Why Solomon would've been a gamer

 It's 2 AM. You pad down the hallway for a glass of water and see that telltale glow under your kid's bedroom door. Your parental spider-sense tingles. You know exactly what's happening in there.

You mentally prepare your speech about responsibility, sleep schedules, and "wasting your life on those games." You open the door, ready to drop the parental hammer…

...and find your teenager furiously taking notes about Byzantine military tactics because they just got destroyed in Civilization VI and they're determined to understand why Basil II is such a historical beast.

Wait. What?

Here's the uncomfortable truth that's about to mess with your "video games rot your brain" narrative: Your kid might be learning more during their gaming sessions than they do in half their classes.

I know, I know. This sounds like something a teenager would say to get out of trouble. But stick with me, because the Bible, yes, the Bible, is about to become your unlikely ally in understanding why gaming might not be the enemy you think it is.

Let's talk about the wisest man who ever lived. Solomon. The guy who literally asked God for wisdom and got it. The same guy who wrote Proverbs 25:2: "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings."

Read that again. God hides knowledge. On purpose. Not to be cruel, but because the searching, the pursuing, the discovering, the figuring-it-out-yourself part is what transforms people from passive consumers into active kings and queens of their own understanding.

And what is every video game but an intricately concealed matter, waiting for a curious mind to search it out?

If Solomon were a teenager today, he'd absolutely be that kid with a spreadsheet open on one monitor, the game on another, and seventeen browser tabs researching optimal build strategies.

And you'd be telling him to "stop wasting time and do something productive."

The irony is delicious.

Jesus told a story in Matthew 13:44 about a guy who found treasure hidden in a field and was so excited that he sold everything to buy that field. The point? When you find something truly valuable, the pursuit becomes all-consuming. In a good way.

Your kid staying up late gaming? They might be experiencing that same treasure-hunting joy. Not for gold or money, but for the intellectual thrill of:

• Discovering how systems work
• Solving problems nobody handed them a worksheet for
• Mastering something complex through pure determination

"But they're just playing a game!" you say.

Cool. And Einstein was "just thinking about trains." Mozart was "just making noise." Your kid is "just" developing the exact type of intellectual curiosity that every teacher, college, and employer desperately wants.

Let me translate your teenager's gaming sessions into Parent:

What You See: "Playing video games all night"

What's Actually Happening:

The Accidental Historian: They're playing Assassin's Creed and suddenly they're Googling Renaissance Florence, reading about the Medici family, and watching documentaries about Leonardo da Vinci. They just learned more about the Italian Renaissance than they did in two weeks of World History class.

The Math Genius in Disguise: They're in Minecraft calculating redstone circuits that require actual logic gates and binary understanding. Or they're in Kerbal Space Program learning orbital mechanics that college physics students struggle with. They're doing math for fun because nobody told them it was math.

The Young Scientist: Portal is teaching them physics concepts. Plague Inc. is making them understand epidemiology better than they did during actual pandemics. Subnautica has them researching actual marine biology. They're learning science without a single quiz or grade threatening them.

What You Worried About: Screen addiction, wasted time, rotting brain cells

What's Actually Developing: Self-directed learning, research skills, critical thinking, and genuine intellectual passion

Proverbs 9:9 says: "Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still; teach the righteous and they will add to their learning."

Here's what your gamer kid is doing that should actually make you super proud:

When they want to improve at something, they don't wait for a teacher to spoon-feed information. They:

• Search for tutorial videos (often watching at 2x speed because they're efficient learners)
• Read complex patch notes like they're the morning newspaper
• Join online communities to ask questions and share knowledge
• Test theories and hypotheses in practice modes
• Analyze what experts do and reverse-engineer their strategies
• Teach other players what they've learned

You know what that is? That's graduate-level self-directed learning. That's the skill that separates successful people from those who wait to be told what to do.

Your kid is basically homeschooling themselves in curiosity, research methodology, and intellectual persistence. And they're doing it voluntarily. At 2 AM. For fun.

Solomon tried everything under the sun to understand how the world works (Ecclesiastes 1:13-14). He was basically the world's first experimental scientist—testing ideas, gathering data, drawing conclusions.

Your gamer kid is doing the same thing:

• "What happens if I try this strategy instead?"
• "Can I beat this challenge with different equipment?"
• "What's the optimal approach to this problem?"
• "Why did that work when this didn't?"

Every gaming session is a laboratory. Every failure is data collection. Every success is a validated hypothesis. Every "just one more try" is the scientific method in action.

You thought they were wasting time. They thought they were playing a game. God's going, "Actually, they're learning exactly what I designed them to learn—how to search out hidden matters like royalty."

Here's what schools are actually looking for: kids who can recognize patterns, make connections between different subjects, and transfer knowledge across domains.

Your gamer? They do this constantly:

• Connecting puzzle mechanics in games to logic problems in computer science
• Seeing how resource management in strategy games mirrors economic principles
• Understanding that probability in card games is literally applied statistics
• Recognizing that the physics in racing games relates to actual momentum and friction

Psalm 111:2 says, "Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them." Your kid is a ponderer. They delight in figuring out systems. They don't just consume entertainment. They analyze it, understand it, and master it.

That's not a character flaw. That's literally what the Bible celebrates.

Remember all those times you said:

• "You're wasting your life on those games"
• "Why can't you focus on your schoolwork like you focus on gaming?"
• "That's not real learning"
• "You'll never get anywhere playing video games"

Yeah. Awkward.

Here's your parental plot twist: The reason they can't focus on homework like they focus on gaming is because gaming taps into genuine curiosity. 

The games aren't the distraction from learning. The games are the learning. School is just the interruption that happens between gaming sessions. (Okay, to our teachers, I’m sorry. That's a bit extreme, but I think you get the point.)

Let me give you some real-world examples of where this "wasted time" actually leads: A kid spends hours solving puzzles in The Witness. Gets curious about cryptography. Takes an online course in number theory. Ends up understanding how internet security works. All because of a "stupid game."

Another kid plays Civilization, realizes they don't actually know why Rome fell, reads three actual history books (BOOKS!), and develops a lifelong interest in how societies rise and fall.

A third kid logs 500 hours in Kerbal Space Program, understands orbital mechanics better than a physics teacher, and starts a YouTube channel explaining space concepts to other gamers.

These aren't hypotheticals. These are real pathways from "my kid wastes too much time gaming" to "my kid has a genuine intellectual passion that's shaping their future." 2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV) says: "Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

Translation: Do the work. Learn deeply. Master your craft. Don't half-heart your pursuit of knowledge.

Your gamer kid? They're living this verse. They're putting in the hours. They're studying the systems. They're mastering their craft. They're not ashamed to admit they don't know something and then figure it out.

The fact that they're doing it through games instead of textbooks doesn't make it less valuable. It might actually make it more valuable because they chose it.

Here's the truth bomb you might not be ready for: Your kid's gaming might be producing exactly the kind of curious, self-motivated, problem-solving learner that you pray they'll become.

The Bible is full of examples celebrating people who seek knowledge like treasure:

• Solomon asking for wisdom above wealth or power (1 Kings 3:9)
• The Bereans who "examined the Scriptures daily" (Acts 17:11)
• Proverbs constantly praising those who pursue understanding

Your kid is doing this. Just with better graphics and occasional explosions. So what do you do with this information?

Option 1: Continue the war. Keep telling them gaming is worthless. Watch them tune you out completely because you've demonstrated you don't understand or value something that's important to them.

Option 2: Get curious yourself. Ask them what they're learning. Let them explain the strategies, the systems, the problems they're solving. Watch their eyes light up when someone finally gets it.

Option 3: Set healthy boundaries (sleep, balance, physical activity) while acknowledging that gaming isn't the enemy. It's a tool, like any other, that can be used wisely or poorly.

(Hint: Option 2 or 3 is the right answer. Option 2 is the secret weapon for staying connected with your teenager.)

Look, nobody's saying you should let your kid game 24/7 with no boundaries. Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us there's "a time for everything," and balance matters.

But maybe, just maybe, the next time you see that glow under the door at 2 AM, instead of immediately catastrophizing, you could crack the door and ask: "Hey, what are you working on?"

You might be surprised to discover they're not wasting time.

They're searching out matters like kings, just like Solomon said.

They're pondering intricate systems, just like the Psalmist.

They're studying to show themselves approved, just like Timothy.

They're pursuing wisdom with everything they've got, finding glory in the search itself.

And honestly? That's exactly the kind of kid you always hoped you'd raise.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to apologize to our son for that lecture I gave him about "those stupid games." Turns out he was learning Newton's First Law of Motion while I was yelling about wasting time.

P.S. Yes, they still need to sleep. And yes, they still need to do their actual homework. But maybe we can stop pretending the gaming is the problem and start recognizing it as part of the solution.

Make the connection:

Make time to connect with your player and talk about the topics they have become curious about because of the games they play. Use those topics as a springboard to dive deeper into what interests them and how they are learning more about those topics.

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