Nobody Plays Monopoly

Have you ever played Monopoly? I cannot remember my first game, however I must have been fairly young at the time. It has been and continues to be a popular game. We own the traditional one, one modeled after my home town and one that reflects the Star Wars legacy. I do have a question. Have you ever actually read all the instructions for Monopoly or do just go with what you have been taught over the years? Are you aware that "Free Parking" holds no material value? You get no money when you land on the square. The rules suggest that the banker must be a good auctioneer and may or may not be a player. They may just be the banker. Any unowned property must be sold when it is landed on. If the player who lands on the property chooses not to buy it the banker immediately puts it up for auction. Anyone, even the one who refused to buy it, may bid on the property. The bidding has no minimum. You might buy Baltic Avenue for $2 if no one else makes a bid. If you mortgage a property you must pay the bank 10% interest when you pay back the mortgage. If someone goes bankrupt to you, you must immediately pay the bank 10% for any mortgaged property that comes from the losing player. If you choose to wait to pay off the mortgage you pay and additional 10% when you clear the mortgage. If the bank runs low on houses or hotels, and more than one player wants to buy them, the bank can hold an auction and sell to the highest bidder. You could potentially pay $3000 for a house on Saint James Place. Do you remember these rules? Did you play by them? Personally I do not remember paying interest or any bank auctions. I like having some cash awarded to me when I landed on Free Parking. 

To be honest I will not lose any sleep over the fact that we fudged the real rules and went with the traditions that I was taught by some one who already knew the game. What could be the harm if tradition supersedes the written rules? We likely live in a world where few actually play Monopoly. In fact, enough time has passed that few remember the original instructions and are happy to go with the popular modifications. You would have to be pretty intolerant to demand that the game be played to the letter of the law. For Monopoly the rules have changed yet the game goes on. However, there are some quiet, perhaps disturbing, applications to this socially acceptable approach to how rules are viewed.

Do rules for life matter? Where do we find them? For believers in the God of the Bible and His Son, Messiah Jesus, we can quickly respond with, "The Bible". Isn't that the place we turn to for all instruction for faith and practice? Having traveled down life's road for a while, and having devoted a significant portion of my life to the study of God's Word, I fear that we may have adopted a, sort of,  Monopoly approach to the Scriptures. I have found that tradition, theological predisposing, and what we were taught from the beginning  may dictate what we do and how we believe. These things offer comfort when we gather together as a believing body. We can lean heavily on how we have always played instead of investigating the actual instructions contained in God's Manuel. Do we rely on tradition or the Scriptures when we implement those "faith and practice" things we hold as sacred? Are we willing to take an objective look at the "Word" to see if what we do and believe lines up with Scripture? It can, indeed, be an uncomfortable process. However, it might be worth the investigation to validate or challenge our religious practice both individually and corporately. 

My intention is not to throw rocks or to cause division or angst among my brothers and sisters in Christ. However, in our pursuit of truth and a deeper relationship with the Lord we do need to have the Word of God as our guide and standard. Traditions and theology have their value and should not be discarded off hand. Still, we always need to evaluate them and what we have been taught, by God's revealed standard, being the Bible. With this being said, I would like to present a few posts to help us consider whether or not we have fallen into a Monopoly view of what we do as followers of Christ. So stay tuned as we compare our traditions with the Scripture and see just where we might stand with what we do as we gather together, in His name. We may be encouraged to see how well we are doing or there may be a need to return to the original instructions to correct what we have been taught and accepted, along the way. I think it is a risk worth taking. I hope you are willing to join me with a little mental and spiritual exercise to follow the Apostle Paul's instruction to, "Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15).