The Game Jesus Refused to Play

The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."[1]

Stop and think about that for a second.

All the kingdoms of the world. Every empire that had ever risen. Every army that had ever marched. Every throne, every crown, every system of power that humanity had ever constructed - from the ziggurats of Babylon to the iron legions of Rome. All of it. Handed over.

No war.

No campaign.

No centuries of political maneuvering.

Just take it.

This wasn't a small offer. This was the offer. The ultimate shortcut to global transformation.

If Jesus wanted to change the world - and he did - here was the fastest possible route. Take the throne. Reform the system from the top. Use the power of empire to impose justice, to end oppression, to feed the poor, to establish peace.

Everything his followers hoped he would do, he could have done in an instant.

And he said “no”.

That "no" haunts me. Because it raises a question most of us never stop to ask: what exactly was Jesus saying no to? What was so broken about the offer that the Son of God himself wouldn't touch it - even to do good with it?

To answer that, we need to understand what he was being offered. Not just kingdoms. Not just political power. But a game. A very specific game that has been running since the dawn of human civilization. A game so deeply embedded in the way our world works that most of us don't even realize we're playing it.

The Rules of the Game

To understand the game, we need to understand where it came from. And that means we need to take a quick detour through the history of political thought.

Stay with me. This matters more than you think.

Because what I'm about to lay out isn't just some dusty academic theory. It's the blueprint of the very system Satan held up on that mountain. It's the architecture of every empire that has ever risen, ruled, and fallen. And once you see it, you can't unsee it.

The argument follows 3 simple steps:

1. Before human empire came on the scene people lived in a "state of nature". The state of nature was chaotic because there was no centralized power structure or stability. All it took was a stronger tribe or a band of thieves to roll up, kill you, take your land, take your family, and there was little to nothing anyone could do about it. In short, this way of life was often solitary, brutal, and short. [2] (Kind of like the Mad Max movies… but without the glam metal guitar solos…)

2. Kingdoms emerged as a way of creating local, regional stability. You belonged to a larger body or society. Laws were put in place to prevent chaos. If someone wanted to roll up and take over your property they would be held accountable by a government and army that would defend the land you lived on because the land was not simply yours, it was the kingdoms land. This created stability, predictability, and gave people a better chance at leading a normal life because they didn't have to constantly plan for chaos. The kingdom handled that.

3. But Kingdoms were limited by regional resources. For anything external, they needed to depend on trade or conquest. If they conquered an area and took over, the resources of the area now belonged to them. Some kingdoms took this so far they wanted to conquer the whole world. These kingdoms wanted all the resources for themselves. If they held all the resources they had all the power and with all the power, their stability could never be shaken. They would last forever.

These kingdoms became known as empires. Powerful. Expansionist. Domineering. And we hate these guys right? They are full of injustice and cruelty. But! …for the average citizen, these empires also created a degree of stability and prosperity that made it possible to make advancements in art, medicine, science, economics, and amenities (all the stuff we all love and can’t live without). And as evil as these empires were, they were better than the alternative "state of nature" where chaos and instability were supreme.

The above is oversimplified of course. This is not a dissertation. If you want to dig deeper into all the complexities you'll have to explore the political philosophies of Nicolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau - who debated these ideas from very different angles. [3]

But the general idea - especially if we focus on Hobbes - is that empire is necessary for stability. Machiavelli himself argued that maintaining power was the prince's prime concern - and that without stability, nothing else was possible. [4] Nothing was more important than stability because without it the empire cannot grow.

Stability is its prime goal.

Not love. Not compassion. Not social justice. Not goodness.

Stability.

Back to the Game

Machiavelli, Hobbes etc. All these guys lived way after the time of Jesus. But what they did brilliantly was codify the rules of the game that has been around since the fall of man. And once you see how the game is played, you can’t unsee it. The game is fundamentally a game of winners and losers. The dominant and the submissive. Those at the top and those at the bottom.

And this. This is what Satan was offering Jesus. The top seat in the greatest game ever played. The throne of a system that has been running since the dawn of civilization.

But let’s look a little deeper at how this game is played.

It is true that the game is a game of winners and losers. But whats more interesting is how the game is maintained. Ever since sin entered the world, every dynastry, kingdom and empire has used the exact same playbook for how to win the game:

The playbook of hierarchical power.

A ladder of submission and domination.

Without this ladder, the whole empire collapses. This is one of Jordan Peterson's primary arguments - the one with all the lobsters (if you know, you know) - that hierarchy is a deeply embedded feature of human societies and that removing it doesn't lead to equality but to chaos. [5]

Now, Peterson would say the goal isn't to abuse hierarchy but to make it as fair and competence-based as possible. But here's the thing: even a "fair" hierarchy is still a hierarchy. It still runs on the same engine - someone on top, someone on the bottom. The game hasn't changed. It's just been given a nicer outfit.

In other words, the game Satan was offering Jesus is a game of winners and losers. The dominant and the submissive. Those ontop, and those underneath. Had Jesus accepted the offer, he would have held the top seat in the game. But… and here’s the point… he would have become a part of a game that is fundamentally opposed to love. A game of dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest, win-at-all-costs levels.

Why does any of this matter?

Because the game didn't stop with Babylon. It didn't stop with Rome. It didn't stop with the British Empire or the Soviet Union or any other empire that has risen and fallen over the last few thousand years.

The game is still running. Right now. Today. In your news feed. In your elections. In the arguments you have at family dinners and the posts you share on social media.

Within the modern western political system you generally have two leading parties that want to dominate that hierarchy: the left and the right.

The left wants to dominate the hierarchy so that it can impose its philosophy for creating a stable world (often with a globalist lens).

The right wants to dominate the hierarchy so that it can impose its philosophy for creating a stable nation (often with a populist lens).

Different visions. Different language. Different brand clothing.

But fundamentally? They are the same in the sense that both are playing the same game with the same goal.

• The game of winners and losers.

• The goal of dominating.

And before you roll your eyes and say "here we go, another both-sides guy" — hear me out. I am not saying both sides are equally bad. Some policies genuinely create more freedom, more dignity, and more protection for the average person than others. This is true even if we look at global politics. Democratic capitalism, for all its flaws, is not the same as authoritarian communism. If you forced me to choose between systems, I would have strong preferences - and so would you - for a multitude of very good reasons.

But I'm not comparing which system or which side within a system is worse. I'm pointing out that all sides and all systems are playing the same game. And the game itself - the game of winners and losers, of domination and submission - is what I take issue with.

And here's the thing: you DO NOT win this game with love. You DO NOT win this game with kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control. You DO NOT win this game with forgiveness, compassion, honesty and charity.

If Machiavelli is right (and history has proven he just might be) you win this game with subterfuge. With lies. With deception. You win this game with manipulation, assasination, and violence. And you win this game by calculating when to show compassion and when to show aggression - the rise dose at the right times to maximise the best outcomes. [4]

Why? Because the game itself is a game of winners and losers. You win when the other guy loses. You dominate when the other guy submits. You are on top when the other guy is at the bottom.

The game is rigged this way. It always has been. It always will be. You cannot change the game because the game itself is just a subcategory of a corrupt operating system our world runs on. The Bible calls this operating system sin.

Why is this game so bad?

When the game is rigged to produce winners and losers you will never have true justice. When its rigged to fuel hierarchies of power you will never have true compassion. When its rigged to cultivate disparity, you will never have equality.

A perfect example is the history of social justice itself. Now, anyone who has read my work for more than 2 minutes knows I am a huge proponent of social and humanitarian justice. I believe in its dream of a world that is trully good, compassionate, and relationally harmonius. But I also can’t deny that throughout most of history, the fight for justice hasn’t always resulted in justice. In fact, most times it has simply rotated who sits at the top of the ladder and who gets crushed at the bottom. In that sense, justice in this game means that the oppressed become the new oppressors and the oppressors become the new oppressed.

Now I know some will push back here.

"That's cynical. Liberation movements are about dismantling oppressive structures, not flipping them."

And I hear that. I really do. But history tells a stubbornly consistent story.

The French Revolution overthrew a tyrannical monarchy and replaced it with the Reign of Terror. [6] The Russian Revolution overthrew the Tsar in the name of the people and gave us Stalin. [7] The Cuban Revolution promised liberation and delivered a new dictatorship. [8]

Time and time again, the oppressed rise up, take the throne, and become the new oppressors. Not because the people who started those movements were evil. Many of them were genuinely fighting for justice. But because the game itself is designed to produce winners and losers. You can swap out the players. You cannot swap out the rules.

And here’s the thing: The game DOES NOT CARE who is at the top of its hierarchy. It doesn't care if the left wins. It doesn't care if the right wins. It only cares about one thing: that the game keeps on going. That we remain imprisoned in a world of winners and losers while we pat ourselves on the back when our prefered team reaches the zenith of the same old power play that has been repackaging itself into different political revolutions and false promises since the fall of man.

Which brings us back to Jesus on that mountain.

Jesus lived under Roman occupation - one of the most brutal empires in history. His people were oppressed, taxed, humiliated, and executed for dissent. [9] The political tensions of his day were not abstract. They were life and death.

And there were real movements trying to overthrow Rome. The Zealots wanted armed revolution. [10] Others, like the Sadducees and Herodians, sought political collaboration with the empire to survive. [11] The pressure to pick a side was enormous.

And Jesus did speak up against injustice and coercion. He overturned tables in the temple. [12] He called out religious leaders who exploited the poor. [13] He sided with the marginalized at every turn.

But he did not launch a political revolution against Rome.

Why?

Not because he didn't care. Not because he was passive. But because he understood that overthrowing Rome would just replace one empire with another. The game would keep going. New faces at the top, same ladder underneath. And history proved him right - within a generation of his death, the Zealots launched their revolt and it ended in the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. [14] The game consumed them.

So Jesus proposed something entirely different.

This is why theologians have so often refered to the kingdom of Jesus as the "upsidedown kingdom". [15] Because the first will be last. The greatest will be your servant. “You shall not lord your authority over others as worldly rulers do.” [16] Husbands and wives “submit to one another.” [17] And so on and so forth.

This is a kingdom of servanthood. A community that lives by the principle of mutual submission. There is no ladder of submission and domination here. No winners. No losers.

Paul said it best when he wrote,

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. —Galatians 3:28 NIV

But here's where it get's real: this kingdom will NEVER be realized politically on this earth. We exist inside the realm of an operating system that only rewards those who play the game of winners and losers. Which means for Christ's kingdom to take root, the operating system of sin must be replaced by the operating system of love.

And no political philosophy, revolution or legislation can accomplish that.

Only Jesus can.

And before someone says "that sounds like an excuse to do nothing while people suffer" - no. The kingdom is not a waiting room. It's not "sit tight and wait for heaven." The kingdom demands action. It demands justice. It demands that we feed the hungry, fight for the oppressed, and stand against evil. But it demands we do those things as servants, not as conquerors. The moment we pick up the weapons of the game - domination, manipulation, power hoarding - we've stopped building the kingdom and started playing the game again. Even if we're playing it for "good reasons."

And thats what the gospel is all about. Thats what the church is all about. Thats what the kingdom is all about

Let me wrap this up.

I'm not here to tell you how to vote. I'm not here to tell you how to engage with politics. That's not my goal and I don't think there's a clean formula for it anyway. I think we all have to navigate these waters carefully, with Jesus as our northstar, love as our foundation, and the wisdom of the Spirit as our guide.

But here's what I am saying.

The game of winners and losers has been running since the beginning of human empire. It has never produced lasting peace. It has never delivered true justice. And every generation that has tried to fix it by winning it has only kept it spinning.

Jesus saw this game for what it was.

He was offered the top seat - every kingdom, every throne, every system of power humanity had ever built - and he walked away. Not because he didn't care about the world. But because he knew you cannot fix a broken game by winning it. You can only replace it.

And that's exactly what he did.

He offered us a kingdom where you love your enemy instead of destroying them. Where greatness is measured not by how many people serve you but by how many people you serve. Where you don't claw your way to the top of the ladder - you lay the ladder down. Where you lose your life to find it. Where the first are last and the last are first and the whole system of winners and losers gets flipped on its head and turned inside out.

He showed us how to live it now. Right now. In the mess. In the tension. In a world still trapped in the game.

But he also told us how this kingdom finally - fully - permanently - replaces every unjust system the game has ever produced. Not through politics. Not through revolution. Not through military conquest or cultural domination or winning the next election.

Through the gospel.

Preach it to every nation, every tribe, every tongue. And then the end will come.

But… that’s another article.

— — —

FOOTNOTES

[1] Matthew 4:8-9 (NIV). Luke's account of the same event is found in Luke 4:5-7.

[2] This draws on the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, particularly his description of the "state of nature" in Leviathan (1651), Chapter XIII. Hobbes famously described life without government as "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

[3] Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince (1513); Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651); John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (1689); Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762). These four thinkers represent key stages in the western debate over the nature of political power, the state of nature, and the social contract.

[4] Machiavelli, The Prince, particularly Chapters XV-XIX, where he argues that a ruler must be prepared to act against conventional morality in order to maintain power and the stability of the state. See also Chapter XVIII on the strategic use of deception.

[5] Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018), Chapter 1: "Stand Up Straight with Your Shoulders Back." Peterson uses the example of lobster serotonin hierarchies to argue that dominance hierarchies are deeply embedded in biology and predate human civilization by hundreds of millions of years.

[6] The French Revolution (1789-1799) initially overthrew the monarchy of Louis XVI in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity but devolved into the Reign of Terror (1793-1794) under Robespierre, during which an estimated 17,000 people were officially executed. See Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989).

[7] The Russian Revolution of 1917 overthrew the Romanov dynasty but led to the rise of Joseph Stalin, whose regime (1924-1953) resulted in the deaths of millions through political purges, forced collectivization, and the Gulag system. See Robert Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (1990).

[8] The Cuban Revolution (1953-1959) overthrew the Batista dictatorship but established a one-party state under Fidel Castro that has been widely documented for political imprisonment, suppression of dissent, and restrictions on civil liberties. See Human Rights Watch reports on Cuba; also Jorge Dominguez, Cuba: Order and Revolution (1978).

[9] Roman taxation in Judea was a significant source of resentment. The census of Quirinius (6 AD) triggered the tax revolt led by Judas of Galilee, considered a founding moment for the Zealot movement. See Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 1.

[10] The Zealots were a Jewish political movement that sought to incite armed rebellion against Rome. They played a leading role in the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 AD). See Josephus, The Jewish War; also Martin Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement (1976).

[11] The Sadducees were the priestly aristocracy who largely cooperated with Roman rule to maintain their position and the temple system. The Herodians were supporters of the Herodian dynasty and its alliance with Rome. See Mark 3:6, Mark 12:13; also E.P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE - 66 CE (1992).

[12] The cleansing of the temple is recorded in Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46, and John 2:13-17.

[13] See Matthew 23, where Jesus pronounces a series of woes against the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy and exploitation of the vulnerable. See also Luke 11:37-54.

[14] The First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 AD) culminated in the siege and destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple by Roman forces under Titus in 70 AD. Josephus records the catastrophic loss of life and the end of Jewish political sovereignty. See Josephus, The Jewish War, Books V-VI.

[15] The concept of the "upside-down kingdom" is widely used in Christian theology to describe the counter-cultural nature of Jesus' teachings. See Donald Kraybill, The Upside-Down Kingdom (1978, revised 2011), a foundational text on the subject.

[16] See Mark 10:42-45 (NIV): "Jesus called them together and said, 'You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.'" See also Matthew 20:25-28, Luke 22:25-27.

[17] Ephesians 5:21 (NIV): "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." This verse introduces the household code passage and frames mutual submission as the foundation for all Christian relationships.