Nice Game

Every Monday we post something about maintaining your sexual purity. Hope it helps.

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Nice Game

These days the words “player” and “game” have morphed into terms for sexual competence and aggressiveness. A Player is, under these revisions, a guy who scores well and often with women; his game is his unique technique for seduction and conquering.

Too bad, because whatever else the sexual dance between man and woman may be, it’s no game. People don’t just play it, then pack up and go home. Expectations are raised; emotional bonding happens; and, if it’s more about conquest than commitment, someone gets hurt. Deeply.

But long before these new meanings were slapped onto the terms, Paul the Apostle used them, but not in reference to sexual recreation. He viewed the Believer’s ongoing sanctification, resistance of sin, and quest for holiness as an honorable, difficult and necessary game.

To call something a Game doesn’t necessarily make light of it. In his letter to Corinth, when Paul compared Christian living to the Masteries, he was referring to a series of contests that were technically “games” but were, in fact, taken very seriously by the culture they were played in. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, in their excellent “Commentary on the Whole Bible”, have this to say about the games Paul referred to:

The Isthmian games were of course well known, and a subject of patriotic pride to the Corinthians, who lived in the immediate neighborhood. These periodical games were to the Greeks rather a passion than a mere amusement: hence their suitableness as an image of Christian earnestness.

Sanctification and the overcoming of sin can be viewed as negative, dreary aspects of Christian living. But I’d rather see them the way Paul did: as challenging and, at times, even exciting. And as a passion, like the commentators said, not just an amusement. So to me, the term “Game” is an upbeat, masculine, and accurate way of viewing what you’re trying to do as a man who wants to live a better life. It’s a war, certainly; a heartache, frequently. But it’s also a noble contest; a race we’re encouraged to run; a game we’re privileged to play. That’s why I find the concept of The Game to be both acceptable and helpful, and am more determined than ever to play it, and to play it well.

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Check out Joe’s Book The Game Plan.