Coffee and Monopoly
I walked into the kitchen the other evening to pour myself a cup of coffee. My sons were all sitting around the kitchen table playing a game of Monopoly. I stopped to watch the game for a little while . . .
It reminded me of when I was a kid. Grandpa would come to visit and we would
play Monopoly for hours on end. I got to be rather good at playing that game
back in those days.
Anyway, as I watched the play of this particular game going on I noticed a few
things happening that I didn't seem to recall from the days when Grandpa and I
used to play. One thing I noticed was this large pile of money sitting in the
middle of the board. I asked the guys about it and they said that when someone
had to pay the fines and assessments from the "community chest" and "chance"
cards they put it into that pile . . . Then if someone landed on "Free Parking"
that person would get the money in the center of the board.
I asked them where they came up with a crazy rule like that and they answered
that they always played that way . . . They said it must be in the rules of the
game somewhere.
I told them that I had never heard of any such rule and I pulled out the
"Official Rules of Monopoly".
No where in the rules did it indicate any such thing . . . In fact it basically
said that "Free Parking" was just that, a space with no purpose but to sit and
wait for your next turn. I pointed this out to the boys and told them that they
really should be playing according to the rules.
Finally I left them to their game and I took my coffee into the other room to
sit by the fireplace. As I sat there I reflected on what had just happened back
in the kitchen. I thought about how the boys were playing that game by rules
that someone else had made up . . . Rules that didn't correspond to the
"Official Rules".
Then I thought about the various doctrines and teachings we are seeing in the
churches today . . . How many of the teachings we hear today don't correspond to
what we read in God's Word. And I thought about how we should be consulting
God's Word and playing by the "Official Rules" instead of someone else's made up
rules.
Just a thought!
Durango KR1356@aol.com