He’s only played one game since being dumped by the Wallabies for paraphrasing a passage from the Bible but, according to Fox Sports, Israel Folau is already being feted as the top contender to take out Super League’s Man of Steel. Lee Radford, the coach for Hull, said recently:

He’s an absolute talent, he could be Man of Steel.

He’s multi-talented, at league, union, AFL, you can tell he’s played AFL by how he jumps, he jumps like Michael Jordan.

While following Christ doesn’t necessarily guarantee success in every endeavour in life, Folau’s example is strikingly similar to that Eric Liddell, of whom the classic Chariots of Fire is based. Both men refused to compromise their Biblical convictions when the world around them was pressuring them to compromise and cave. And just like Liddell, the Lord has honoured their courage and faith.

In the penultimate scene in the movie, Liddell is approached by the American athlete Jackson Scholz, who hands him a slip of paper with a verse from 1 Samuel 2:30. It read, “He who honours Me, I will honour.” It was a timely word since Liddell was competing in the 400 meters rather than the 100 meters—of which he held the world record for thirty-five-years—because the heats were on the Lord’s Day which went again his conscience.

But not only did Liddell win the race, he also broke the Olympic Record, a truly staggering achievement for an event he hadn’t really trained for.

However, the passage from 1 Samuel 2:30 is worth quoting in full. Because the second half of the verse reads, “Those who honour Me I will honour, but those who despise Me will be disdained.” This is where both men—Liddell and Folau—fear God more than man.

Whether or not Folau continues to win sporting accolades doesn’t really matter for the approval that he is seeking is from above (see Matthew 25:23; Galatians 1:10). But he is a wonderful example of what it means to be faithful in a culture that is increasingly hostile to the message of Christ.

[Photos: Laurent Selles (4 February 2020); unknown (19 July 1924) / Wikimedia Commons]