Tennis is played between the lines. Keep the ball within the lines and you are in pretty good shape (except for hitting the net!). Think of tennis as a game of boundaries.
“Between the lines” is also an interesting framework with which to compare the Old and New Testaments.
The Old Testament provided many boundary lines. Broadly speaking, there are the Ten Commandments, the Torah (the 613 laws of God as revealed to Moses and recorded in the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures), the Mishnah (an authoritative collection of exegetical material embodying the oral tradition of Jewish law) and the Talmud (the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law and Jewish theology). Lots of boundaries!
The New Testament has it own teachings that some may consider boundaries: the 4 Gospels (including parables and teachings such as the Beatitudes) and the Epistles. In a very distinctive way, however, the New Testament goes beyond boundaries by expanding the idea of love as defined in the Great Commandment:
Mark 12: 29-31
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
The Great Commandment is a unique blending of establishing boundaries and eliminating boundaries. The first part—establishing boundaries—comes from Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” The second part—eliminating boundaries—is uniquely Christ’s: “Love you neighbor as yourself.” This blending is described in Matthew 5:17 as follows: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” In essence, love is without boundaries.
What does this have to do with tennis? Simply this. The game cannot be played without rules and boundaries but, in the sense of “love thy neighbor as thyself”, we can compete with greater civility, respect, and-though it may sound silly-love toward our opponents.
Image by Henry Kluge from Pixabay
