Life in Tutorial Mode

Felix:    Jeepers! Is she always this intense?

Kohut:  It’s not her fault. She’s programmed with the most tragic backstory ever.

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

 

Thanks to Naypong at freedigitalphotos.net for this picture of someone playing video games, probably far more skilfully than I ever have.

I am really bad at video games.

I enjoy them, I really do, but somehow my hands just don’t take easily to the shape of a console controller. It was all right when the console in question was a Mega Joy 2000,¹ there were only eight buttons for in-game control, and even of that repertoire barely half was really required by most games – but when, in more recent times, my family acquired an Xbox 360, it was an altogether different story. Suddenly, I was presented with joysticks, triggers, bumpers, and goodness knew what else, and caused much hilarity to assorted siblings by my inability to do, well, anything, when I embarked upon my first game. The game in question was Assassins’ Creed: Revelations, which perhaps wasn’t the best choice for a beginner in view of the very heavy foundation of its storyline in the events of earlier instalments of the franchise.² I also like to think that I’d have been a bit quicker to pick up how to use the controls if I’d started at the beginning of the series, and wouldn’t have ended up making quite such a fool of poor Ezio, who found himself running into walls, falling off buildings, and attacking sword-wielding enemies with nothing but his fists when he had a perfectly good weapon of his own sheathed at his side. Still, things could have been worse. The game did provide some useful hints without which I would have doubtless made even more of a mess of things. First off, during the opening chunk of gameplay, there was a sort of ghostly figure, resembling Ezio in shape, that ran along doing everything Ezio was supposed to do before he did it, demonstrating the correct direction in which to climb walls and so forth. Additionally, there was the option of taking a break from the narrative to practise particular moves in a kind of blank, computer-generated training area. (An option which I employed. Quite a lot.) And on top of that, helpful prompts of which buttons to press would periodically flash up on the screen, especially in unusual situations like needing to deploy a parachute.

Wouldn’t it be handy to be able to access these kinds of supports in real life? No worries about getting lost in a new place: one’s mysterious ghost-self would lead exactly the way one needed to go. No stress in high-pressure social situations: one could simply rehearse a conversation as many times as one needed in order to be happy with it. No confusion over which course or job to apply for: a helpful prompt would appear in the corner of one’s vision to make the correct choice crystal clear.

This week, my university released to its undergraduates (myself among them) their exam and dissertation results. The wait is over, and the obvious question is what next? At this time, I count myself among the happy few who do have a specific and secure plan for the coming few years, but I remember from previous points of decision in my life the distress of not doing so, and can only imagine it magnifying as time goes by. My seventeen-year-old self, for instance, agonising over whether, where, and for which course to apply to university, would have absolutely loved a little flashing hint that Classics at Exeter was a good shout. It would make life so much easier not to have to think about these things.

But that’s exactly the trouble. If one didn’t have to think about these things, then, logically, one probably wouldn’t. The correct response to every dilemma would be handed over on a plate and one would never have to actually engage one’s brain in a process of reasoned decision-making; one would never learn why particular choices were good or bad ideas. In other words, to perpetually play in tutorial mode is to never really learn how to play the game at all.

There is a wonderful book by Kevin DeYoung called Just Do Something, which I highly recommend to anyone needing to make a decision, or in actual fact anyone at all.³ In it, he argues that this generation is far too inclined to sit around waiting for a sign from God about what to do, and far too disinclined to actually do anything. We have this false idea, DeYoung explains, that if we make a wrong decision, we’ll derail ourselves from the track God had planned for us, fall short of our potential, and lose our one shot at fulfilment and happiness – and so we’re afraid to make any concrete decision at all, in case it’s the wrong one. I won’t go through his argument in too much detail here, because you’re better off just reading the book, but I reckon he hits the nail on the head. We’d rather play life in tutorial mode than gain a real understanding of how best to play and, indeed, what the point of the game is. We’d rather sit back and have God give us precise direction at every corner than spend time and effort getting to know him, his character, and the kinds of choices he approves of as a result. We act as if God’s plan for our life has as its purpose our own personal happiness, rather than his glory.⁴ We place greater importance on God laying out a life-plan for us than having brought us into new life in Jesus.

But God doesn’t want us to play life in tutorial mode. He wants us to understand the game. Granted, life is a lot messier, more unpredictable, and more complicated than any video game that will ever be released; still, I do think there are a few alternatives to tutorial mode that are equally applicable to both.

1)       Read the manufacturer’s instructions.

“The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul;

the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;

the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever;

the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.” Psalm 19:7-9

So the guy who programmed the game wrote a book about it. Probably worth a look. This isn’t just about straightforward commands – press A to jump, love the Lord your God, that sort of jazz – but also familiarising oneself with the lore of the game world. It helps, for instance, to know who the bad guys are.

2)      Ask someone who knows the game better than you do.

“Older women … are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Titus 2:3-5

The game of life is, of course, never the same for any two players, so advice from someone a few levels further on than you isn’t going to have the uncompromising accuracy of a video walkthrough. The beauty of not playing in tutorial mode, however, is that this individual will hopefully have learned some principles applicable in quite general terms, because he or she has been actually learning how the game works rather than simply waiting to be told what to do in a specific situation.

3)      Consider your own previous experience of the game.

“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Deuteronomy 5:15

If pressing B to have Ezio swing two hundred and seventy degrees around a lampshade worked before, chances are it’ll work again. Likewise, if getting up a bit earlier in order to have some prayer time before leaving the house, or stepping out of one’s conversational comfort zone in order to make mention of the gospel, or setting aside an amount of money in order to support a particular cause, proved to be a positive thing before, chances are it’ll do so again. I hasten to add that this very much has to be taken in conjunction with reading the instructions. One’s personal experience of the game is bound to be incredibly limited compared to that of the programmer’s, and should never be trusted over it. Still, it can certainly be massively helpful and encouraging to recall personal experiences where the truth of the instructions was demonstrated.

Other than that, all one can really do is get on with playing the game. Reading the instructions won’t always yield the kinds of answers one wants, but it does yield the answers which are important. For those of you making significant decisions in the next little while, I pray that you would know that God’s plan for you is bigger than a particular location or career or relationship; rather, it involves better knowing, loving, and serving the Lord Jesus, and becoming ever more like him. It’s bigger than blindly plodding along in tutorial mode; rather, it involves becoming directly acquainted with the one who dreamed up every element of the game in the first place, and learning to play the game the way he intends through knowing him personally. What a privilege.

Footnote

¹ If you want to know what the Mega Joy 2000 was like, someone has thoughtfully posted a review on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdF_ADVWDVc. Ours was purple, though, and had a slightly different game selection. I spent many a happy afternoon watching my mum play Super Mario on that console (she was a lot better at it than any of the rest of us).

² An Assassin’s Creed film is set to be released at the end of this year: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2094766/. Clevver Movies have come up with a pretty solid list of attributes that might allow it to buck the trend of films based on video games being utterly awful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5YsNtdiwc.

³ As usual, 10ofthose offers competitive pricing: https://www.10ofthose.com/products/17815/just-do-something/.

⁴ Fancy a hilarious-yet-convicting Adam4d cartoon on this subject? Of course you do: http://adam4d.com/wonderful/.

I, pharisee 3: Welcome to Rehab

“I was so nice about Hitler – a much misunderstood man.”

The History Boys (2006)

The image works on two counts: first, its vaguely medical theme could feasibly imply rehab, and second, I discuss a passage in which Jesus makes a cutting diagnosis of humanity’s ultimate heart condition.

Just to be absolutely clear, the point of the preceding two posts in this little mini-series of mine – and, equally, of this one – has not been that the Pharisees were actually pretty nice guys and we should cut them some slack.¹

It perhaps wouldn’t be surprising if it were. I have, after all, just spent three years studying a humanities subject at undergraduate level, a process which, at least based on my experience of it, can sometimes feel like little more than a desperate struggle to argue something – anything – that nobody else has argued yet; and since, as a Classicist, I have, by and large, been studying works about which people have been making arguments for some two thousand years, the gratuitous challenging of some traditionally-held view or other has often seemed almost compulsory in order to stand any chance of gaining credit for originality. Early on in The History Boys, Irwin exhorts the class of boys whom he has been hired to help make successful Oxbridge applications to exactly such an effect: “So, our overall conclusion is that the origins of the second war lie in the unsatisfactory outcome of the first. Yes. First class. Bristol welcomes you with open arms! Manchester longs to have you! You can walk into Leeds! But I’m a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; I’ve just read seventy papers; they’re all saying the same thing; and I’m asleep.” When it comes to the pertinent exam, therefore, one of the students, Posner, opts for being nice about Hitler as a way to set his answer apart from the crowd.²

But such an approach only really works if one is prepared to sacrifice truth – at least in some measure – for the sake of novelty. Indeed, Irwin freely admits as much: “What’s truth got to do with it? What’s truth got to do with anything?” Likewise, to claim that the Pharisees were all right after all would be to ignore – at least in some measure – the kinds of things Jesus said about them. A fuller understanding of the context in which they were said doesn’t change the substance of their content. To believe the words of Jesus is to acknowledge that the Pharisees of and to whom he spoke really were comparable to blind guides, vipers, children of hell.³

Which being so, my point in making the case, over the previous couple of weeks, that the Pharisees were actually getting a lot right, has not been simply to recast them as good guys (or even not-brilliant-but-sort-of-all-right guys). Rather, it has been to highlight how much higher God’s standards are than I think we realise. To believe sound doctrine, to seek to better understand God’s character through scripture, to reject a nominal obedience of his commands in favour of trying to reflect him in even the smallest details – it sounds like a description of a perfectly God-glorifying life. Yet, though the Pharisees did all these things, it would appear to have done them no good, to the extent that they didn’t even recognise God for who he was when he was standing right in front of them – to the extent that they ended up plotting his death. These things, it turns out, weren’t just inadequate, but unspeakably so.

So, God’s standards are far higher than I realise. And equally, my human nature is more corrupt, more perverse, more downright evil than I realise. Have a look at the seventh chapter of Mark’s gospel.⁴ The first few verses deal with Jesus having a go at the Pharisees for being pharisees⁵ – specifically, for prioritising their own traditions over God’s word, thereby nullifying it. It’s a shocking indictment indeed, considering what we saw last week about the Pharisees’ understanding of the Law. But note what Jesus says next: he starts talking about which things actually defile a person, and defines them as products of the heart, the inner nature. The implication, therefore, is that whatever the Pharisees do in order to try to please God, their endeavours can never succeed, because the innate corruptness of their hearts means they are ultimately bound to end up behaving in a corrupt manner.

It’s not as if the Pharisees are unique in this trait, however. In actual fact, “none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”⁶ So why does Jesus seem to reserve his biting criticism only for the Pharisees? Well, there’s something of an answer to be found in the next chunk of Mark 7. Jesus trots over to Tyre and Sidon and runs into a Syrophoenician woman who begs him to get rid of a demon that’s possessing her daughter. Jesus’ response is, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

The implication being, he’s addressing this woman as a dog – an uncomplimentary term not too dissimilar to the kinds of things he calls the Pharisees. This woman’s reaction, however, is striking. She says, “Yes, Lord.” She holds her hands up to the accusation. Yes. Fair enough. I’m a dog, and you occupy a status infinitely higher than mine. I’m a sinful mess undeserving of your attention, let alone your favour, and I own the fact. “Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs,” she adds. Even so, please help me. And her daughter is healed.

The Syrophoenician woman already knew that she was sinful and Jesus was miles above her: “Yes, Lord.” Elsewhere, Simon Peter already knew that he was sinful and Jesus was miles above him: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”⁷ The centurion at Capernaum already knew that he was sinful and Jesus was miles above him: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”⁸ Jesus didn’t have to tell them. They knew.

It wasn’t that the Pharisees were particularly worse than anyone else. Everyone falls a million miles short of God’s standards. Everyone is, by nature, enslaved to sin, a deserving object of God’s wrath, incapable of doing anything to please him. The Pharisees’ real problem was that they weren’t aware of the fact. So every harsh word, every vehement rebuke, every jarring indictment on Jesus’ part was an opportunity for them to wake up to it. Jesus told the Pharisees that they were sinful because they desperately needed to know as much – because only by recognising their sin would they be able to repent of it and access the kingdom of God. Indeed, he described their sins to them in crystal-clear detail. His words, however harsh they sound to our ears, were nevertheless words of love.

God’s impossibly high standards held alongside our utterly corrupt nature would form a phenomenally depressing picture without the knowledge of the gospel – that God sent his Son not only to alert us to the desperateness of our situation, but to provide a solution for it, even at the cost of his life. By our unwillingness to admit that we are incapable, in and of ourselves, of pleasing God, pharisees like me cheat ourselves out of the gospel: we refuse forgiveness by failing to acknowledge that we need it.

Welcome to pharisee rehab. You may have heard it said that the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem. That’s also true here. Indeed, there are no other steps. Admit that you have a problem and you can’t do a thing about it – and then marvel at how God lavishes his mercy on you without condition or limit, how he fulfilled the necessity of perfect justice through the sacrifice of his own Son, how he is here again to meet you in grace after every relapse you have. However often you catch yourself slipping back into your pharisaical habits, apply the same solution every time. God’s grace is never diminished as you realise more clearly the depth of your sin; rather, the sheer extent of it is, in turn, thrown into even sharper relief.

Footnotes

¹ Links to said preceding posts are in the box on the right. But you already knew that.

² Aware as I am that The History Boys began life as a stage play and was only later adapted into a film, I refer to the film in this post because I can access it via the wonders of the TV archive known as Box of Broadcasts: http://bobnational.net/. If you happen to belong to an organisation which offers access to BOB, I highly recommend making use of it: pretty much everything that’s been on TV in the past ten years or so is available either to watch immediately or to order.

³ That’s Matthew 23 again: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+23&version=ESVUK.

⁴ Go on, have a read: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+7&version=ESVUK. The text itself is way more worth your time than anything I have to say about it.

⁵ For the uppercase/lowercase distinction, see ‘I, pharisee 1’. Ugh, look at me referencing myself like the pretentious numpty I am.

⁶ Romans 3: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+3&version=ESVUK.

⁷ See Luke 5 for the whole story: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%205&version=ESVUK.

⁸ Either Matthew 8 or Luke 7 will do for this one. Just because we had Luke in the last footnote and I fancy switching it up a bit, have the Matthew: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+8&version=ESVUK.