As church leaders can see, both knowledge and wisdom are necessary to answer questions about video games. Pastors and elders need to know what games are, what effects they can have, what proclivities inquirers (and their children) have, and what the Scriptures say.

Read Part 1.

Counsel

Church leaders should exhort everyone to “[k]eep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Prov. 4:23). People must be reminded that due to Adam’s Fall, the natural heart of all mankind “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). Out of it now proceeds “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies,” disobedience to authorities, covetousness, ingratitude, and a love for pleasure rather than a love for God (Matt. 15:19, II Tim. 3:4). Some people may not gravitate to the exact same sins as another (Is. 53:6) or commit the most egregious transgressions possible, but “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), warranting His just wrath.

But “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). He now calls all those who come unto Him to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but by ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:1-2).

It pleased God to have His prophets and apostles record these words (and many others) in the Scriptures (II Tim. 3:16, II Pet. 1:21, Heb. 1:1), and to have His appointed ministers proclaim them in local churches (I Cor. 1:21) through songs, prayers, readings, teachings, and sermons. To accomplish the latter faithfully, ministers will speak in the vernacular tongue (I Cor. 14:9) but in a manner that is committed not just to “the ideas of truth expressed in the Bible but also the way those ideas are imagined through Scripture’s various aesthetic forms.” They will not therefore “handl[e] the word of God deceitfully” (II Cor. 4:2) “with enticing words of man’s wisdom” (as an entertainer would), “but in demonstration of the Spirit and power” (I Cor. 2:4), they will exposit the Scriptures with “reverence and godly fear” (Heb. 12:28, Neh. 8:8, II Tim. 2:15, 4:2). Ministers know that natural men, blinded by Satan and sin, cannot “endure [such] sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (II Tim. 4:3, ESV, cf. I Cor. 2:14). But godly ministers will faithfully and lovingly persevere in their callings, knowing that some of the seed of their ministry will fall on good ground, bearing forth fruit in due season (Ps. 1:3, Luke 8:15).¹

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