Does God Own a Playstation?

Speaker 1
right, that if you're a Christian making shoes, right, the old Christian cobbler, are you going to let the world know by tying a little cross on the laces, or are you going to make some excellent shoes, right? So we're all about the latter. Amen.

Speaker 2
I'm Jeff Eckert. I am a pastor in Ormond-by-the-Sea, and if you don't know where that is, you're not alone. I tell people it's like where Mayberry meets the ocean. It's like 5,000 person population. It's called recession city because it's getting smaller somehow in Florida. And we're like 20 minutes north of Daytona International Speedway. So go fast, turn left, right? NASCAR. So that's a

Speaker 1
little bit about me. Stephen, who are you? I am Stephen. I'm the executive pastor at Grace Life Beachside. I've been working full-time there as executive pastor for about two and a half years now. I've got a background in education and construction, other things, and in time, the Lord called me to come on and help out around Grace Life Beachside Church. I've got a lovely wife and four daughters. As Jeff alluded to, I do enjoy philosophy, philosophical things, asking questions and wrestling with what in my experience are ideas that oftentimes it seems folks are not immediately interested in at least, but are nevertheless

Speaker 2
very interesting and worthwhile. So that's a little bit about me. Comparison to Steve and I have three sons. So he's got all girls, I got all boys, and my wife and I have been married 15 years. Her name's Lauren, and she's the first lady of Grace Life and blessed to have her. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Amen. So it's a little bit about us. And what do you think about maybe tackling just one topic and kind of giving folks a flavor for what this podcast will look like or be like? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. We're going to take elements from culture, from the headlines every week and kind of riff on them a little bit and look at them from a Christian perspective. Because again, sometimes Christians have a hard time bridging the gap from Sunday morning to Monday morning and the rest of their life. And all of life is religious. And this podcast is seeking to really demonstrate that. So I came up with this idea for this week, just so everyone's aware. It may seem silly, but it was valuable to me. And it was a slower news week. I mean, unless we were going to talk about Nancy Guthrie, but maybe folks wanted a little break from that. She's been missing three weeks, and we pray about that. What's up? Yeah, folks are sick of hearing about it. They probably are sick of hearing about it. Like Bad Bunny. Bad Bunny as well and the Super Bowl and everything else. But something noteworthy that I found in the headlines which touched me was – so the creator of the Sega Dreamcast video game system passed away. Genesis and all of that. Did he do the Genesis too?

Speaker 1
Yeah, that was all his team.

Speaker 2
Did he do Dreamcast as well? Yeah, that's what I'm saying, yeah.

Speaker 1
Soto, man, he was the man.

Speaker 2
Soto, okay. So he passed away, as well as the creator of the Castlevania video game series, which was a big part of my childhood.

Speaker 3
And Steven, same for you? Yeah, hell yeah. New one's coming out soon.

Speaker 2
New Castlevania? Mm-hmm. Really? Mm-hmm. Goodness. On which platform? All of them. Wow. Well, that, obviously, did you play a lot of video games as a kid?

Speaker 1
I don't think more than the average, you know, 1982 born Nintendo and Sega gaming system owner.

Speaker 2
So every spare second of the day?

Speaker 1
Right, exactly, yeah. No, I played quite a bit, but I got outside quite a bit, too. I certainly was not a gamer like gamers these days. You think gamer these days, these guys, they don't know when the sun is up or down. you know hunkered down playing video games that wasn't me but i i certainly played plenty of video games especially tony hawk pro skater too but we're not talking playstation as much as sega now

Speaker 2
yeah so you were blessed because you're a few years behind me in age i had to hack through like the original like atari i never had an atari yeah see that's what i'm saying the little blocks that were supposed to be people uh and then the uh the original nintendo which i threatened my parents that like if they didn't get it for me, even though we were like really poor, that I would like never talk to them. So, you know. I'm sure they were concerned. Yeah, they were very, it's not the best of, but I had to hack through those early video game systems and Pro Skater 2, that was a PlayStation game, right? Yeah, Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Dude. Yeah, I remember I had buddies that were like,

Speaker 1
oh, I got 10,000 points on this one level. Show up at school talking like that. I was like, dude, I got 260,000. Goodness. Yeah. And they're like, I don't believe that. And then, well, we're hanging out this afternoon. And then they'd come over just jaws drop, drooling, eyes large, watching me play Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

Speaker 2
Dude.

Speaker 1
Yeah.

Speaker 2
You must have been like mastered that when you do like the nose riding thing in between your tricks, right? Oh, dude.

Speaker 1
So that you have like one continuous maneuver, right? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2
With like 30 different elements.

Speaker 1
Absolutely. Yeah. If they had YouTube back then and kids were getting paid to play a video game, I wouldn't be here right now.

Speaker 2
I'd be rolling.

Speaker 4
You'd be the original, like, Jake and Logan Paul, right? That's right. You're famous for nothing.

Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

Speaker 4
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah. What was my first? I was kind of like you. I got out as well, surfing, stuff like that. Although there was this one winter, I broke my arm snowboarding. This lady fell in front of me, and I tried to avert her, and I landed on a big block of ice. So I broke my wrist, bro. Really, not my arm, my wrist. So I spent like three months inside, and I played NHL PA like 93 or something and scored 100 goals in one game with the triple deke maneuver, which is, you know, you go back, forth, back.

Speaker 4
Don't tell me about the triple deke.

Speaker 2
Do you know about the triple deke? No, I don't. Okay. So big for hockey fans, triple deke, 100. And I showed my mom, and she got a picture of me with my cast.

Speaker 1
I've seen the Mighty Ducks, though. It's coming back to me. Have you seen the Mighty Ducks?

Speaker 2
Yeah, bro. so yeah the triple deke was undefeated in that game you could the goalie was electronic and could never catch up to the triple deke so well maybe it was an easter egg or a hole there but but talking about video games how should we think about video games from a christian perspective like does does god own a playstation like i know that's being anachronistic but but how does how does god feel about video games because this is a somewhat controversial topic you know should we care that video game designers have died and did they actually contribute anything to the world or like how should we think about video games here's the question i i jotted down yeah bring it Is digital play, like video games, a gift, a neutral pastime, or a waste? Like, is it ever okay to engage in some sort of like digital fun, digital play? Yeah, my brief, succinct answers to those questions can be no, yes.

Speaker 1
I think I'm remembering in that order, right? But can games be a gift and a good thing? Can playing video games escape being a simple waste of time, right? That's kind of how I'm wrestling with the question. Am I following you? Yeah.

Speaker 2
Yeah.

Speaker 1
Elaborate.

Speaker 2
Riff on it a little bit.

Speaker 1
Walk us through your thinking. I think like many things, the answer, an absolute yes or an absolute no, would be unworthy of the seriousness of the question. 100%.

Speaker 2
I agree. I feel the same way, yes and no.

Speaker 1
Let's hear our guesses first. Yeah, it depends.

Speaker 2
Like it's a gift. That it is a gift? Yeah, let's view it from that angle first.

Speaker 1
Like how can it be a gift? I think we'll come back to this in the broader sense, but it can absolutely be a gift to just behold the art of it. I've got buddies that have just been like enthralled in a good way, if you can say that, of just the art and the beauty of the design, right? Like some games, what was it? Final Fantasy. Oh, my gosh. When that came out, that was like mind-blowing.

Speaker 2
Yeah, see? Yeah.

Speaker 1
Only one person could play at a time, though.

Speaker 4
It kind of stunk, you know? Everybody's like watching this one person.

Speaker 2
Yeah, the appreciation just of the art and the design and the images that other human beings are able to create is fascinating.

Speaker 1
So I think that there's worth in that just from a very general artistic appreciation level. But then also, yes, as a healthy, what can be a healthy diversion. And I think that that's where for some people, and unfortunately some people in the church, maybe some old grumpy folks in the church, they just assume playing games is useless, right? that there's something less spiritual or unworthy about a human being's time spent doing something that isn't going to, you know, hit their investments or, you know, show some immediate fruit in their business or something like that, you know, but I do believe, and this is, I think, what we're going to talk about for a while, is just the worth of healthy diversions, right? Amen.

Speaker 2
from all the stuff that's a little bit more serious on the surface. But what do you think? I agree with you. I think there's a yes and a no. Like anything in culture, it's kind of how you use it. The internet can be the devil or the internet can be a great tool. AI, all these kind of things. But when it comes to video games specifically, is it something that's redeemable and worthy at times of recognizing and using as a gift, or is it kind of dangerous? I think the answer is yes. I think play, like you said, sanctified leisure to me is really what video games can be. I'm not saying that they're designed to be that way, because we know with the brain hacking stuff now coming out of Silicon Valley, the goal of these programmers is to addict you to their platforms, whatever they are, anything digital. And so you have to be extra on your guard about how you use them. So I agree. I think, yes, I think leisure, play, something that you're participating in that has a non-utilitarian value can be very worthy. So you think of any verses from scripture maybe to kind of, we're kind of zooming out from video games to like the general principle of play and leisure. We've kind of danced around it. Can you think of any scriptures that come to mind?

Speaker 1
I can, and I'll share it in a moment. You mentioned maybe some folks' perspective on video games. I forget the phrase that you use, but like sanctified leisure, right?

Speaker 4
Sanctified leisure, yeah.

Speaker 1
I figure, you know, some games it would be a little bit more difficult to make this case, right like maybe something like uh what's the one i've not played this game but um that like

Speaker 4
strippers and like grand theft auto that's a little hard to run that by your right it'd be

Speaker 1
hard to argue for the the sanctified uh leisure there when you're running around batting people upside the head and you know your your uh avatar gets sick of the violence and so takes it easy in the strip club exactly it'd be harder to argue for that than maybe for something like castlevania or Shredder's Revenge that I've enjoyed with my daughters and my wife. But anyway, you mentioned the utility of play in general. And it's funny, we think of like utilitarian things, things that maybe have a more ready application for some more immediate good for yourself, for others, for society. I think we think of utility and utilitarianism in that way. And so we suspect that when it seems like we're wasting time, that that's not utilitarian.

Speaker 4
So I think that there's a good question to answer, to ask,

Speaker 1
like what fruit can come from this? What fruit can come from somebody just turning off and saying, you know what? I've been adding utility all day. Now it's time to kick the shoes off. right 100 have a little you know box juice on the nightstand while while i'm playing now i'm trying

Speaker 4
to make it as childish as possible but like but you know maybe oh you're going back to younger

Speaker 1
drink on the nightstand or something you know and you're sitting there playing you know like i mentioned shredder's revenge is there utility to that immediately no and it is like relaxing and seems like there's not any ready worth but there is and i and and this is a large part of my answer to the question that we're asking there is utilitarian value because all work and no play makes steven a dull boy amen right i need to be sharp so i need to take it easy sometimes right um but averse back to the question that you just asked um And let me load up too. All right. Zechariah chapter eight. I'll just read the first, maybe five verses, right? And you may have an ESV that the heading of this chapter reads, the coming peace and prosperity of Zion. Our promise keeping God is going to do some great things. And there's something very interesting in verse five related to this whole conversation, I believe. So chapter eight, verses one through five. And the word of the Lord of hosts came, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the Lord, I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Thus says the Lord of hosts, old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. There's going to be old people there. They're going to be sitting and chilling with their staff because they're old. Verse 5, and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets. Dude, play, righteous play is redemptive. Righteous play is ideal, right? So I think that there is a little taste of redemption, a taste of heaven, dare I say, to sit back and have such little concern about what's going on in the world, to be able to tune that out, right? As a believer, if not in the front of your mind, in the back of your mind, trust in the Lord with all that stuff, and knock out this level on Shredder's Revenge. Right? You know? Heck yeah, bro.

Speaker 2
Similarly to any recreation, right? Yeah. Well, that's key, I think, any recreation because, you know, we know as soon as you read that verse, there's fighting fundamentalists out there that are ready to ultra define what's acceptable as a form of play and what is not. And it's different in every era. It used to be dancing and playing cards or whatever. It's always different. And there are some voices in the Christian sphere that are very anti-video game because it just doesn't seem to align with redeem the time because the days are evil. And like Paul said, when I was a child, I put away childish things as I became an adult and all that kind of stuff. But one example is like Piper, John Piper. He's kind of, he's been pretty vocal about being anti-video game. But he wrote an article once where he was like applying, like leaving behind video games as the same as like tearing out your eye if you're looking at a woman with lust. Yeah, is right. Matthew chapter five, verse 28. Because he was responding to a young man that says he plays video games three hours a day, which we're not condoning, by the way. but uh piper said this he said i say to you that everyone that is suckered in by the fluttering eyelashes of a video game commits adultery with the game in his heart if your right eye causes you for a video game to sin tear it out and throw it away for it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell and if your right hand causes you to be glued to a video game, cut it off, and put a blowtorch to it. You can just sell it on Craigslist. Dang, Piper. For it is better that you lose one of your members than your body be thrown into hell. Here's my counsel. Tear out your eye, cut off your hand. That is, get rid of all the apps that suck you in and make a slave of you. Just tear them right off your phone, tear them right out. I mean, tearing out your eye surely has an application to these devices. Then turn application to your devices that will make you turn away from video games and receive the million-dollar gift of Jesus. No, no, no. I'm sorry. That's an understatement. Billions and billions and billions of dollars worth of gift, better than anything else. So it's Piper. He's awesome in a lot of ways, but this is definitely something where the Christian hedonist out there is gonna say, well, the greater delight and the greater play is to delight in God. And so get your Bible out or pray because that's the highest gift there is, right? And so why, you know, C.S. Lewis, why are you making mud pies with the Sega Dreamcast instead of, you know, going for a day at the beach? What do you think about that Piper quilt? Oh, it hurts my heart because I love John Piper so much and

Speaker 1
John Piper has had such a good positive influence on me. But I'm a grown man. I don't know that I hero left that hasn't disappointed me to one degree or another, and that's okay. And John Piper is a far better man than I, but yeah, that's way off. I'm extremely uncomfortable with him using the words of the Lord about lust and wanting a woman that isn't yours and making a parallel, or not even a parallel, like placing into the text video games. That was said by the Lord Jesus Christ with authority. And John Piper took it upon himself to share his weird convictions about video games. I just imagine Dante's Inferno style hell and people having conversations and suffering according to what they did in life, kind of a, you know, a divine math equation. Exactly. And like, what ring of hell is the guy in that was like, I just loved Tetris. I just, all those pieces just fitting together like that and then disappearing three, four rows at a time every now and then five or six from that tall rectangular one that just knock out the whole bottom half of the level. God is not angry. And you mentioned, if I may, man, this isn't even so much pushback, but a little bit of maybe another little bit of an angle. You mentioned like three hours specifically, right? Dude, if I played a video game for three hours, when I got done, I would feel like I needed to confess something and pray. Like, Lord, I just wasted so much time. I would feel like that. That said, I have happily set aside every other responsibility when I can do so responsibly and go surf for six hours. Oh, damn.

Speaker 2
Six hours is nothing. You're surfing.

Speaker 1
Yeah. It takes 40 minutes to paddle out. Or going out fishing, whatever it is, right? And so that recreation and play or just doing nothing that has some like immediate utilitarian purpose. So I think it's even more nuanced, you know, that we can't say always and everywhere that three hours on a video game is a waste. What about for whatever reason, I thought like, when have I done something that I would just never do in a normal day? When I graduated my grad degree from UCF and I told my wife I was going to do this. She's like, how do you want to celebrate? as we're like only a couple weeks away i was like well i'm gonna go you know do the graduation ceremony all that stuff but the the first saturday after i'm going to grill steak breakfast lunch and dinner i wouldn't do that normally that would not be healthy if every day i grilled steak breakfast lunch and dinner i can imagine i'd have some health issues yeah me um but i did that maybe to celebrate yeah yeah it's grass-fed yeah um but my point right like that was that was a unique thing right can we say that it is always wrong to take three hours four hours to play some like epic video game that you want to beat in the day or whatever i don't think you can say that that is always and everywhere sinful or problematic in any way right maybe this kid's It's been grinding and, you know, working a full-time job and getting a grad degree, commuting there and back a couple nights of the week, writing 20 to 30 page papers, you know, on this, that, or the other thing. And then says, you know what? When I'm done, I'm taking a Saturday night, 9 p.m. I'm going to start playing this video game and I'll be done when I'm done. You know, more power to you. God bless. I think the Lord isn't just indifferent to that, but for one of his children would smile on that. And say, absolutely, I am a God who delights in your delight. Jesus Christ doesn't see it as a threat that somebody would love to play Castlevania for hours every now and then.

Speaker 2
See what I'm saying? Yeah, that's so good.

Speaker 1
The Lord feels no threat from that. I think that it can, there's a way, and this is what I think we're talking about. There's a way to appropriate most anything in a way that is not just amoral, right, that the Lord is indifferent to. You know, like whether we eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a ham sandwich, there's an argument there that the Lord does care. But that Christ actually would smile upon that when his child says, you know what, I could just continue working. I could make sure that I get plenty of sleep so I can get up and work and do stuff to bring about some good fruit. But I'm going to turn it off. I'm turning it off right now, and I'm just going to relax and have fun.

Speaker 2
That's so good.

Speaker 1
Right?

Speaker 2
I like the way you're contrasting because I think the same way. The wasting of time, the redeeming value of wasting time with a video game, or it could be anything. Like I'm a big fan of the Southern California rock band called Distractor. And they've, like, come out and said publicly, like, our songs don't make any sense and it's on purpose. Like, because people are so locked in mentally with life, like, people are sometimes looking for, like, the underneath meaning. And they've come out repeatedly and say, our lyrics don't make any sense and that's on purpose. So don't ask us, you know. But listening to them, I love their music. And it's a mindless activity to a degree because, like, they got a song about falling down the stairs. You know, that's literally one of their songs. You know, you fell down the stairs and you just woke up in your underwear, you know, all those kind of stuff.

Speaker 4
Rich metaphor.

Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4
That's how I start every one of my days. Metaphorically. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2
But contrasting work and leisure, I think, is key. And it's funny, it's ironic that I love Piper too. Big Piper fan, definitely had a big influence on me and continues to. But I think this is one of those instances where we all have clay feet and we miss the boat. Because I think Piper is sort of denying common grace that is so indicative of Protestants that, you know, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God, Paul said. I think that's what Piper is missing here in this case of video games. And it's interesting to me that there's a Catholic theologian from Germany. His name is Yusef Piper. Read him. Have you really? On Leisure.

Speaker 4
Have you read him on Leisure? Yes.

Speaker 1
Dude. Yeah, bro. Skolite. Oh, gosh. It's where we get the word school. That's how far we've drifted. Dude. School used to be leisure. Dude. For the upper classes.

Speaker 2
Well, then you know if you're familiar with his work on leisure, because he's like one of like the foremost theologians thinking, which is funny coming from a Catholic persuasion because the Protestants taught the Catholics common grace back in the day, you know, Luther and Calvin and them. They're like, yeah, you guys are too like puritanical. Like you need to realize it's all of life. But he talks about when you look at leisure from a biblical standpoint, even like creation itself is six days of work, one day of rest, one day of leisure. And the Jews got that wrong in the Old Testament, and some of them do, the Orthodox ones get it wrong even today, of like you see them walking down Granada to the synagogue because they think driving is work, and it's like you're kind of getting this whole thing backwards. Like the Sabbath was resistance against commercialization and being on all the time. You're taking a day off. You don't have to build bricks anymore for Pharaoh all the time. But you look at Jews today, Orthodox Jews, or you look at some wings of Christianity where they're Sabbatarian, Seventh-day Adventist where it's like we don't listen to the radio, we don't have television on during our Sabbath rest day because we're supposed to be like resting. And they view holiness as somehow not including leisure or mindless activities when in essence, that's the very posture of leisure. It's like you're checking off from work and you're losing that utilitarian view of life where everything has to be efficient. Every second has to be redeemed. It's kind of like we're being led back into that, aren't we? Yeah. With this sort of thinking. I think, yeah.

Speaker 1
days running up and down Granada, I've gotten to know a lot of those Jews by face and they know me by face. Here comes this, you know, big old Gentile hustling down the road. I've gotten some looks, but I've, I've thought for a while, I mean, I'm, I'm out there, you know, in the heat and all of that and exercising and enjoying it physically, mentally, it's fantastic for me. And there's a degree of like suffering on purpose. But like, it's delightful. Yeah, you know, like going to the gym or, you know, studying a musical instrument and, you know, getting calluses and all that stuff. The suffering that you count from day one as well worth it. But those Jews that you mentioned specifically, and God bless them, draw them to himself. But I think that there's a bizarre our misunderstanding, right, to your point about the Sabbath. It's almost like they think, well, God wants us six days of the week to suffer with the lights on, and then on the seventh to suffer in darkness.

Speaker 4
He wants me to suffer as I drive to the synagogue.

Speaker 1
Yeah, he wants me to suffer as I drive to the synagogue, but then especially on Saturday, he wants me to suffer walking in the heat in my suit with my yarmulke and all that. I love the juice.

Speaker 4
Amen. But I do think that there is a sad misunderstanding there.

Speaker 1
And same among Christians. There's an assumption that if you're going to be sanctified, it's going to be the fruit of you really digging in and being serious. Put the video game away, and instead from 9 p.m. to midnight after a couple years of grinding in grad school, playing a video game, put that stuff away and read your Bible for three hours straight.

Speaker 2
Why would you not? Don't you love Jesus? Exactly. Are you not a Christian hedonist? Have you not found your greater pleasure in just constant meditation of the Lord? I'm with you, bro. I think that's so on point. Like I remember driving down Granada one day with one of my boys when they were young, and they saw some of the Jewish Orthodox followers walking to church. And they said, Dad, what are those people doing all the time? And I said, well, they're going to church. They said, why are they walking? And I said, well, because they believe that they're honoring the fourth commandment. They think that driving is work. And he goes, they think that walking is less work than driving? And I said, yeah, they do. Well, and that they're starting a fire. Well, that's the whole thing with, you know, if you research, you know, Orthodox Jews today, how do they feel about Sabbath and video games? It's they feel like you're kindling a digital fire with electricity, which is you're not supposed to be messing with switches and whatnot. I guess you just do a clapper.

Speaker 3
I don't know.

Speaker 2
Clapping may be too much, but or a timer. But it would also, for the more Orthodox, the Reformed Jews that have different views are more liberal. Yeah.

Speaker 1
Well, this podcast might get some attention for all this Jew talk. But before God, we do. We love the Jews. We're thankful for the Jews having been entrusted with the oracles of God, as Paul put it. We can cut the clapper.

Speaker 2
Yeah, that may have been over the line.

Speaker 1
But I think it spans. You know, we've been talking about Christianity, the Jews as an example, because we bring up the Sabbath, right? This Old Testament command. And I do happen to believe. I think Sabbath is actually a very valid consideration in this conversation because I do believe that the New Testament Christian, for the New Testament Christian, every day is the Sabbath. Amen. The four Sabbaths mentioned in Hebrews. We're on the third one, right? Our Sabbath in Christ. We've rested from all of it. So every day we rest, right? So it's a question of how and for what purpose, which is back to the original idea, right? Like yes, in some aspects or some situations, no in others, right? In answer to the question, is this stuff valuable or good or does God condone it or even delight in it? Or is he furious and will send you to hell for playing Tetris too much? Like John Piper warned you, you would do better to cut both your hands off if you really like playing PlayStation, right?

Speaker 2
which I'm sorry, that's so...

Speaker 4
So over the line, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2
It's a 15-yard penalty. You know, going back to Yusef Piper, because we brought him up and we both agreed, you want to talk about leisure and thinking about it biblically, like this Catholic is somehow schooling us Protestants with this, which is, I always tell people, you know, Protestants rediscovered the grace, the salvation by grace through faith of the gospel, and they kind of lost the bodily embodied portion of Christianity. Those things split and continue to split in Christianity. But when I think of Yousef and his writings about leisure, he points out leisure is holy because it's owning our humanity. We're creatures.

Speaker 4
We are not supposed to be on all the time. It's not good for your nervous system.

Speaker 3
That's right, dude.

Speaker 2
I play shredder's revenge because I'm not God. Exactly, because I'm not God. And not only that, but he talks about how leisure is holy because leisure is adjacent to worship, and worship itself is leisureful because worship is resting and receiving, not achieving. I mean, even when we go to church and we participate in Christian worship, we're not earning anything. We're not accruing anything. And so even worship at its very essence is reception and leisurely to a degree. And I like those points that he makes.

Speaker 1
I agree with that idea. I think that the difficulty, at least with some Christians, and I'm recalling hearing from the pulpit, not from the senior pastor at this church up in Tallahassee when I was living up there, but another guy, he said from the pulpit, right? Like, young man, it's time to put the games down, you know? And I get the idea.

Speaker 4
College ministries. Wanting to... Closing prayer.

Speaker 1
Yeah, wanting to, you know, guard and help guard, I guess, I would assume, especially young men from just getting into a habit of wasting time. We'll use that phrase, right? It is possible to waste time. Neither one of us, I don't hear either of us saying like, no, God is happy with you just like, you know, building, you know, popsicle stick figurines all day, you know, or however else you want to waste your time. And neither one of us are saying that. But I think some believers are concerned that like with worship, as leisurely as that should be, it's nevertheless a conscious interaction with the Lord, right? It seems and feels like it is and maybe ought to be more direct. Whereas the leisure in playing a video game, right? Somebody that's more maybe legalistic or, you know, John Piper, certainly if he was standing over your shoulder might, you know, accusingly ask the rhetorical question, what does Jesus have to do with any of this? Right. But I think you run into some very big problems when you start being so in that, right? When you start being in that way, critical, you know? Sure. Yeah. Whereas maybe closer to the ideal Christian experience is knowing and believing in the forefront of your mind or in the back of your mind. Jesus has something to do with all of this. Amen. Christ doesn't want me to be some dried up, brilliant theologian that's never done anything but read and memorize a bunch of theology. He wants me loving him for sure, loving my neighbors. And I think a part of how we can do that and get like recharged to do that is not taking ourselves so seriously sometimes, right?

Speaker 2
Turn it off, relax, cut up, play checkers. Have you, have you read Yusef's work when he talks about leisure as he connects it with the Old Testament festivals and feasts?

Speaker 4
No.

Speaker 2
And how like festivity is like the ultimate form of leisure? No.

Speaker 4
Because it has no utility.

Speaker 2
You're, you're blowing food and drink.

Speaker 1
Right, yeah. And just, you're. Partying.

Speaker 2
Yeah, you're partying.

Speaker 1
Yeah.

Speaker 2
I thought- Have you read him on that?

Speaker 1
I haven't read him on that. What I read was actually more on like the history of education, but the primacy of leisure in education and that ideally education takes place when you're in a passive state of mind, that you approach education passively. And at first that was a little difficult for me because so much of my formal education has been hard work. But then when I think back to the things that I learned best, I enjoyed learning.

Speaker 4
And I didn't feel like I was trudging along. Bring it. Dude, that's so good.

Speaker 1
I was enjoying and I was playing, right, with the philosophy, the literature that I was reading. That helped me to understand what he was talking about and what really education was meant to be. It was originally that.

Speaker 4
I remind my kids of that so much because, you know,

Speaker 2
it's so easy to get caught up in the grades, especially in America. We've made an idol out of intellectual intelligence and we've forgotten emotional intelligence with our kids. And, you know, we can so often just worship the grade book. But I remind my kids often, like, yeah, try your best, but have fun. You're learning stuff.

Speaker 4
And I think it's so tough as kids to learn that. It took me years before I really grasped that.

Speaker 2
I was an adult before I did.

Speaker 4
Learning is fun. Reading is fun.

Speaker 2
Why are you still taking classes, Dad, and doing another certification this year? Because I enjoy it.

Speaker 1
I genuinely enjoy it. Absolutely. And there is utility in it. But you know that it's good for your soul to enjoy intellectual pleasure. I had a philosophy professor that talked often about intellectual pleasure. And it's a real thing. But I think a part of that, as far as in education specifically, and why we've lost leisure in education, which has to do with all of this. This is not so far beside the point. But we kind of ask, what is the purpose? And I think that we forgot the best answer, right, of education. And forgetting that answer, we replaced it with this very pragmatic, more legalistic, if you will, answer.

Speaker 4
Why be educated?

Speaker 1
So that you can go to this college, so that you can graduate, so that you can get this job, so that you can do this work for this money. That all is good. And I'll say this, that is often good. It's often true. It's often beautiful. What is a better answer, and I'll quickly add that this is what I remind my girls of oftentimes, those things are good, right? Work so that you can get into that school the Lord calls you to, you know, go to college and have that career that the Lord may be calling you to or whatever. But a bigger answer to the question that serves it all in education, and this is when education was more leisurely on purpose, was in answer to the question, why be educated? The answer was so that you can be a more fully formed human being, right? A more fully formed human being is the guy you want to hire for the job. If it's between this brilliant guy that has never played a game in his life and this brilliant guy who not only played the game but mastered it, you're hiring that guy if you're thinking rightly, you know, because he's a more fully formed human being that has rightly incorporated play into his life. But I want to take a few steps back because you mentioned the festivals,

Speaker 4
the feast days in the Old Testament. Seven of them, right?

Speaker 1
And all the food and drink. You know better than me.

Speaker 4
I think I was assuming there were seven more.

Speaker 1
But in thinking about this episode and this discussion, I thought about Jesus Christ at the wedding at Cana because I preached on John 2 one time and entitled the sermon Jesus Keeps the Party Going. Everybody. That'll get you fired. Right? 30 to 40 gallon pots. Full of water. The good wine had already been drunk. People had been drinking all day, partying. They're at this wedding. Jesus Christ realizes there's, which is weird. It's just a weird statement. But in his humanity, Jesus Christ realized there's no more wine, but we've got all this water. Jesus Christ kept the party going, turned all that water into wine. And the host was shocked, like, oh, my goodness. You know, normally everybody drinks and is feeling it, and so you can sneak in the cheap stuff.

Speaker 4
This stuff is better than what we started with.

Speaker 1
Right? Yeah, he's bringing out the dogfish. This stuff is better than what we started with. I think in that passage you see Christ's heart, his inclination to bless and to enable and provide for people's joy. And this is maybe a whole other conversation, but not just like Reformed Five Pointers joy. He wants his children in the faith for sure, right, to have joy and peace in life and certainly ultimately in him. But you mentioned common grace, right? The people at the wedding that don't know him. Yeah. right, and never would, have some wine. Have some wine, nevertheless.

Speaker 2
What strikes me?

Speaker 1
Because I'm a good God of abundance.

Speaker 2
Dude, bring it. What strikes me from that passage, man, you did bring it, is the fact that like, you know, there's seven, I think there was seven stone jars of purification.

Speaker 3
So it's funny, like what kind of wedding do you go to

Speaker 2
that's supposed to last several days and they run out of wine after the first day, but yet has seven stone jars of puritanical hand washing. It's a legalistic, fundamentalistic wedding. And it's funny that Jesus goes, you know where I'm gonna make the wine? Oh, let's try there.

Speaker 3
Yeah, dude. So like you're watching this and you're like,

Speaker 2
so these guys are overly scrupulous about their religion and they're trying to earn their way. And Jesus is like, let's just turn your little puritanical water pots into a great blessing.

Speaker 4
So that always struck me about that passage. Amen, dude, that's so good.

Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I did not bring that up in my sermon. I didn't realize all that. Yeah, I'll preach it again one day.

Speaker 2
You should.

Speaker 1
Yeah.

Speaker 2
Bring it to grace life. But I'm with you. The water into wine, the Cana miracle, and then the Old Testament feasts and festivals, I mean, where God in the Old Testament commands them to enjoy themselves. Like it's literally in the text. Enjoy yourself. And then you think of like this aspect of joy that's so indicative in the Old Testament. You think of the Psalms. You go to the Psalter and, you know, we have a few Psalms of like sober introspection. They're called penitential Psalms. How many of those are there? You know, a lot of the Psalms are praise. Some of them are God kill that dude. But a lot of them are joyful. But I think the utter lavishness and non-utilitarian benefit of things like feasts and festivals, the Sabbath itself.

Speaker 1
Yeah, man. Food itself, right? The Lord didn't have to create food that was so delicious, right? To the point that on this side of Eden, we were tempted to, you know, not just, you know, have a nice little cut of steak. We wouldn't have had steak in Eden maybe. Anyway. Wait a second, yeah. Tofu. But it didn't, which actually I think magnifies the point. This side of the fall, right? The meat that we eat, right? Delicious. The Lord didn't have to do it that way, right? We didn't have to enjoy so much goodness. Christ and John 10, right? 10, 10. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly, right? Abundant life includes all these delicious things that are just sheer blessing and goodness and kindness that we all get to enjoy. Whether you're a Christian, right? Whether you're an atheist, you can go to Dairy Queen and get yourself a medium Oreo Blizzard. God is gracious, right? He is kind. Real quick, you...

Speaker 4
I'm really hungry now.

Speaker 1
Another, yeah. I want some steak and a blizzard. That would hurt my tum-tum. You mentioned the Old Testament. There are consequences for certain degrees of abundance that we tell ourselves to. The Old Testament? Yeah. I'll leave that. A lot of thoughts come to mind. yes include them yeah but uh i think uh on this topic of like abundance and play and not taking yourself so seriously it's ecclesiastes i'm trying to remember if it's in chapter four the first time that i read this and like really took a moment with it it shocked me right and i'll i'm going to preface it i'll tell you what it says in a second but all of the commands of scripture and all of the seriousness with which God commands righteousness, right? Obedience, faith, all of that. And then in the middle of the Old Testament, you've got in Ecclesiastes, it says, do not be overly righteous. The word of the Lord, do not be overly righteous. Why would you kill yourself? And that raises a question, well, what does it mean to be overly righteous? Is it overly righteous to take your obedience and faith seriously, I don't think that's it. I think overly righteous has to do with when you're trying to pride yourself on obeying, what is it, like 607 commands and constantly being introspective, constantly being or pursuing this extreme sober-mindedness. Everything is like the stakes are constantly eternal. And, you know, have I been playing Tetris so long that hell is going to be hotter. Like that, that is overly righteous. And God's word says that you're killing yourself. Yeah. You're killing yourself. Yeah. Cut up. Right. Take it easy. Right. What was it? Was it Luther? Sinning boldly, which I know that that's,

Speaker 2
that needs to be qualified. Oh, to Blankton. Yeah. Because he had such a sensitive conscience. That's right. He's like, listen, bro, if you're going to sin, you might as well do it.

Speaker 1
But, and yeah, and so you never, you never want...

Speaker 2
That can be taken out of context very easily.

Speaker 1
Yeah, you never want to, you know, to give somebody a pass. Like, God loves playing. He owns a PlayStation and he doesn't care if you sin. That's not what we're saying.

Speaker 4
Yeah.

Speaker 1
But God does desire for you to, like, relax. He knows our frame. He knows that we are but dust. Amen. Right? Relax, man. You're gonna mess up at times and God still says, take it easy.

Speaker 2
How, just got a quick question for Jack. our producer, editor, creative director, financier. What are we at right now? How many minutes have we been recording? About 50. 50? Five zero? Okay, it's time to start landing the plane. Let's go to the opposite end of video games. When do video games go from being common grace to bondage, destructive, unholy, not wise? What are your thoughts on that? Because I think the heart of what maybe Piper is trying to get at has a point when he says, I think the application is way off, but I think he's trying to warn against probably what he sees is people going overboard with this. What does that look like for you in biblically speaking?

Speaker 1
I think I would abstract it a bit, like zoom out from the specifics of a video game and just think about maybe bondage or addiction, sin in general, right?

Speaker 4
Yeah.

Speaker 1
Like maybe the guy that's saying, you know, you shouldn't play three hours of that video game, right? Maybe I won't name any RTS seminary professors, but, you know, maybe that guy is like living his 600-pound life and he's got his own addictions, but it's not video games. So he's telling you, you know, you need to turn that off and seek the Lord because he's able to read his Bible while eating his third meatball sub of the day.

Speaker 2
I don't know. Yeah. I'm sensitive about the weight thing. It's funny because like all we know about science now, like insulin resistance and hormones and like, do you know, like a large part of your genetic makeup is, it just comes through your DNA, even how much you gain weight and how fast. But it's funny when I was in seminary, one of the, one of the semesters during orientation,

Speaker 4
there was a sermon against bad pastors. My point wasn't lost though, right?

Speaker 2
I'm just, I'm sensitive. I'm sensitive. I got my freshman 48 here, 48 years old.

Speaker 1
You're not living your 600-pound life. I'm talking about addiction. Nothing about your physique to me suggests you're addicted.

Speaker 2
I work my butt off.

Speaker 1
You would know, right? We individually would know. I'm talking about – so let me zoom back out.

Speaker 2
No, keep going.

Speaker 1
You were on a good thing. I was just joking about it.

Speaker 2
I was just sensitive is all. Just need a hug after this is over.

Speaker 1
When it becomes evident in one way or another that you have lost control, you are now enslaved to this thing, right? To make a conscious decision like I'm going to spend the night playing this game because I haven't in a long time and I've just been grinding, grinding, grinding. And I'm going to let myself trust that the Lord is on his throne and I'm not in control of everything. And so I'm going to do something that is not to buttress my life, but to just have fun. Right. That is very different than somebody that's like, I need to leave work early because I've got to pick up my kids and it's a total lie. Right. And that guy goes home and just starts playing video games. Yeah. Right. Like now you are being controlled by something else. And we do that with video games. We do that with food, drink, anything. Right.

Speaker 4
Any good gift. I agree.

Speaker 1
This may be a conversation for another time, but we talked about sex. Great gift from God.

Speaker 4
Amen. It can become.

Speaker 2
A to the men, all God's people said. It can become. Better married.

Speaker 1
Even in a righteous marriage, it can become something that nevertheless takes hold to a degree that this is all-consuming.

Speaker 2
Exactly. And if you're Catholic and you happen to be tuning in, you know, the Song of Solomon does not mention sex as a means of strictly procreation. So there's nothing in there about we're going to have kiddos. It's just fun for fun's sake, good old-fashioned fun with the child of your youth. So keep it within the bounds of marriage and keep it on the playing field.

Speaker 4
But I'm with you, bro.

Speaker 2
And I agree. When it spills over into bondage, addiction, it's lost really what it's intended to be, which is a welcome release from having a telic state of mind. You know, they talk about paratelic versus telic states of mind. Telic is like I'm productive. I'm focusing on work. Something has utilitarian value. Paratelic is mindless sort of. And I don't mean mindless in a raunchy way. I mean, mindless as far as like a non-productive, non-utilitarian state of mind, you know? And for me, when that boundary gets crossed where it's gone from something fun and something I'm receiving as a gift of rest to I'm really so invested in this right now, this video game, that it's become unholy and it's become an addiction. Like when I was thinking about this particular topic, I couldn't help but think of like, I've got three boys. I don't know if your girls play video games. A little bit, yeah.

Speaker 3
A little bit.

Speaker 2
Yeah, their Switch and all that, yeah. Yeah, my boys play a lot. And not only do they play a lot, they have these, they went like, what do you call that? Like when you have a tower now and you don't have the actual Xbox. I forgot. There's like an official name for that. But they have monitors and computers now, like towers. So they have games where they install programs that it's like a clicker and it just clicks buttons. they set that sucker up before they go to school. So like the game now has gone from like, I'm gonna like just like mindlessly check out on like the stressfulness of life for an hour or two to like when I'm gone, I have to be accruing and grinding the whole time. And I get onto him about it.

Speaker 4
I'm like, bro, because it affects their nervous system.

Speaker 2
And if it's like, if it's supposed to, if rest is supposed to be a rest for your nervous system, if your type of rest is dysregulating your nervous system and it's an adrenaline spike instead of like something that's actually recovering from being in a stressful episode, I think it's gone overboard.

Speaker 3
Yeah, that's good. And that's what I see with them

Speaker 2
is because when I play with them, I stink at video games. To me, it really is a mental checkout that I'm doing with my boys. But for them, dude, it's like life or death. And it's like, it's bled over from, yeah, cool hobby to like, this is like everything.

Speaker 1
Yeah, you're in that sweet spot where you can just relax and have fun, cut up with it. You're not willing to sacrifice other good things for it, right? But when that stuff doesn't need attention, you're like, yeah, let's go.

Speaker 2
Yeah, and it can be not just video games for me. It can be like entertainment. Like my wife's a big fan of The Chosen and like I almost refuse to watch it with her. Not because I think it's a bad show. I just tell her, I've told her multiple times, I'm like, honey, I study the Bible all day long, pretty much every week of my life. When I check out at night, I just wanna watch Cheers

Speaker 4
or Seinfeld or something like that.

Speaker 2
Because what'll happen is if I start watching The Chosen, There's a part of my mind that's once again getting reactivated from my work kind of in either I'm, man, it's a good sermon illustration or I didn't think of that. And I'm not able to actually rest as I am when I'm watching Dateline. I don't know. This is another form of entertainment.

Speaker 1
No, no, no. I totally get it. Yeah. And I love Chosen.

Speaker 2
Again, especially if you're a giver to this program.

Speaker 1
Sitting back and watching something like Chosen. I think that as you described yourself, your experience in the Bible and what probably looking back looks like just almost a life, a whole life dedicated to studying scripture, right? And then you're watching that show. It would be difficult for me to not sit there and just either criticize where they got it wrong or to constantly be analyzing how they are presenting what I've already spent 30 years imagining.

Speaker 2
Gotcha. You know what I mean? I gotcha. Yeah. It's funny, when I was in seminary, I was very much like the Piper-esque, redeem every moment. So like I had roommates in seminary that didn't go to seminary. There was three of them. And I was the only seminary guy. And I would sit in my room after class and just translate Isaiah.

Speaker 3
And I'm not putting feather, but like for like eight hours after class. I'm not surprised.

Speaker 2
They'd be out playing Ticket to Ride or Settlers of Catan, and they're like, are you ever gonna come out and be social? I'm like, I'm in here serving the Lord.

Speaker 4
Like y'all are out there playing some stupid board game.

Speaker 2
And like now, like in hindsight, I'm like, I'm thankful I didn't kill myself. First of all, it's God's grace.

Speaker 4
Second of all, how misguided can you be?

Speaker 2
How less human is that to think that you're just like this utilitarian being that God's like, get down there and get to work.

Speaker 1
But it's good.

Speaker 2
Anyway, have you exhausted this topic, you think, video games for now?

Speaker 1
I think there's so much.

Speaker 2
There's more meat on the bone.

Speaker 1
Yeah.

Speaker 2
You threw sex in there, but we'll wait for that.

Speaker 1
Yeah. I'll try to bring it up every podcast, everything. It's just kind of ejected in there. All roads lead there, yeah. Yeah. Just kidding. Just kidding. Just playing. Just playing.

Speaker 2
I don't think Jesus is mad at me for it either. Well, dude, I opened it. You want to close us, man? Say any final words to our four viewers of this initial podcast show?

Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2
Just a word of blessing. My grandma and my wife are the worst. Yeah, a word of blessing.

Speaker 1
God bless you. not for checking out this podcast, but for being a human being. And if you're a believer and you've checked this out, trust the Lord has blessed you and desires to. He's happy that you would be happy and that you would trust him enough to not pursue being overly righteous to the point that you would kill yourself and deny yourself some of the abundance that he has even died to secure for us. but as pendulums swing, I think it's important to note, right? I'm not saying Christ died to give us a fun time playing Castlevania, but Christ did die that we could live life and play a game like Castlevania and not believe that hell awaits simply for playing. Well said. Gospel goggles while you play Castlevania, bruh.

Speaker 2
Put it on. If your Christian life is all work and no play, you're doing it wrong.

Speaker 1
Yeah, you trust it, man. Yeah, man.

Speaker 2
Yeah, the work is completed. Well, Lord bless you all. Have a great week. We'll see you here the next time.

Speaker 1
Yeah. -