The Miami Herald’s Joseph Goodman reports the following sign appears less than a half mile from the Florida Gators’ training facility. I’ve neither the time nor inclination to flex my journalistic chops and confirm or refute this sign’s existence, but surely Goodman is aware it’s pretty easy to rig this kind of thing?
Eric Brown, the 31-year-old minister at Gainesville’s Campus Church of Christ, says he hopes Tebow sees the sign while the Heisman Trophy winner drives to and from campus. If you’re wondering about the Bible verse, Matthew 6:13, you might already know it. It’s the final few lines of the Lord’s Prayer: “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”
While Brown says he did attend Saturday’s game between No. 12 Florida (3-1) and Ole Miss (3-2), the minister says the sign, located on S.W. 2nd Avenue only a few blocks west of campus, has nothing do with Florida’s 31-30 loss to the Ole Miss Rebels.
“I’m going to pray that [Tebow] is true to his faith because if he falls and gets caught up in some kind of scandal it will be bad for Christianity,” Brown said.
Actually, I go to this church. And the point of the message was that there are a lot of people using the name of Christ, and saying that they are Christians and then not living it out. The name of the sermon was kind of a joke. But the point was, if Tim Tebow was get caught up in a scandal, people would take that and relate it to his religion. The point wasn’t about Tebow. The point was that if we’re going to announce religion or faith, we need to have the actions to back it up.