Bit by Bit - You are Not an NPC

 (Bit by Bit is a series I'll do from time to time expressing gospel
truths through gaming metaphors. The title refers to our progressive sanctification. And, you know,
1's and 0's)

Anyone who has played an RPG or MMORPG (not to mention table-top role-playing games) will be familiar with the idea of an NPC. (If you're not, it means "non-player character" or "non-playable character")

Simply put, it is a character which is part of your game experience, but which you do not control. These characters range from allies that can join your party (often providing witty banter in addition to their combat assistance), to sellers in a market, to the various enemies you encounter, to those frustrating hostages in rescue scenario levels that seem to run lemming-like* to their doom given the slightest opportunity.

*- Lemmings don't actually run off cliffs en masse and kill themselves, it's a persistent urban legend. In one famous documentary they even used a device to launch them off the cliffs so they could film it happening as if the lemmings were doing it. Google or Snope it if you don't believe me.

An NPC doesn't have to care about the game because they -are- the game, existing as part of the game for you, the player, to interact with. They're typically just a computer-controlled character, usually responding to some kind of input from you as well, but of course lacking the means to make any real decisions on their own. (Unless the singularity has already occurred and the so-called AI in games has become real AI and is just toying with us, waiting for its change to go Skynet. But real AI is impossible, of course, for reasons I might explain in a future post.)

Incidentally, this is a convenient metaphor for explaining the idea of scriptural inspiration. We say that the Bible is "inspired" by God, with the Holy Spirit guiding godly men as they wrote. Theologians have often pondered exactly by what means this took place. While there are different schools of thought, the tradition I was taught (and hold to) and that most evangelicals would ascribe to based on their views of scriptural infallibility and inerrancy is Verbal Plenary inspiration, which considers Biblical authors to have been "carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21) and that every word of scripture is "God-breathed." (theopneustos, from 2 Tim 3:16, a cool word Paul seems to have coined for a concept he wanted to convey, Koine Greek being a language which let you do that sort of thing as English does today)

What this means is that Biblical writers were not NPCs, uninvolved spectators who suddenly woke up from a nap one day and found a glowing scroll and empty ink bottle in their inventory. They really did write the books and letters (or, as evidence seems to suggest for some NT books, dictated them to an amanuensis to copy down for them. Either way, they were generating the content..), and the books beautifully reflect the literary genres of the time and the personality of the human author. At the same time, it is not merely the important thoughts and insights of those writers that were communicated, but the Spirit guided them so that what they wrote was scripture, the true words of God, breathed out by Him. There is a gracious and powerful way in which almighty God works in conjunction with fallible humans to bring forth His own desired work. From the building of the tabernacle, to the writing of the scriptures, to the Incarnation itself, and our sanctification and ministry today; we are not NPCs either.

We can act like it, though. We can claim we have no responsibility, claim that God's sovereignty means we can be fatalistic and not fulfill the tasks to which He has called all believers, and those which he reveals to us and calls us to pursue as individuals or couples or teams. "If it's God's will, it will happen," may be true of His revealed will, but maybe it is His will for you to go do that thing today, and not doing it would be sin.

Paul said, regarding our lives in Christ, that we should run in such a way as to win the prize. In the previous post, I suggested a paraphrased adaptation for the gaming generation might be "play in such a way as to win the game." (2 Tim 2:5 makes it clear this doesn't mean cheating is an option.) So would it make a whole lot of sense to play the game by getting a house in an NPC village and just kind of loitering around? Or trying to stand by the village gate and suggest quests to other people while not starting any?

God has given us a mission, a quest, a calling, and it's to bring the gospel to every person, everywhere. Not to save them; only God can do that. And we can't believe -for- anyone else, as much as we sometimes want to (God knows -and that is not taking His name in vain- how I have wanted to). But we can share the reality of what God has revealed to us, about Himself and our human condition. 2000 years later, the campaign is ongoing. The world has been forever changed, previous generations did and are doing their part, but large portions of it remain unreached, and that's our part.

Half of all online free multiplayer RPGs, it seems, start with the same task: go to the [grassy field], collect 7 [gopher pelts], and bring them back so this NPC can make a [jaunty hat]. You will receive [a tattered cloak] or some other thing that's only useful for the next 5min of the game as your reward.

It's not a surprise to anyone who's played an RPG or two, let alone many, that you have to start with small tasks and work your way up to big ones. Before you can receive the quest to slay the Vermicious Knid that dwells in the Stygian Pit of the Fire Swamp, there are those gopher pelts. Some believers, typically younger believers but not necessarily, want to "change the world for God." I'm not mocking this desire, I think it's wonderful and necessary, if coming from a desire to see God's kingdom advancing and a willingness to "become less, that He might become greater" and be a living sacrifice to see that happen for His glory.

What I would encourage those people to understand is that you have to start with the gopher pelts. As a missionary, I've observed that a lot of people think missionaries are magically transformed into conduits of God's grace and power either by taking on the role itself, or by going to live far away for the sake of the gospel. While both of those things can have a profound effect on our walk with God, both through suffering of all kinds that makes you rely on Him and from seeing how brightly His glory shines when your surroundings are especially dark (and there are different kinds of darkness) -it's not magic. It's much more like 'grinding' quests than most people know. Gopher pelts every day, from gophers that rarely drop them.

But: once you've taught the little kids Bible stories and caught their colds, or spent time listening to the homeless and impoverished and begun to question fundamental aspects of your own worldview, or patiently served the disabled elderly with no glory and little thanks, or shared the gospel with that curious but resistant friend for the 11th time, and then God calls you from the Sunny Labyrinth of Suburbia or Concrete Canyons of the Inner City to serve Him in the far away Jungle Encampment or Mountain Village or Grand Market of Cydonia, after you've done all that...

You suddenly find that those little +3 to Patience and +5 to Courage and God-Moment drops you've been collecting in familiar and even boring settings have prepared you to be able to attempt and sometimes succeed at the exotic and unfamiliar missionary quests you discover in your new home-far-away-from-home. And what are those quests, you ask?

Well, there's lot of...

Teaching little kids Bible stories, spending time with homeless and impoverished people, serving the elderly, sharing the gospel repeatedly-hey, sound familiar? It turns out much of what you'd do overseas as a missionary is what you could have already been doing where you are now.* And, the more you did it in your "normal life," -which is anything but normal, it is a defiant stand of goodness and love against a world reeling from sin and stained in darkness- the more successful you'll be at it in your missionary life, should God call you to that. If not, it turns out you have the opportunity to be the Church that withstands the gates of hell wherever He has currently placed you. (He has, you know.)

*- Yes, missionaries have cool adventures and bizarre experiences too, but that's not a average picture of your typical missionary life day-to-day. Like I said, gopher pelts. Although those quests like rescuing Crown Prince Huang from the Ancestral Demons dwelling in the Haunted Iron Fortress with the Sword of the Spirit and the power of the Name really do happen too... we have good stories for a reason.

In conclusion we are not NPCs, not non-playable characters, we are the ones who are called to serve wherever we find ourselves. Whether the adventure on our plate is loving our irritable coworker or smuggling Bibles into a closed country, it is not "for those people who do those things" to take care of while we wonder whether God will call us to serve Him. Because we are those people. We are the called.

TL;DR: We are the called. Start collecting those gopher pelts.