{"id":41637,"date":"2015-01-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/original-version-of-monopoly-became-hyper-competitive\/"},"modified":"2015-01-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T00:00:00","slug":"original-version-of-monopoly-became-hyper-competitive","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/original-version-of-monopoly-became-hyper-competitive\/","title":{"rendered":"Original Version of Monopoly Became Hyper-competitive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#39;s easy to forget our initial God-given mission, just as it&#39;s easy to lose our first love for Christ and drift away from our call to follow Christ. For instance, take one of the most popular board games of all time and the one most commonly associated with ruthless greed, competition, and big business. It&#39;s called Monopoly. But according to a new book titled <em class=\"citation\">The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World&#39;s Favorite Board Game<\/em> (written by Mary Pilon), the famous board game was designed to provide a warning about the dangers of greed and big business. The initial version, known as the Landlord&#39;s Game, was invented in the early 1900s by Elizabeth Magie who wanted to teach players about the evils of monopolies and land ownership.<\/p>\n\n<p>But over time, as the game spread through word of mouth and as people developed local versions of the game, the focus drifted from that original vision and purpose. Instead, the game started focusing on building (rather than preventing) huge monopolies and bankrupting your opponents. That&#39;s the game&#39;s version that Charles Darrow, and then later Parker Brothers, turned into the hyper-competitive game that we know today.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3426,3469,3653,4350,4351,4408,4476,4477,4532,4533,5242],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-41637","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-apostasy","tax_ctp_tags-backsliding","tax_ctp_tags-compromise","tax_ctp_tags-leader","tax_ctp_tags-leadership","tax_ctp_tags-lukewarmness","tax_ctp_tags-mission","tax_ctp_tags-mission-of-church","tax_ctp_tags-neglect","tax_ctp_tags-negligence","tax_ctp_tags-vision"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Original Version of Monopoly Became Hyper-competitive - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/original-version-of-monopoly-became-hyper-competitive\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Original Version of Monopoly Became Hyper-competitive - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#039;s easy to forget our initial God-given mission, just as it&#039;s easy to lose our first love for Christ and drift away from our call to follow Christ. For instance, take one of the most popular board games of all time and the one most commonly associated with ruthless greed, competition, and big business. 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