Is An Adult Male Playing Video Games Equivalent to An Adult Female Playing Barbie Dolls?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

We're your hosts Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by Michael Coghlan as we seek to answer the age -old question, is an adult male playing video games equivalent to an adult female playing with Barbie dolls?

Now before we jump into this title question, I wanted to start out by just, Michael, why don't we just start out by letting you introduce yourself, tell everyone who you are and a little bit about yourself.

Sure. Thanks, Harrison. My name is Michael Coghlan, and I am a sinner saved by grace.

I live in Ohio, and I am right around central Ohio in the Columbus area.

I've been a Christian since 2006, and very shortly after becoming a Christian, I found myself very hungry to learn more about God's word, and so I've always really enjoyed listening to podcasts and just studying with others.

And as well, I'd probably be considered really into evangelism to a lot of people.

I do street preaching. I also do pulpit preaching. I was a pastor for a couple of years, up until recently, in fact.

And so I've just strived to serve the Lord in all the ways I can, to love my wife and my kids. I've got a wife named

Erin who takes care of my home for me, and I've got two little boys at home right now, and I've actually got two daughters and a son that are adults as well.

And so I'm kind of in almost a second phase of parenthood here, trying to just lead some little children along.

It's good to have you on. You're from Columbus. Are you a big Ohio State fan? Oh, yeah.

Just in case we were doing video. I don't know if you'd call me a big

Ohio State fan, but, yes, that's the only team I really even root for or watch anymore in any sport.

Right. But I used to really be a big Ohio State fan, and somebody challenged me, and it's been almost a decade now, to start going to all the

Ohio State home games and preaching the gospel. And so I've been doing that for probably seven or eight years, almost every home game.

And so I don't actually get to watch a lot of them because I'm at the stadium preaching, and then the game starts, and then sometimes by the time we do a fellowship meal and I get home,

I'll watch it on a recording sometimes, but if I already know what happened, it's not even fun to watch sometimes.

So when they lost to Michigan, did you have a lot of people that came to Christ that day?

Well, we went before the game started, and so I didn't see any of the aftermath of that one.

Oh, okay, okay. But it was, yeah, we're overrated.

Everybody knows this except us, but we're overrated every year, and so that's what happens to us is when we play a really good team, we usually get beat.

Well, it's good to have you on. I know that we were doing some Twitter polls on video games this past week, and we actually got some pretty good response from some of those polls that we're doing, and you had commented on there that you wanted to come talk to us about video games, so we decided that we would have you on.

I do remember seeing you on Twitter a lot a few years ago, and then I haven't seen you very recently on Twitter, and then

I guess recently you came back on Twitter, is that right? Yeah, we helped plan a church in 2020, and I was pastoring, and I didn't have an extra minute to do anything like Twitter, and so I really dropped off the face of the earth there for about two years, and then recently our church has had to dissolve basically.

It didn't really grow. It didn't work out the way we wanted, and so I've had a little more free time, so I got back on Twitter to promote my own blog and podcast a little bit, and then

I started getting into all the comment threads and the polls and things like that. Your guys' polls are hilarious.

I just love people's reactions to them. What reactions? Which ones are you talking about?

Tim, one of you posted something recently, and you just kind of texted somebody in a reply and said, you know, we ask the questions nobody else is allowed to ask, and I just thought that's so needed in a sense.

We need to be able to talk about the things that are sort of the taboo almost, or we're afraid to say it because we might get judged or step on someone's toes, so I appreciate you guys.

Yeah, well, we appreciate having you on. I know that our goal in having a podcast in general, just to tell you a little bit more about us too, is that there's a sense in which

I'm very concerned. We're both very concerned about sanctification issues, and I know that growing up I had a lot of questions about, you know, what does the

Bible say about this? What does the Bible say about that? And it really is hard to find a lot of answers related to certain topics, and so the topics that are off limits or taboo, they're not wrong to talk about.

There's just a lot of topics out there that people are unwilling to go to, and so we're trying to talk about a lot of those kind of things.

And it is funny what you're talking about. We do have a lot of people who I'll just ask a question, and they'll just get really, really mad.

Yes. When the question has like a yes or no answer to it. We don't even say what our answer is, but then most of the time we're trying to ask the kind of questions that we're going to talk about on the podcast and just seeing what people think about it and seeing some of the reactions to give us some kind of fuel.

But this is one of those that I think got people a little bit stirred up. The question that I was asking was, is an adult male playing video games roughly equivalent to an adult woman playing with Barbie dolls by herself?

And a lot of people just lost their mind at that kind of question. And you can just say no if you don't.

Just say no and give me a case. But what we want to do is we want to have you on. And before we even get to the title question, why don't you just tell us a little bit about what do you think about video games in general?

I know that in some sense this is a generational phenomenon, and it's obviously a male phenomenon too.

There's something about video games that males are uniquely drawn to in general.

And I think it's becoming obviously a lot more commonplace now with I think maybe anyone early 40s and under.

This is a much more common kind of thing, a common recreational activity that people 40 and under will engage in.

Over and against people, past generations will maybe play, will watch people play football or spend a lot of time watching

TV. So it's a new kind of phenomenon that in some sense is generation -based, and in a lot of ways it's male -based.

But what are your thoughts on video games in general? Why don't you give us a breakdown of some of your thoughts on this?

A couple of initial thoughts, Tim, would be, one, I grew up as a video game person.

I loved video games. What was your first system? It would have been the Atari 2600.

There you go. All right. But I really liked the Nintendos.

I started to get those. But I played a lot of video games. And in some ways I think maybe they were a bit of an escape because of some difficulty

I had in childhood with a father that wasn't such a good father. And so my experience with video games, though, was mostly what

I would say good. I probably even played more than I should have. But it was the kind of thing that was just a fun thing

I did, and I really, really liked it. My opinion as a

Christian, though, is that we have some ways we need to think about things maybe a little differently than the world thinks about them.

And I think one of the first things that comes to my mind when we want to talk about any kind of behavior, particularly something if we're considering it either unwise or even sin, is to try to determine is this inherently sinful?

You know, when you say men predominantly want to play video games, one of the questions we would want to be able to answer is, is it a sinful instinct that's being fed?

Or is there maybe something about men that is true that we can see either through Scripture or the light of natural revelation where video games happen to appeal to something in men that may be very good.

And sometimes men end up taking that thing too far in the video game sense rather than maybe chasing after that same feeling that they're looking for in another way.

And I think what I would get at here is I think in some ways men like to accomplish things and produce things and win things, maybe a little more than women.

A lot of people would agree with that. And video games give you a little arena where you can kind of do that.

In a real safe place, though, in a way, it's maybe not the best place for older men to be engaging too much.

What do you think? Yeah, so basically would you be tying this impulse essentially to the dominion mandate and this would be kind of like an imaginary version of the dominion mandate?

Is that kind of what you're getting at with the thing that it's appealing to? Yeah, I don't know if I'd necessarily use that terminology, although that makes sense as you said it.

It's just this impulse in men to want to produce. The thing in you that's supposed to drive you to go get a good job and work hard and make money so you can find a girl, so you can have a family, so you can support a family, that impulse, which

I don't know if I'd necessarily relate that directly with the dominion mandate as well. I think it could be even separated there.

But I think some men, they have a drive. To accomplish things, to build things, to kill the dragon and get the girl.

But they haven't been shown maybe by an older man in their life how to actually do that.

And so video games provide a safe space where there's really no risk, but there's just the possibility of reward.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. As you think about this topic in general, your perspective,

I don't know if you were joking or not when you said this, but I wanted to get you to elaborate on it.

On my tweet? Yeah, your tweet. You're basically saying you're only okay with video games that are not

HD. They have to be old video games. In other words, they need to be the kind of game where you play a guy dressed up in a red jumpsuit, jumping on turtle's heads.

You've got the exact game in mind that I had. So when

I found your tweet, my younger friend, who still does play some more video games than I do at this point in his life, he was the one who had commented on you.

And I was replying to him, replying to you. And I was kind of making a joke because I was sort of playing the game of, well, the video games

I played when I was in my teens and 20s were okay, but the video games you're playing now are not okay.

And I was kind of mocking that idea that the same action was okay for me, but not for you.

But at the same time, I think there may be something that could be said for the intensity that video games can offer people now with like visual effects and just the speed the frame rates that they can change things on you.

There is an intensity that immerses you into it more, I think, than probably when I was a kid, you know, playing on a 2600.

Yeah, there's a lot of things that are different between video games now and video games. And so some of it, some of what you're talking about is the addictive nature of video games.

Yeah. Maybe they're creating them in such a way that they're more immersive or more addictive. There's more to them.

Part of that, you know, if you think about just some of the older games, like your Mario games, and this is something

I was commenting on with someone at some point, but, you know, a lot of your older games, there was a clear ending to them.

Right. So if you beat like Super Mario three or something like that, I mean, there's only so many times you can do that and you're done.

Right. So you buy it, you spend your, you know, 30 bucks, whatever it was back then 25 bucks on your cartridge.

You play it. It has some kind of time limit on it. And then you put it down at the end.

So you, you enjoy it, but it had some sort of built in mechanism. I think of self -control in a way that a lot of your newer games.

They're made in such a way that now there's no ending in sight. You know, a lot, a lot of your,

I mean, there's some games that have endings, but I mean, a lot of your games now, just depending on the kind of genre, they just go on and on and on.

And like they're, they're meant to be just like played as a lifestyle over and against played as a recreational activity.

So that's some of it with some of them. And then there's a lot of like, but some of them, there's a lot of money involved into like, in terms of just pay to pay to win kind of scenarios and things like that as well.

And so you have the better graphics, you have the, there's obviously a better graphic kind of component to it, but then there can be,

I think, built in mechanisms that keep you coming back for more, whether that's through, you know, financial kind of ties or just the nature of the game itself.

But Harrison, you want to add anything to this? Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I agree with you in a lot of ways.

I think, you know, I, I grew up, I'm obviously a little bit younger than you guys.

I wasn't, I didn't start on the Atari for me. It was the, the, I guess the first thing

I had was a dream cast, a Sega dream cast. And then

I, I jumped over to X -Box once the first original Sega. No, no.

I had the, I had the dream cast. I'm thinking like Sonic the Hedgehog here. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, so, you know, I played, you know, I, I think

I played like my, I played medal of honor, I think on like the PlayStation after my dad told me not to,

I snuck behind his back and I played that and, and Halo, that was really like the first game that I really, really got into.

But, you know, so I, all that to say, I'm still kind of in the,

I keep up a lot with a lot, a lot that's going on in the gaming industry, even though I really don't even have time to play video games anymore.

I like to, I like to know what's going on just because it was such a big part of my life for a long time.

And something that's concerned me for a really long time is just how I've seen games sort of go from like when

I was really young, they would put the games out and then that was it. And they would just start working on, you know, the next game that was coming, that they wanted to make.

And then it, and then it became, all right, we're going to make our video game and then we're going to make, you know, these, this downloadable content that you can get later on.

And now, now where games are getting is instead of doing the whole, like we'll, we'll make, you know, two to five decent size, downloadable content releases after we released the main game.

Now what's going on is there is people are moving over to what they're calling a live stream service where instead of the downloadable content, that is pretty sizable.

And it's, it's kind of similar to just releasing like a little mini game within the game itself.

Now what's happening is you, you have companies that are trying to basically get customers to come back month after month after month with new releases, whether those be battle passes, you know, whether they be little mini

DLCs or, or maybe they're, if it's multiplayer, they're map DLCs.

And so you really do see a lot of, of video game companies turning to this almost like a, like a television show sort of, of business model where when it comes to television, a lot of times when, when writers set out, what they're setting out to do is say, how can we tell a story as that's good, good enough to make us money as long as possible.

And video games have, I think those companies, video game companies have looked at that and said,

Hey, we want to make money. Like if they can do that, then we can do that as well, especially as the internet becomes more and more popular, more and more accessible.

And so you see people moving to, to the live service sort of business model, which as a side note,

I think kind of ruins video games in a lot of ways, partly because of what you're saying to him.

It just, there's no definite ending to them anymore. And, and, and so for me personally, if that kind of business model like turns me off as a, as a customer, but a lot of younger kids, they really enjoy that.

But then, you know, I think the other thing that I was thinking about as you were talking to him is

I feel like I've noticed the games that are, are meant to be geared towards the younger generations, which are the generations that have way more time to play video games.

One of the, one of the things that I've noticed is, is just the color schemes of them. So when

I was growing, when I was growing up, a lot of the games were very kind of dull looking, you know, especially in the like early, you know, or, or I mean late two thousands, early 2010s.

And now if you look at games like Fortnite and you know, Minecraft, they're very, they're very bright, very colorful games.

And, and with, especially with these multiplayer games, they're very fast paced like you were saying, Michael, and, and it is almost like a, you know, it's kind of like if you think about tech talk, the way that tech talk is designed, it really is shortening your attention span and a lot of ways, because you're just watching videos that are like eight to probably on average, you know, 30 to maybe 60 seconds long.

And then you're flipping to the next thing. Your brain is having to focus on something entirely different. You see this in movies as well, where they make all these fast cuts and I watched movies sometimes and I'm like, man,

I must be old. Cause I just feel like I can't even keep up with what's being shown to me on the screen. But then this is happening in video games as well.

If you look at like I think Titanfall, if anyone, if anyone knows

Titanfall, I think they kind of really made this popular, but the, the way that you can move around in that game was, is very different to a more traditional type of, of first person shooter and then call of duty.

They, they looked at that and then they, they, they turned that up to 11 where you can run on walls.

You can, you can sprint really fast, slide really fast, reload your gun really fast. You know, every, every, the, the time to kill in those games is very, very short on purpose and your respawn time is very, very short on purpose is to get you as much action in one single game as possible to keep you excited and keep you coming back to try and win again.

And so I think you just, when you look at video games, there's certainly plenty of companies out there that are, that are looking at video games as a medium to just create something of value that they are actually passionate about.

And I'm sure there are people like that, even within these larger corporations that are making games like call of duty, for example.

But then I do think at the end of the day, you have companies that are run by people who, who want to make money obviously.

And they're, they're asking themselves, how do we make as much money with our product as possible? And how you do that is you get people addicted to your stuff.

You get them using it all the time not wanting to go to your competitors as well, giving them as much action as possible and as much content to consume as possible.

And so I think there's a lot of there's a lot there to make me say, you know,

I, for me personally, I don't think that inherently, I don't know how

I could prove inherently that video games are sinful. To use, but then

I think there is a lot there to make me say, you have to, best case scenario, you do have to be really careful, especially in our day and age where it's so X, it seems more acceptable than ever to be the guy who plays video games all day long.

It's very easy to make video games, something that it is certainly not meant to be.

So Mike, yeah. Why don't you step into that and just in general, what give us your, give us your perspective in general, like let's talk about the lawfulness of this topic.

What does the Bible say on it? And you know, what verses come to your mind that you're thinking about as you're trying to evaluate this kind of topic in general?

So we'll get to our title question, but just in general, like what, what's your impulse behind, like, how are you processing this running it through a biblical filter, running it through a biblical grid?

Like what, what do you got? Yeah. So the, the first thought I had while Harrison was talking was, was that one of the comparisons between how video games were played, particularly when

I was, I'd say in my college years. And now sounds like there was a much more social aspect where you were live and in person with your friends, actually playing a game with them.

And, you know, I remember you'd bring your controller over to your buddy's dorm room to play a game.

And, and so, although we probably wasted a lot of time doing it there, there was a more social real life aspect going on than just having a friend on a headset.

I remember when that stuff first started happening, I was kind of weirded out by it. You know, I'm like, I don't want to do that. I want to actually be with people.

And so, but my, my thoughts are Tim that we can't say that it's inherently sinful.

I don't think that we can just say, well, you're sinning. If you play a video game, I also think if we try to say that, we're going to run into a lot of walls where people would ask a question like, well, is a, for example, is doing a crossword puzzle on my phone.

Is that a video game is doing Facebook? Is that functionally a video game?

And so I think we start to get into too many of these little gray areas and places where, where it's too hard to draw a hard line.

But I do think that when we talk about what we're doing with our time I think of Ephesians five, we're redeeming the time because the days are evil.

And, and I know that for some people, they may have a certain amount of time available for something.

We just categorize it as entertainment and video games would fall in that category and they keep it under control.

And, and it's no big deal. It's no different than, you know, somebody watching a television show they like for 30 minutes.

But for some people, as you brought up earlier, the video games can have an addictive effect and it can get them not only playing the game a lot, but thinking about the game in between playing the game rather than thinking about loving the people around them, thinking about, you know, loving a wife and children.

I, you know, I think that that is something to be thinking about is how much time, how much money you're spending, right?

If you're, if you're in one of the streaming things where you're constantly spending more money or, or you're just buying little tokens so you can change your outfit and the little show or whatever, you know, like that's the kind of thing that I look at and think, wow, send that money to a missionary who's trying to preach the gospel somewhere and needs those tokens, you know, or your pennies.

I, so I questioned whether some of this stuff is really mature and wise and not, not necessarily whether it's just all wrong or just totally okay, but, but how, how is your

Christian life growing? And as you brought up, I think it was before we started the show, you said, you guys are really concerned about sanctification.

How, how are you growing as a Christian? How are your, how is your mind being renewed and not conformed to this world on a regular basis?

And, and if, if you're struggling in sanctification, I think video games is a real easy thing to say,

Hey, it's not helping you. Let's drop that weight that could be ensnaring you. And let's see if you can run a little faster.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think so. So, you know, part of what you brought up is you basically said that you can't think of a universal condemnation of it.

And, and part of this discussion is it really is kind of a discussion about entertainment in general and how we spend our free time in general.

So, like there's different directions we could go with this because, you know, often, you know, often what it'll be a guy who's really addicted to video game.

And then, you know, in that kind of situation, this is part, part, part of where my Twitter poll is coming from is, you know,

I've talked to couples in this, in this, where the guy's really addicted to video games and then the girl's really mad at him about it.

And so I've tried to come up with some sort of analogy to that guys will resonate with to understand how their, their ladies are viewing them along those lines.

But then there is that there is, before we get there, there is like a turnaround there where, you know, like a lady could look at a man, you know,

I've had like counseling situations like this where the lady is looking at the man upset with him for playing video games while she binge watches her

Netflix, you know, every night and is, you know, addicted to Facebook and addicted to her phone.

So part of this is really discussion about entertainment in general. And I'm sure that many of us have, you know loved ones who, you know, every

Saturday it's college football day all day long, right. To where, you know, they're camped out on the couch, watching college football.

That's what they do. That's what Saturday is. They're unavailable. Don't talk to them. Don't get in their way.

And so part of this is the entertainment discussion in general. So maybe you can so there's a kind of person who's just going to say,

Hey, you know, you're just selectively picking out this one form of entertainment that you're uniquely problematizing when there's, you know, everyone's addicted to their own forms of entertainment.

You know, the average American right now, I think is spending five and a half hours a day on their screen. So how would you respond to that kind of objection in general?

So what would you, what would you say to that? When people ask John MacArthur, why he did strange fire.

And why not? Why not something else that Christians do wrong? His, his answer was, well, this is the thing that's the biggest problem right now.

And so when you think about particularly young men and the struggles they're having with their jobs, with their wives, with being good dads, with maybe growing in the church and becoming deacons and elders, the problem that we see is that young men are spending their time on video games.

If, if they were spending their time on watching.

I mean, if it was football, then we'd be talking about football, but because it's video games, we're talking about video games. Yeah. It's that simple.

You know, they're playing video games while they've got the NFL red zone on, you know, over in the corner. They don't even care about watching a whole football game anymore.

I mean, nobody even watches a whole football game except guys my age might, you know, nowadays that this tension span so short, like Harrison brought up.

And so I think the response would be, we're not trying to selectively pick anything out. We're actually identifying the thing that the culture has, has made that Christians in many cases have jumped right into and allowed to become something in their life that is taking up too much time and energy.

So there's going to be a fraction of people. And when I say fraction, I don't necessarily mean teeny tiny. I just mean it's a portion there's going to be a portion of people that actually have video games as an idol and they don't know it, but we could prove it that it's an idol, but there's going to be another portion where it's just, man, this is not wise.

Sure. And, and I think that in my experience and this, this will be my experience.

You talked about counseling. I had a guy when I was a pastor, he came, we were talking about some things. He was a young man and, and he, he he's having trouble with his marriage.

He mentions that his wife doesn't like his video game playing. And my response was, well, why don't you just stop?

Sure. I didn't say you're sinning, quit playing video games. They're bad for you. I didn't say it's worse than tattoos.

Yeah. I didn't, you know, I didn't say anything. I just said, why don't you just stop? You love your wife, just put it down and do what you have to do to show your wife that you love her.

And, and then if, if she's wrong, then take away that excuse, you know, take it away. It shouldn't be that important to you that you just have to play.

And I will say this guy's had a lot of victory there and he actually did cut down the video games and he's done great with his wife, but you know, if he had been doing something else,

I would have picked on something else, you know? So this is just the, you know, the need of the moment based on the, the problems that we're experiencing right now.

And that's, you know, that's why we're talking about it. And that's why it's not, it's not hypocritical. If, you know, men were binge playing,

I think you said in the phone call, we had a men were bench playing crossword puzzles.

And we'd talk about the dangers of binge playing crossword puzzles. Is that right?

Look, you know, you read and you know, this is an extreme thing, but you read these stories of, of abuse with children that happens.

And usually it's some kind of drug addict or something too, but you know, I've, I've read stories. I have a friend that does domestic violence and now he's doing domestic violence of child abuse.

And, and, and these guys will be sitting there playing their video games and the little toddler will interrupt them.

And they'll, and then you get a kid that dies of shaken baby syndrome. Cause they're so upset.

Yeah, this stuff really gets to people and Christians need to have it under control. And, you know,

Paul said he, he wouldn't, what did he say? He wouldn't eat meat again. It causes someone to stumble.

Cause that's what he had to do, you know, out of love for others. And so I think Christians, I would argue as well too, that it's a maturity issue too.

I, you know, I'm not just going to say because I don't really play, you know, some of the games anymore that that makes it a maturity thing.

But I just think as, as men tend to grow up and they have bigger things to worry about than a little world where they can maybe have a castle with a flag at the top or whatever.

Like, I think, I think when you have a job that you can try to make money at, you can try to pay off a mortgage.

You're trying to coach children to do things, you know, whatever it is is that you've got to have something more important in life than some of these games.

And in some cases, I'm not saying you put them all away, but the time and effort that some of these games require, it just wouldn't comport with being a man trying to accomplish something.

I think, especially in your days of youth, when you have strength, I mean, I'm 46 years old and I'm looking at,

I'm, I'm preaching to the guys out there in their twenties and thirties right now, like, dude, use your strength, use your ability to like get hurt to the point where you're getting hurt, trying to work out now.

It gets harder and harder, you know, and, and, and in your twenties and thirties, you can accomplish, you can accomplish three times in a day.

What I could, if you, if you put your mind to it and you've actually put in the effort. So the title question is basically as an adult male, playing video games are for the equivalent to an adult female playing

Barbie dolls by herself. Now you just said it was childish. And so what do you think, Mike, is that, is it that childish?

Is that kind of, is that what you're, is that where you're getting at with the childish comment? I'm going to say this.

I'm going to say that. I can't tell you it's not, but I don't think it is. I think that there is a place for video games as entertainment.

You don't think it's that childish basically is what you're saying. There's something about the Barbie analogy, like little kiddish, you know, cause you don't, you don't see 10 or even 12 year old girls playing

Barbies. They make video games for 10 and 12 year olds, but, but yeah,

I, you don't want to go there with it. That's the low extreme. I think that there are, I'd rather put it as a, are you controlling this freedom or is it controlling you?

And let's be honest about it. Let's, let's write down how many hours you're playing and you go talk to your pastor about it.

And then let's ask your wife, does your wife think you have it under control? Because even her subjective opinion of it,

I think is super vital. And even if she's wrong, I think it's, I think it's important to take that into account and to, and how do you win a wife over that's binging on whatever, watching romance things or whatever it is women do?

Like how do you win her over? Well, you quit doing the stuff you're doing and then you lead her by you doing mature

Christian adult things and then bringing her along with you. Well, so what advice do you have to give?

I mean, I think this is where the rubber meets the road. It's one thing just to kind of say, Hey, like stop, you know, stop it, you know, spend your time better, you know?

And I mean there, you know, I think you're talking to a lot of young people and a lot of young people are going to look at you and basically saying,

Hey, you're 46, you know, you, you know, this is just you throwing cold water on this.

And you know, what are you doing with your time? And, you know, that's so important and you have time wasters too and all that.

So, but, but I think what, I mean, there's obviously like addictive kind of elements to some of this and, you know, it affects people's attention spans and their ability to concentrate with some, some of what we're talking about here.

But I think what's, what's, what's easy, like the put off kind of thing is easy just saying, Hey, you know, put off, you know, or say, yeah, yeah, it's easy to say.

Well, but I mean, more than that though, you know, for a lot of people, if they try to take what you're saying seriously, then what they're going to do is they're going to say, okay,

I'm going to get rid of all the video games. And then what, what you do is you just sit there on the couch and stare at a wall.

Okay. You know? Well, I would get rid of that. You say, Hey, let's, I want to do something productive with my time.

The only thing I can think to do is waste time. And once I've done my, you know, put in a hard day's work, taking care of the kids, whatever, all

I can do is just waste time. It's just time. Like there's time wasters all around me.

So right. We can turn this one into a problem, but the issue is what value is it to replace one time waster with another?

And so I think where the conversation for it to be helpful is like, well, what does a productive life look like?

And what are the things that God's called us? What are the replacements? Like, what are the things that should be filling most of it?

Like what is, what is like family life? What should it look like? You know?

And so like, what is the positive vision here that, that, that you would have?

So what do you think? Yeah, that's a good question. And I have a few thoughts actually jotted down as you were talking.

One of the things would be is, is I think men need to be more organized at times than we've been taught to be by the men that came before us.

And, and I'm, I'm in this group with guys. I know I, everybody tries to think I'm an old man. I'm just crotchety.

I hate video games or something. I, I, I actually play games. You know, I don't, I don't play some of the call of duty type ones, but I've got some things

I do that are entertainment and some people will call time wasters. And, and what I think is we need to be honest about it though and honest with others and be held accountable to whether we're keeping it, you know, in the range of what is reasonable.

Sure. You know, people can share their screen time with others. There's things that, that we can admit and we can say,

Hey, you know what? I really didn't need to watch, you know, all those movies last week, even though I thought they were different from a video game.

And so we need to be honest. And I think having other men in your life that you can hold yourself accountable to who will actually talk to you about these things and just being open to,

Hey, you know, maybe, maybe I need to cut that out. And then as far as replacing things, you know, the first thing is is it's always the heart that we're trying to get worked on.

Right. We want our mind renewed by the word of God. We want our heart to be, you know, circumcised the stony heart.

So we have a fleshy heart and we want that to be able to be molded by God so that we love the things he loves.

And so I think that, that a man should definitely be, you know, in the United States of America and probably any country listening to this, you should be able to read the word of God every day and you should be able to take time to pray every day.

And family men in particular, should be leading a family in some form of family worship.

And I think you should strive for daily. I understand that things happen that may obstruct that at times.

And so I think once people start establishing that, like, here's the good habits I really need to add in just spiritually, that's going to take some time that I bet you some guys are using to play video games.

And then secondly, I think we need to take care of ourselves physically. And this is, this is all of us and me included.

We need to try to be eating well and exercising and doing things like that, that help us to actually, you know, maybe feel stronger and able to accomplish things.

And so for a guy who's, who's, you know, maybe honestly wondering, am I playing too many video games?

Is this good for me? Sit down with somebody close to you. Don't just listen to the podcast guy.

You know, you should have a pastor. You should have people in your life that you can talk to and say, I want to, I want to become a better man.

And I want to learn how to become a better man. And so those are some ideas. I know that for me and what there's, there's videos on YouTube where people explain the science behind all this stuff.

But for me, waking up every morning and taking an ice cold shower is like one of the best things that, that anyone has ever told me to do.

And it is, it is like changed my whole life actually. And, uh, and so those are the kinds of things that I tell a young man to do, like do something hard, something uncomfortable and accomplish it early in the morning.

And something like, you know, saving, uh, you know, princess peach from Bowser just becomes less interesting to you.

I like, I like how, I like how all of your analogies are. Well, this guy's talking about Halo and call of duty.

And I'm like, those are just words I've heard. So, so, um, there's, um, this is one of those topics that, um, you know, for me,

I, you know, I went to seminary and, and I took way too many classes in Bible college and seminary.

So, you know, in my undergrad, when I was, you know, I was basically taking like 30 hours a semester or something ridiculous like that.

And so I was basically sleep deprived. Um, I got about four hours of sleep a night for like three years when

I was taking Greek in, um, you know, two weeks, I got about one at one and a half hours sleep those nights.

And, you know, I was, I was abusing my body in different ways, but there is like, there was a very real dynamic for me trying to take so many classes so quickly in college and seminary.

I mean, that was wrong. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have done that. I should have slowed down a little bit, but there's, there's a dynamic where, you know,

I think most people in America probably are not at a point where they're cramming information in their brain so much that they get to where they just can't do it anymore.

You know what I mean? There'd be times where I would go through my Greek flashcards and you know, I go through the whole stack and zero, like, you know, you, when you remember a word, you put it in a different pile.

Well I go through the whole stack and I'm putting zero words in my other pile and I'm like, what is going on here?

You know, I've just run to the end of my brain here, but I think I've always been a learner in that way. And my original impulse, when

I started the Christian life, was just to kind of take entertainment and basically say it's bad, right?

So the Bible says redeem the time because the days are evil. So I want to be a committed Christian. So all entertainment is wrong.

I'm going to cut entertainment completely and totally out of my life. It's going to have no place in my life whatsoever. But then like there's, there's kind of a reality that as I was,

I was doing that and pushing myself so hard, there's something about resting too that is important.

And there's something there about like giving, giving yourself time to like unwind and relax and not just focus and concentrate and think, think, think, you know?

So I have the kind of job right now that I spend all day long listening to the Bible, listening to sermons, doing all this stuff.

And like at a certain point you just tap out. You're like, man, I can't learn anymore. I've done, you know? So what, what place do you have with like, what place does, like entertainment is obviously part of it.

God's given us all things richly to enjoy in general. So if we're just talking about entertainment, like in general, what, what place does it have?

Like what kind of percent of our life, you know? And I know you can't answer that for everyone, but I'm just like, give us some thoughts on like, you know, what place this has and how we should prioritize it and how we should think about it.

And how do we subject, like keep it in the right level of importance beyond just like obviously asking other people for input, but just in terms of general principles, what do you think?

What are some thoughts on that? Yeah, that's a really good point. And as you were speaking, I was thinking about how it's

December and most of the time in December, most people begin to say we're, we're talking about and celebrating the incarnation.

And because Jesus was born and we celebrate Christmas and, and when we talk about the incarnation, one of the things that we can remember is that Jesus became a man and we're not

Gnostics. The Gnostics were those guys that all flesh was bad, right?

And it was just the spiritual stuff. And no, Jesus became a man. He became flesh like we have, and although he was without sin.

And so Jesus validates our humanity and you're a human and you get tired and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's no, it's not sinful that you work hard all day and then you get tired and you need to relax.

That's actually normal. And so I want to encourage people that I think that there is a place for entertainment, which is just a subset of your recreation and rest.

It's a way that you're setting aside the work that you're doing, which is cursed because of the curse.

And you're actually just enjoying resting in God. And if you can pray before, before you do anything at all, before I do a

Sudoku puzzle, which if you, if you want to accuse me of overdoing something, that's my thing. If you, if you want to do video games, if you want to watch a movie, if you can honestly pray,

God, thank you for this gift that you're giving me. Allow me to enjoy it for your glory because we're to do everything for his glory.

Then, then for the most part, you should go ahead and do it. Now some people aren't going to have really good consciences yet about that.

And they may, they may overstep their bounds, but within, within the understanding of what is right and wrong, if you can enjoy things to God's glory and you can say with thankfulness,

God has given me this and the time I'm spending dedicated to it is within the realm of what

God would have me do, then go ahead and enjoy it. And particularly if it's for a good reason, like you've studied all day or, or, you know, you worked all day, whatever it happened to be, you did something that was for God's glory.

That was good. You helped your wife, you helped your kids, and then you need to rest, rest. And if part of the way that you rest is by unwinding with, you know, watching a movie, hopefully with the, the, the filter.

So the swear words and stuff is off, you know, cause I'm one of those guys then enjoy, enjoy a movie, you know, enjoy a documentary, enjoy one of those music shows where the, the amateurs supposedly sing and they find the new star, what

I would enjoy what you enjoy and keep it within the bounds of this is,

I can totally say I did this for God's glory. And I really believe that. So put it in a good day's work, love your, put it in a good day's work, accomplish something worthwhile, love your, love your wife, love your kids, love your family.

And, you know, if you do your family worship, you do all that.

You feel like you've, you can, with a good conscience say, Hey, I was faithful today. There's some place at the end of it to say,

Hey, it's okay to relax a little bit. Is that fair? Oh, absolutely. And I am one of the kind of people,

I like to get the work done first. Yep. Because I'm the kind of guy who if, if, if I do my relaxation at 12, then

I might not get back. MacArthur. Yeah. One of the things MacArthur always said, and I think this is one of the most helpful things that he said that I took the heart as a young man was he was talking about the you know, what it means to be disciplined.

And, and one of the things that he, he was just talking about general life principles and one of his general life principles was do the hard thing first.

So do the hard thing first. So work first, do the hard thing first. And that's something that, you know, before that time in my life,

I was tempted towards procrastination and laziness and everything else. But then I really got in the habit of saying,

Hey, if like, if there are responsibilities to do, I'm going to do them. And I'm going to do the hard thing first.

I'm not going to be afraid of it. I'm going to do the hard thing first. And it's the kind of thing that my wife jokes at me about because she, you know, she'll ask me to do something and then it, whatever

I'm doing I get up and I go do it right away. And sometimes she like is afraid to ask me because if she asked me to go do it, then

I'm going to spend the next three hours fixing the car or whatever, you know, because she told me, but I mean,

I think it, you know, I, I think, I think that's a great principle of self -discipline where a person just says,

Hey, do the hard thing first, whatever it is, do the hard thing first, work first so that you can, with a guilt -free conscience, enjoy some of, you know, some, some of the good things.

I mean, I think there's plenty of verses in Ecclesiastes is basically you're commenting on this and basically saying, you know, don't be overly spiritual meaning.

And I think having some kind, the problem is that most people are, when people hear that, most people are not there, right?

Like our, our, our problem is that we're overly worldly. It's not that we're overly spiritual, but you know, there can be like extreme personalities on the other side who basically need to just rest a little bit, but Harrison.

Yeah. I heard the same sort of advice given to me as well, but it was just said a little differently instead of you know, doing the hard thing first, it was called eat the frog.

Have you ever heard that before? Never eat the frog. I don't,

I don't, I don't really know why it was eat the frog, I guess, just because, I mean, I could imagine eating a frog is probably pretty hard, especially if you're like doing it, eating the whole, eating the thing whole or something.

I don't know. Are you from like Louisiana or something? We're from, we're from Alabama, but I heard it from a,

I heard it from a guy in the Marine. So I don't know if that was just something that, I don't know if that's just something that they constantly said in the

Marines or what, but he would just always, he would just always say, eat the frog, eat the frog, you know?

And, and but he was basically, he was basically saying the same thing. Hey, do the, do the, do the hardest thing first, do the thing that is going to take the most time going to take the most energy you're going to take the most thought, do that first.

And then, and then your day is, you know, it's that much easier for the, for the rest of the day.

And now one thing that we didn't, that we didn't talk about, and hopefully I'm not opening up just a whole new can of worms with this, but we, we actually, you know, we talked a little bit towards the beginning about the way video games have changed to make them even more difficult to implement in your life as a form of, as a form of rest with the way they they've made them, you know, addictive as fast pace as possible as, as much content in your face as much as many opportunities to spend money as possible.

What, some of the other changes that I've seen in recent years that has become increasingly concerning is not just like the, the way it's not, it's not just those aspects, but it's also the fact that, that games have in a lot of ways become much, much more violent.

And they've also become sexual, much more. Yeah. Sexually immoral as well with their content.

And now, obviously like, not every game is like that. You know, if you, you, if you play fortnight, it's definitely meant to keep you coming back and playing and playing and spending money on skins and whatnot, but then it's not necessarily showing like you know, naked people in it or anything.

But then there are a lot more games out there than there ever has been, honestly.

And it's this way throughout all entertainment in general, but it's happening in video games specifically. And that's what we're talking about.

And so, so is there any, is there any, is there any, you know, truth to saying like the more video games go in this direction.

And, and I think with the reality, the sad reality that our society is, is introducing children to you know, vi themes of violence and, you know, sexually immoral ideas at younger and younger ages.

It's a very real possibility that even what was considered taboo even today to show children in a few more years, it won't be taboo anymore and it'll it'll be considered acceptable.

So is there, is there any worry with the trajectory that games are on right now in terms of their content that well, well, let me ask this first with the violence thing.

Is there any is there any biblical case to say there is like a, there is like a line in terms of what is good for a

Christian to be playing when it comes to violent video games. Is there any sort of line there or is it just, no, it's not real.

You know, there's, there's no, there's no law here. There's, there's not, there's, there's not much in the way of restriction here.

But if there is, what is that restriction? And then with the trajectory of games, are we ever going to get to a point where we have to say,

Hey, look, games, they're not inherently sinful, but then with what's being put in these games we just, it's probably just better to avoid them altogether and, and find some other way to rest.

Yeah. That's a really, that's a sobering point that you bring up because, you know, when we're just talking about a guy playing too many video games and then he comes to counseling and he has to be told,

Hey man, drop it to an hour a day or whatever the, you know, is a good improvement for him. That's one thing.

But, you know, we're talking about people getting hurt. And, you know, I remember when the shooters at Columbine were, you know, when they found all their journals and all the records of what they'd done before they did the murder suicide, they, you know, these guys had practiced on video games and it kind of raised that, that question with a lot of people.

And of course everybody that ever played a video game and then didn't shoot somebody was like, well, that's silly.

But, you know, I think more and more as the graphics become more realistic Harrison we're, we're getting away from like,

I've never been driving and been tempted to throw a turtle shell at a motorcycle.

Okay. It's just like, that's just such an unrealistic thing that, that like that kind of make it's cartoonish.

Yeah. That make believe cartoonish violence is so unreal to me that it never would have even crossed my mind.

But the way some of these games are now where you're the first person and you're actively, you're actively doing something that becomes very realistic looking in your brain and in your heart.

You know, one of the questions I would ask people with some of the games to get really violent is why do you even like it?

Like, why do you like that game? What is it about your Christian life that is trying to be conformed to the sixth commandment that somehow wants to, to do at least fake violence to people?

You know, I, I just, that would be a one -on -one thing though, where, you know,

I'd want to really challenge a guy and say, why, why does that interest you so much? You know, what, what do you like about it and try to dig in there?

And so I do think that people need to watch that kind of thing. They, they need to have,

I think you need to be able to be honest about it. And yeah, I, I think we should flee sexual immorality.

If there's a game that has sexual morality, I think you just don't play it. In fact, if you had, if you could, you protest it.

I would, but I don't know what any of these games are. Otherwise I'd, I'd protest these kinds of things, but yeah, they're, they're going to push this stuff on your kids.

They're going to make it downloadable. And like you said, though, it's not necessarily new either.

It's maybe just a little more prevalent now. Yeah. I think the first time that I remember encountering the kind of dynamic you're talking about was with the grand theft auto kind of stuff.

But I don't, we never really there's something about those kinds of games that just is repelling to me.

Like personally, it's always been kind of repelling. Like I don't want to pretend like I'm beating people up and stealing cars.

And so there's something about like role -playing, role -playing sin seems strange.

Right. So there's something about that, that I don't think should sit right with like,

I shouldn't be wanting to enact sins in imaginary way. I mean, even when I played like it's funny, like when

I, whenever I played like role -playing games, it's always been a little bit hard for me to be the evil character, you know, and make all the evil choices.

There's something in me that just pushes against that. And so there's, there's a, I think there's like an interesting discussion to be had at that point where like, if like you should be kind of repelled, even if you're playing pretend,

I mean, it's something that when our kids like are playing my, my wife is very active in, you know, if our kids are like making their toy be disrespectful to the other toy, she will come in and say,

Hey, you know, like we don't make, we don't play like that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And just because it, and I think that there's something about like, just because you insert it into a virtual world, like sin is deeper than just the behavior.

It also comes down to the desires. Now, I mean, I, I think with some of the war game kind of impulse,

I, I suppose I probably struggle a little bit with like, there are like, you know, like part of being a man is watching a war movie maybe, and just like realizing that there's evil out there in the world and not being so sheltered from it to where you, you can't like,

Like there's a lot of like totally unprepared if it were to you're totally under your door. So, I mean, one of the things they do with soldiers though, but on the other other side of that argument, one of the things they do with soldiers is getting to play a lot of like shooters to desensitize them to like the kind of things that you're talking about now,

I think, you know, personally, I think there's a lot of psychotropic drugs that are feeding into a lot of these shootings to, to where you're combining two different things.

So you're, you're desensitizing yourself to some degree. And then you put someone on like all these mind altering drugs.

And I think it kind of takes it to a whole new level. So I think there's that kind of discussion feeding into it as well.

But then just like gratuitous violence, you know, like I think with something like halo, you know, like if you were to think of something like halo, it's hard to, it's just like fantasy guns, shooting kind of stuff in a way that some of them are just like, you're blowing up, you know, you see bits of skull blowing apart.

And so I think there's some kind of lines there to where like, one, I don't think we want to be enacting sin, right.

Role -playing sin. And then another, like when the violence is just like gratuitous, like what are, what are we even saying at that?

Why are we so attracted to that? But do you have any further thoughts about anything like that? I was thinking about, as you were speaking, that you don't see a lot of hunting video games, right?

I think because people who hunt, they just go out and hunt, right. You know, like it's like the fantasy world thing.

And, and, you know, I just think that we need to be careful with that. You know,

I think a lot of people probably should, should put some of them down. Sure. And so that's to me, you want to glorify

God and all that you do. And I think people need to be able to honestly ask, am

I, am I glorifying God with this? And then in the cases like Harrison brought up, I think sometimes there's overt sin.

Yep. Not all things are lawful, but yeah, you know, all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.

Right. Yeah. But, but, but, you know, like fantasy world, you know, fornicating, murdering, stealing, like you're, you're committing the sin in your heart as you do it,

I think in the fantasy world. But one of the things that occurred to me was that if somebody's listening and they're waiting for us to say, you know,

Hezekiah 314 says no video games. I always go to third Timothy. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Better than second Osteen. But we're, you know, if somebody is waiting for us to just give them that Zinger Bible verse, and if we don't have it, like, well, we don't have to listen.

It's kind of like the advice that MacArthur gave that you brought up about do the hard thing first, that it's not necessarily a

Bible verse we can point to, but you know, one of the things the reformation helped teach us was that, you know,

God, God has revealed himself specially through his word, but there's also the light of nature.

And there's some things that we've learned just from existing, that we can just look around us and say,

Hey, this seems to work and this seems to not work. You know what I mean? I don't need a Bible verse to tell me how to do a lot of things because I can look around and see what is a good idea or not.

And in some cases, you know, even, even non -Christians who are mature men, we'll just tell you put down video games and they don't even have to try to qualify.

Like we're trying to say, well, we're not saying it's sin, but they'll just look at a young guy and say, put them down. You want to come be on my team at this job or you want to make money with me in this endeavor or whatever it happens to be like, you got to put aside these things that aren't helping us.

That's just, that's just common sense. Yeah. Okay.

Well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the episode on. So Michael, is there anything before, before we ask you to, you know, or before we close, is there anything else that you want to say just as like a summary or anything that we didn't touch on really quick?

If I was going to say anything at the end, I would just remind people that there's a savior who died for sinners and Jesus Christ came and died for sinners and he rose again so that we could be forgiven, even for wasting his time that he's given us.

And as a result of that forgiveness that, that, that you've received, if you've received it, you should want to try to serve him with all that you have for the rest of your life, but also rest in his accomplished work on your behalf.

Don't quit video games because you think it'll make God love you. Quit video games because God's already expressed his love to you.

I'm not telling people to quit, but if you need to quit them, because God's already shown you his love, even when you weren't seeking him.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Michael, before we go, before we close, finish up the episode for everyone out there who's listening to us, why don't you tell them where they can find more of you?

More of me. Okay. Well, my website that I am easily found at is called things above us.

It's things above dot U S I'll put the little card there if you want to see it. Okay. And, but things above dot

U S that's where I, I've been blogging for years and that's where I have one of my podcasts called things above us round table.

And then, and then I have another podcast on the Bible thumping wing nut network called be a

Berean. And I was going through the book of Hebrews for a long time there. And we were in chapter nine and there was some website problems that are just getting cleared up.

So I'm getting ready to start that podcast back up soon. I hope, but you can reach me at Michael at things above dot

U S. And once in a while you can find me on Twitter, but now

I might just pop in and just, just check out all of your posts and see what people are saying to these questions. I'm seriously intrigued by all the comments you guys get.

It's fun just to read them. It really is interesting just as a side note. I know we've said we're wrapping up the episode, but I just remembered this.

You know, there was a comment on what on the poll about the video games that was very, I guess it was from a guy and it was very much, it was a very aggressive comment towards, you know, like you, you guys were saying a question with, with yes or no answers where we, you know, we're not, we're not necessarily saying one thing or the other.

And this, this guy was very much like a, you know, very aggressive, adamant that video games are totally okay.

You know, and I, I assume in every form, I don't, he didn't make any qualifications there.

Maybe, maybe he has some and he just didn't mention them. But it was very aggressive. And, and Tim, Tim and I were talking about that and you know,

I still play video games every once in a while. You know, in terms of frequency, maybe like,

I don't know, once a week, typically for like an hour or so I might play something.

And I was looking at that poll and I was basically thinking in my head like, okay, that's a pretty normal poll.

But then someone else was coming along and having a, a, a very, he blocked a negative, negative response to it all.

And so he blocked me for trying to say, Hey man, there's two options on this. We haven't even said. Yeah.

So, so I think there is like a I, like we said,

I don't think video games are necessarily, yeah. You can't point to a specific verse that says thou shalt not play video games.

Right. But then there is a lot of wisdom in the Bible that we can still apply.

For example, when we talked about the sexual immorality stuff, the Bible says flee sexual immorality. You know,

Joe, Job says that he's made a covenant with his eyes not to look at anything unclean. And, and you have tons of stuff like that throughout the scriptures.

That's not just about sexual immorality, but it's about the way we spend our time, the way we get ourselves to think, you know what are we thinking about?

Are we trying to honor the Lord with our actions, with our strength? Like you said earlier, Michael. And so I, my encouragement to everyone who's listening here, especially the guys out there is if a topic like this and and the sort of pushback that we're giving against video games, even coming from guys who have, who have grown up playing video games for for years and in different ways.

If it, if it causes you to instantly get angry and instantly get defensive, then

I would encourage you, especially you're the kind of person who probably does need to do like Michael is saying and go get guys in your life who know you, who, who you can trust, who you're willing to tell them, here's how

I spend my time. You know, like answer hard questions with them. Like, Hey, how much are you thinking about video games when you're not playing them?

How much money are you spending on video games? How much time obviously, are you dedicating to it? Are you, you know, are you neglecting your responsibilities to be able to play video games?

And you, you really are the kind of person who needs, needs to get accountability in your life with these things, because it is very easy in our society to, and it's becoming more and more acceptable to become the kind of person who makes video games into something.

They're really not supposed to be in something that honors the Lord. So Michael, with all that being said, again, we want to thank you for coming on the show.

We really appreciate you giving us your time and, and helping us talk through these kinds of issues.

And I got to say, man, you're brave coming on here. You're brave, but, but we appreciate it.

We appreciate it. Appreciate your time. We want to thank everyone out there who's listening to us, who supports us week in and week out, who interacts with us online.

We really appreciate all the support and feedback we get from you guys. And until next time, we'll see ya.

This has been another episode of Bible bashed. We hope you have been encouraged and blessed through our discussion.

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Now go boldly and obey the truth in the midst of a biblically illiterate world who will be perpetually offended by your every move.