Bible in the preseason: 12 days of faith in the NBA
The Raptors center posts a daily reel with a different player; Josh Hart's passed 110,000 views.
While the league talks about cuts and rotations, Trey Jemison posts Bible in the preseason: one reel a day with a guest. The Toronto Raptors center is on day 7 of 12, according to RELEVANT Magazine.
The format repeats. He introduces the guest in the post text, tags him and notes the passage. CJ McCollum, of the Atlanta Hawks; Luka Garza; Josh Hart; Dwight Howard and Malachi Smith, his teammate in Toronto, have already appeared. He introduces each one with a short phrase and notes their verse.
Five teams in three years
Jemison doesn't look at uncertainty from comfort. Before signing with Toronto on August 4, he had been through five NBA teams in three seasons. Today he has a two-way contract and fights for minutes on a roster loaded with big men.
«Faith doesn't serve to bend God's will in our favor; it gives solid ground under trembling feet.»
Five jerseys in three seasons mean moves and starting over. Nothing in that journey guarantees a spot for the following year. That's why the detail stops me: in a league where a place can vanish from one day to the next, the selection of passages doesn't seem casual.
It's not his first time either; he's been hosting Bible studies on Instagram since his days with the Lakers. The new thing is that now he passes the mic to others.
The passages: strength for the weary
McCollum got Proverbs 3:5-6. Garza brought Galatians 6:9. Hart chose Isaiah 40:29-31. Smith picked Psalm 119:71, about what difficulty teaches. Howard, Ephesians 6. Several of those passages have a common thread: enduring when strength falters.
"He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength." (Isaiah 40:29, ESV)
"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9, ESV)
Both texts promise the same thing: endurance, not results. Neither guarantees that faith will get the contract or that God hands out minutes according to each one's devotion. They offer strength for the day when things don't work out.
For someone looking for a job or waiting for an answer that doesn't come, that difference matters. Faith doesn't serve to bend God's will in our favor; it gives solid ground under trembling feet.
One guest per day, 110,000 views
The numbers back it up. Hart's reel passed 110,000 views and 13,700 likes; Garza's is around 97,000 and McCollum's around 46,000. The account has about 81,000 followers, so the guests expand the audience.
What catches my attention isn't the reach, but the naturalness with which a player in the middle of a fight for his place spends part of the preseason reading the Bible in public. No stage, no sermon: a phone and a passage.
This week you can do something similar. Pick a text from Scripture, send it to someone you know is tired and ask them how they're really doing. You don't need an audience to support a person. What passage sustains you this week?
