A few weeks ago, during Chapel time at the Learning Center, I shared a topic that has interested me for a long time: the game.
If we begin with the premise that everything belongs to God (Ps. 24:1), we conclude that no area of man’s life is neutral. The apostle Paul says it plainly: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). If even eating and drinking, activities no one considers “holy,” fall under that dominion, then there is no supposedly neutral territory in which God has no say or simply takes no interest. Everything is from Him and for Him, so the game must be played on His terms.
During a basketball game between two teams of 17-year-old girls, well into the fourth quarter, the tension rose, as you would expect, and the game turned more aggressive (in the good sense). Then I heard a mother shout at the team where her daughter played: “You take care of yourselves. Let them get hurt.” The game was tight and the girls were playing with great intensity.
That shout forced me to think about something we must not overlook: God cares how we play, whether it is a sport or a board game. The comment was unfortunate and sad, but it exposes a reality we cannot deny: our faith will always surface in the way we speak, in the way we act, and yes, in the way we play.
With one simple comment, that mother confessed her theology. Her shout revealed, without her noticing, an entire doctrine: the neighbor is an obstacle, winning justifies harm, and the supreme rule of the game is the result. No one taught her that in a theology class. She most likely learned it by playing, by watching others play, by applauding whoever “does whatever it takes to win.”
That is the point: the game, in its own way, disciples. It always does. The only decision left to us is whether it will do so under a biblical worldview or not.
Every game is a legal order in miniature
A game is not a moral vacuum with rules added on. It is a small social order: it has a lawgiver, statutes, a judge, penalties, and a definition of what counts as legitimate victory. And every social order answers the question no social theory can dodge: what is just, and who says so?
That is the theonomic argument we press relentlessly: there is no such thing as a society without law, nor a law without faith. Every legal order is someone’s morality turned into a norm and backed by sanctions. The difference between societies, and between games, is not between those that have law and those that do not. It is between those that acknowledge where theirs comes from and those that live on borrowed capital without admitting it.
Look at what even the most ordinary game takes for granted:
A norm above the players. There is a rulebook that the players did not invent, and it binds the best and the worst alike. The game teaches that there is a norm external to my will, that my talent does not exempt me from it, and that I am obliged to submit to it. This is a deeply valuable lesson about the law of God.
Authority. The referee can be wrong, and he must still be obeyed. He is not God, yet his work is itself under a norm outside of him. That a judge can err teaches us we cannot expect perfect justice from human judges, but we can rest in our just Judge. The child who learns to accept an adverse call without insults or manipulation is learning Romans 13: that magistrates are there for our good and to punish the one who does wrong.
Justice. “You shall do no injustice in judgment, neither favoring the poor nor deferring to the great” (Lev. 19:15). Although, as I said, we cannot expect perfect justice from fallible men, we can rest in the norms that have been set in place, which exist to give order and meaning.
Punishment proportional to the offense. Biblical law commands that the penalty fit the fault (Deut. 25:2). A technical foul is not punished like an assault. And a game where everything is punished the same, or nothing is punished at all, is no fun; curiously, a game without rules loses all meaning. Sanctions give it purpose.
The neighbor. The rival is neither an enemy nor a thing. He is an image-bearer of God who, for one hour, has committed to measuring himself against you. Playing with intensity does not contradict loving him. It honors him, because taking him seriously as an opponent is a form of respect. Hurting him on purpose, by contrast, is a form of contempt.
Legitimate victory. Paul sums it up with an athletic image: the athlete “is not crowned unless he competes lawfully” (2 Tim. 2:5). To win outside the law is not to win.
Secular play lives on borrowed capital: it demands justice, honesty, and impartiality, and cannot explain why it demands them.
Our culture rewards the trophy and the result, how many points or goals you scored. From a biblical perspective, however, the outcome never rests on our shoulders but on God’s. Yes, the points count, but what matters most within a game is not the goals but fidelity to the law of God with which it is played: the ethics on the court, or at the board. That is why Paul, in 2 Timothy 2:5, ties victory to legitimacy. Someone who wins by cheating has really won nothing; he has lost. But the one who wins or loses legitimately has known how to play. The same principle holds in the working world; indeed, God commands us not to covet the “success” of the wicked:
“Do not envy the unjust man,
nor choose any of his ways;
for the LORD abhors the perverse,
but His intimate fellowship is with the righteous.”
(Prov. 3:31-32)
Intensity in the game is not violence
So that no one misunderstands: I am not defending a lukewarm Christianity that plays halfheartedly so as not to bother anyone. Paul uses the image of the athlete who runs to win the prize (1 Cor. 9:24-25). Excellence, effort, and honest competition belong to the good creation. God made bodies that run, jump, and strive, and He delights in work well done.
The line does not run between playing hard and playing soft. It runs between playing under the law and playing against the neighbor. The player who throws herself after the ball with everything she has, while respecting the rules and her rival, fulfills 1 Corinthians 10:31 and Romans 13:10. The one who seeks another’s injury as a strategy sins.
And here it is worth remembering that playing with intensity is a way of honoring the rival. To take him seriously as an opponent is to recognize his dignity. Only the one we despise do we hand the victory to.
Conclusion
There is no neutral territory. What is not consciously submitted to Christ is unconsciously submitted to another lord. The game is a worldview, ready and waiting to be taught. The question is not whether it will teach something. The question is who will be the teacher: we, under the Word, or the culture of “win at all costs.”
