I like this video. I’m surprised at some of the things Christians use to entertain themselves. One example is Christians who play games like Grand Theft Auto. Do you know how absolutely mindbogglingly shocking this would have been 50 years ago? But for some reason, for some people it’s OK today. I have a story at the end if you want to read it.
This clip is of Driscoll talking about books for teenagers but I think some of the things he says, especially at the beginning, can be applied to just about everything.
I’ve been wanting to write about this type of thing and personal holiness, but I just can’t figure out a way of doing it. Maybe I just don’t have the authority to be writing things like this. So I’ll just show a video that’s close. Someday I’ll find something better. If you know of anything, let me know because I’d like to have something to point people to.
Quite a few years ago I took a self portrait of me and my wife at her parents house. We were under the shade of a tree with some sun coming behind us. I was for some strange reason wearing dress pants and a tie (I don’t know what was going on) and my wife was wearing a dress. The picture ended up looking very nice.
So we go to my grandparents house and show them our album with this picture in it. My grandma is like, Oh my, the sun is going through there. I didn’t know what she meant. She said the sun was shining through my wife’s dress and you could see her legs. That hadn’t even occurred to us. In my grandma’s day and age, that would have been immodest. Modesty is a very Biblical subject. I really don’t know if showing some leg in shadow is bad or not, but it just shows how we can not even be aware of things that people used to be shocked by. I wonder how many things I do or watch on TV that God isn’t happy with. I don’t wrangle over it, we just try to limit what we watch and live as holy of a life as we can.
For a long time I’ve been praying that I would love what God loves and hate what God hates, always seeking His will (Psalm 97:10; Matt. 6:33; Col. 1:9; 1 Peter 1:15-16).
Exodus 20:26
And do not approach my altar by going up steps. If you do, someone might look up under your clothing and see your nakedness.
When I make the time to play videogames they usually involve violently killing an enemy of some type; aliens, soldiers, terrorists, bandits, thugs…
I’ve thought about this topic very superficially, and the only thing I’ve really focused on is the time I spend playing them. So now I try to only play games with my brother, and not alone, so that I’m not wasting the time.
We still kill stuff though, just together. I’ll bring this up with my pastor and a few other people to see what they think.
It is interesting to see the holiness concept in 1 Peter attached to the discussion. I don’t really see an explicit connection with the other four verses though, maybe for another context besides gaming.
Even though I’m not a pacifist by any means (I think we should be doing more to help people that need it) I don’t like the idea of killing people for entertainment. But what really bothers me is when bystanders are being killed or when you’re being entertained to do illegal things or to get revenge. That brings out things in people that should be ‘put away’.
When shooter games first came out I played them and it was shooting robots. So why can’t it just be robots? Why do people need to kill/murder people? Of course they aren’t real, and I don’t believe it necessarily numbs us to violence, but I don’t think it should be entertainment.
Jeff