"The Goal Post Standard"

 

“The Goal Post Standard”

 

At the rear of the end zones of American college and professional football fields stand goal posts. As the game has evolved their construction, location and dimensions have changed but were standardized in 1974: wishbone shaped with the crossbar ten feet off the ground, each post rising 20 feet from the crossbar and 18 feet, six inches apart. And the design and placement remains the same no matter what the weather, skill level of the players or other variables might be.

The idiom “moving the goal posts” has arisen to describe efforts to change rules and governing factors to conform to a particular agenda. (A “Peanuts” strip of yesteryear has Good Ol’ Charlie Brown shooting an arrow at a fence then drawing a target around where it hit and stating, “That way I never miss!”) This leads to a distortion of facts and can play fast and loose with the truth, leading to confusion and unrest.

On an episode of “All in the Family” Archie Bunker told his daughter Gloria, “Jesus Christ is who’s great, little girl. I knew that long before them rock and roll freaks made him a ‘superstar’.” (Pretty good theology from an unexpected source.) But who or what sets the standard for who Christ is or anything else? The psalmist (possibly King David) answers the question clearly; “Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.” (Psalm 119:89, emphasis added). And Paul makes Jesus’ Person as God and man plain by writing, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form….” (Colossians 2:9, emphasis added). So what truth is and who Jesus is has already been determined and isn’t subject to debate or public opinion polls, In the words of God’s prophet, “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8, emphasis added). So let’s just leave the goal posts where God has put them.

 

Grace and Blessings!

Jim McMillan