Like most leaders I tend to work too much. My family didn’t do play. We worked hard. I naturally bought this into my leadership for Christ over the last 25 years at New Life. Jurgen Moltmann’s, A Theology of Play (out of print of course), has the best theology I have read on this topic. The following are his few nuggets of gold from his book as described in Ben Witherton III ‘s, The Rest of Life: 1. Play foreshadows the joy of the eschaton where all manner of drudgery and disease and decay and death will be left behind. It is not useless activity. 2. Play is a celebration of life lived to its fullest. 3. In play we emulate God’s actions who did not create the universe because it was a necessity. God is playful. He enjoys creating and playing. 4. “Play relativizes our ‘over-seriousness’ toward life, filling us with a spirit of joy and delight that carries over into all aspects of our existence.” 5. Play is not time out from work, and it is not rest time either. It is kingdom foreshadowing. It is a momentary escape into the future reality that God intended for us all. May God give us grace to resist our Western culture’s overemphasis on work and play more for Him. If you are interested, I touched on this theme in my recent sermon, “Sabbath:The Foundation of Our Work” out of Deut.5:12-17.
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1. Play foreshadows the joy of the eschaton where all manner of drudgery and disease and decay and death will be left behind. It is not useless activity. 2. Play is a celebration of life lived to its fullest. 3. In play we emulate God’s actions who did not create the universe because it was a necessity. God is playful. He enjoys creating and playing. 4. “Play relativizes our ‘over-seriousness’ toward life, filling us with a spirit of joy and delight that carries over into all aspects of our existence.” 5. Play is not time out from work, and it is not rest time either. It is kingdom foreshadowing. It is a momentary escape into the future reality that God intended for us all. May God give us grace to resist our Western culture’s overemphasis on work and play more for Him. If you are interested, I touched on this theme in my recent sermon, “Sabbath:The Foundation of Our Work” out of Deut.5:12-17.
