During our recent Church Camp, there was a question asked at the “Leisure and Christians” Seminar about the playing of handphone games on the Lord’s Day. Due to my oversight, I only touched on the nature of handphone games that are allowable in general, without touching on the Lord’s Day. We also considered whether sports are alright for Christians on the Lord’s Day. And we used two main biblical principles drawn from 1 Corinthians 10:31 and 1 Corinthians 6:12.

So, what about playing handphone games on the Lord’s Day? The answer is no. The biblical principle for such prohibition is taken from Isaiah 58:13, “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.” For Christians, the Lord’s Day is the day of rest God has set aside for us to worship and serve Him. It is the day when we spend with God in public and private worship, and when we fellowship with likeminded brethren. If we choose to play handphone games on the Lord’s Day, we will not be spending the time with God and His people. We must look forward to the Lord’s Day, not because we can spend the time on handphone games, but because of our love for God and His people and we look forward to worshipping and serving Him and fellowshipping with brethren. Surely there are many blessed things to do on the Lord’s Day than to bury our heads on the little device by ourselves. Besides public worship (both the day and evening worship services), there are other ways in which we can gather together. Examples: E-Band tracting, Bible study, family devotion, hospital visitation, etc. There are also many good Christian literature which we can read. And also what better time than this to fellowship with one another after Worship.

It is not God’s intention to make us miserable just because we are not to seek our pleasure on the Lord’s Day. God wants us to delight in Him on His Day. We become miserable because we are addicted to the games which we want to play instead of delighting in God by spending the time with and for Him. Jesus says in Mark 2:27, “… The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” God is the One who gave us the Sabbath for our enjoyment. The Sabbath is the day we are to look forward to week after week. The Sabbath provides us a glimpse of what we will be doing in heaven for eternity. Does God want us to be playing handphone games all by ourselves in heaven? Certainly not! Not even if the games on the little device are harmless and permissible for Christians. We want to remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. One day, we will be ushered into eternity and the Sabbath-keeping will then be forever.

Apart from using our handphones for Bible reading, we must minimize its usage for messaging, even to refrain from using it for social media on the Lord’s Day. There is better usage of the Lord’s Day than this. May God help us to honour Him on His Day to the glory of His name. Amen.