Syria, Scandal and Sin

The big news in the poker world this past week came from an unlikely place -- a U.S. Senate hearing, which wasn't even about poker.

 "Scandal!" Sen. John McCain of Arizona tweeted after the Washington Post took a camera behind the hearing desk and found he was playing video poker.  He admitted in the same Twitter message he lost.

The confession has brought a wide range of reactions.  Some people say he should have been paying attention to the topic of the hearing -- a possible U.S. military strike against Syria, which could have life-or-death ramifications throughout the Middle East.  On the other hand, McCain's mind seems made up on the issue; he wants military action, and little at the hearing might have changed that view.

We don't think McCain lost real money at the Senate hearing.  The company which makes the poker app calls it "simulated gambling."  And by the way, it reports downloads have increased 30 percent since the McCain picture went public.

Yet there's a possibly overlooked issue here.  McCain got caught playing video games on the job.  He tried to hide it well, behind a Capitol Hill desk.  But could you get away with playing online poker at your workplace -- or even old-fashioned FreeCell?

The Bible has some things to say about that....

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. - Colossians 3:22

Paul wrote this in an era when slave ownership was common.  But we think the same principle applies to modern employer-employee relations.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving. - Colossians 3:23-24

We'll all have to answer to Jesus for our actions someday -- even our actions or inaction on the job.

We should make a confession here: we had a job during college which had a lot of "down time" between tasks.  Our first experience with poker was playing against a computer at work, on an early-model Commodore (before there were Internet hookups).  The supervisors didn't mind, because they knew the nature of our job gave us plenty of time to spare.


In more recent jobs, we've realized we can't play online games and do our work properly.  (In one case, there's no time to play computer games at all.)  So we err on the side of doing the work -- realizing another Biblical principle:

Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in slave labor. - Proverbs 12:24

We'll have more to say on this in a future post -- but for now, we leave these two questions for your thoughts and comments:

1.  What's the strangest place where you've ever played poker (even stranger than a Congressional hearing room)?

2. There's a time to work, and there's a time to play poker.  Unless you're a poker pro, ask yourself: do those two paths really cross?