sold to do mischief.

The Greeks also competed in their ancient Olympic games in the nude, right up until the first few centuries after Christ was crucified. Adding mischief and nudity is a recipe for debauchery.

How we are called to live

It’s ironic that this world pedestalizes the best athletes in the world while many of them engage in the most detestable activities the Scriptures warns us about. But it’s not just the Olympics where this nonsense occurs. How many NFL, NBA and MLB athletes run through scores of women (and men) as they travel throughout the country and overseas? So many of them to the point where the media jokingly winks at it.

The Scriptures outline the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21 as well as 1 Corinthians 6:9-10:

Galatians 5:19-21

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Instead, the Scriptures tell us that we should live by the Spirit:

Galatians 5:22-25

2 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Since we are called to live by the Spirit as followers of Christ, what should we say about the Olympic and human spirit and these games that are held in honor of Zeus? Let them hold their Olympic games. We shall, instead, put our focus on Christ, rejecting the works of the flesh and not pedestalizing those who engage in that behavior.