Part 1: Fun Is Good

If fun is good, but not all fun is good, then we ought to choose our fun thoughtfully and wisely. Fun ought to be to our benefit, not a means of our destruction.

So how do we choose? Can we just choose what we like?

Likes are important. There’s no sense in seeking relaxation in things you don’t like; if this is about pleasure and rest, then that’s obvious.

But I’d suggest that “I like it!” is not a legitimate first criterion. Making your likes the primary criterion is idolatry; “I am the standard by which my world is measured.” My physicist friends tell me that nobody has enough mass to be the center of the universe. Sure, you should do something you like; but the fact that you like something is not in itself a basis for choosing it. There ought to be more significant reasons than that.

You won’t be surprised, I suppose, when I say that we need to base these choices—even choices about what we do for fun—on Scripture. Paul famously wrote,

Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1Co 10.31).

We ought to glorify God in the way we have fun.

How can we do that?

I think we can pull over into this question some principles Paul set forth in another context. The believers at Corinth were squabbling over whether they should do certain things—the most notorious was whether it’s OK to eat meat that had been offered to idols. I’ve written on that in another context, but I think we can legitimately apply it to this question.

Paul says that we have a lot of freedom in our choices of behavior; he even says, surprisingly, that “all things are lawful unto me” (1Co 6.12; 10.23). Now, obviously, in context he doesn’t mean that murder and mayhem are just fine. But he does grant broad latitude to Christians in choosing their own behaviors.

This surprising statement doesn’t appear in isolation, however; Paul attaches limitations to the list of “all things”:

• Not all things are expedient (KJV) / helpful (NKJV ESV) / profitable (NASB) /  beneficial (CSB NIV) (1Co 6.12). We need to choose activities that help move us toward our goal—and the Christian’s goal is Christ-likeness (Ro 8.29). Stewardship of our rest can clearly do that. Activities that encourage love for our neighbor can do that. On the other hand, activities that isolate us from sympathy for others or that cater to our pridefulness clearly don’t—even if the activity itself is not sin.
• Some things threaten to control us (1Co 6.12). Anything that becomes life-dominating is wrong, even if it doesn’t have that effect on other people. I know someone whose marriage broke up because he spent too much time playing computer games. Does anybody really want his life to be radically changed for the worse—by a hobby? a diversion?
• Not all things edify (1Co 10.23). This could theoretically be speaking of edifying ourselves or edifying others, but in the context Paul is pretty clearly focusing on the latter. We need to consider whether our pastimes build up or tear down those around us. Literally any activity can cross this line if we get so wrapped up in it that we ignore or neglect those around us.

Since we’re talking about entertainment, let me engage in a little thought experiment about movies.

When I was a boy in broad evangelicalism, around 90% of conservative Christians thought you shouldn’t go to a move theater, because even watching a good movie amounted to supporting an ungodly industry. Now, 50 years later, the number has flipped; about 90% think it’s fine to go to a movie theater.

What’s changed in the meantime?

Well, most noticeably, the movies have gotten a lot more objectionable.

Now, I’m honestly not taking any position here on whether you ought to go to movies. But I can’t help noticing that our freedom has hardened our hearts. We aren’t troubled by the unbiblical things that used to trouble us.

We need to think more carefully about how we have fun.

May I suggest a resource for doing that? My colleague, Dr. Brian Hand, has written a booklet on this topic. It’s not long or expensive, and it’s worth a read.

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash

I’d like to take a few posts to talk seriously about fun.

Seriously. About fun.

A few years back I did some thinking about the topic, thinking that eventuated in a chapel sermon  at BJU on March 19, 2008. These days it seems helpful to run those ideas around the block again.

My first thought about fun is the title of this post.

Fun is good.

I’m not saying just that I like fun; that’s pretty much assumed in the definition of the word. What I’m saying here is a moral judgment, with a theological foundation.

Fun is good. Morally good. We ought to have fun.

Fun—what we might call entertainment if we were trying to be respectable—consists of a couple of elements: pleasure and rest—and, I think, simultaneously. I like my job, for example; it gives me a lot of pleasure, for a lot of reasons. But I wouldn’t call it entertainment, because it’s what I do for a living. Fun is stuff I do, well, just for the fun of it.

So, pleasure, and rest, simultaneously. Here’s biblical evidence—which, in my line of work, constitutes proof—that these things are good.

God Likes Both Pleasure and Rest

God isn’t shy about proclaiming that he greatly enjoys both pleasure and rest.

He takes pleasure

• In uprightness (1Ch 29.17; contrast Ps 5.4)
• In the prosperity of his servants (Ps 35.27)
• In those who fear him (Ps 147.11)
• In his people (Ps 149.4)
• In the obedience of his Son (Is 53.10)
• In the repentance of the wicked (Ezk 18.23; contrast v 32, Heb 10.38)
• In his Temple (Hag 1.8)

Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Lk 12.32). God enjoys giving things to people he loves.

And at the climax of all history, the throng around God’s throne sings, “For your pleasure [all things] are and were created” (Rv 4.11). Pleasure is important enough to be the purpose for which God created the universe.

God seeks rest—

• He ended the Creation week with a day of rest (Gen 2.2)—not because he was tired, of course, but because he was finished. Some might argue with me that the word rest here means simply completion, with no real parallel to the kind of “break” that we’re talking about. Fair enough. Then consider—
• Jesus rested, for precisely the reasons we do (Mk 6.31). He apparently did so regularly and repeatedly. And if he did, then it’s blasphemous to suggest that there’s something wrong with it.

God Wants Us to Like Both Pleasure and Rest

Further, not only does God engage in and enjoy these two things, but he encourages—even commands—that we do the same.

In the Garden, God told Adam and Eve to eat of a great number of fruit trees, which, he said, “are good for food” (Gn 2.9). David writes that at God’s “right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps 16.11)—and that’s speaking not of God’s pleasure, but of that of his people, in his presence.

And then there’s this verse:

You shall make them drink of the river of your pleasures (Ps 36.8).

Drinking deep from a whole river of pleasure. Did you know that verse was in the Bible? Check, if you don’t believe me.

What about rest?

God legislated a day of rest for his people—every week, and several more during major holidays. And as you may have noticed above, when Jesus took time to take a break and get away from the crowds, he told his disciples to come with him and rest as well.

I think it’s safe to conclude from this evidence that the two key elements of entertainment, pleasure and rest, are not only godly but divinely ordained.

We ought to be having fun.

It’s good.

So at this point do I just smile, wave, and tell the kids to “Have fun!”?

I think you’d agree that not all pleasure, not all rest, is good, or profitable, or wise. The woods is full of people who could tell you sad stories about that.

So how do we choose our fun?

We’ll take a look at that in the next post.

Part 2: Choosing Good Fun

Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash