The Coin Game

the mechanics of dying love

The coin game is death to a marriage.

In the coin game, offenses are not forgiven and each offense becomes a “coin” that is retained by the one who has been offended.

To see how this works, let us consider two scenarios. The first scenario is where the offense is declined and the second is where the offense is taken.

When the Offense is Declined

Suppose that Jack injures Jill with an insult or an inconsiderate act and it hurts Jill’s feelings. But Jill says nothing. Jack injured Jill and Jill did not deserve it. But Jill looks to scripture and scripture tells her to forgive Jack from her heart and not to take up the offense that Jack has offered to her. She sees that the offense and the hurt are two different things and she declines to take up the offense even though it hurts. She forgives Jack from her heart and leaves the offense on the table. The burn caused by the offense eventually subsides and dies out. Jill is not "sweeping it under the rug" she is eradicating it. Jill is now free. She has no lingering resentment, no root of bitterness, and nothing to inhibit her expression of love and no reason to ever bring it up.

Jack, however, is not free because Jack, for all of his pretense, has found satisfaction in what he has done and he well understands it. But Jill, by refusing to take up the offense, has deprived Jack of his opportunity to verbally justify what he has done or turn it into a pleasantry. So, Jack must now live with what he did or he must come to her and apologize. He has no other choice. If he does eventually come to her and apologize, his apology will be sincere.

When the Offense is Taken

On the other hand, let us consider what happens if Jill acts on her feelings and rejects the command of Christ in Matthew 7:1. Instead, she embraces unforgiveness by taking up Jack’s offense. Perhaps Jack apologizes and Jill tells him that she forgives him. But even though scripture tells her that she must forgive Jack from her heart,1 she does not sincerely forgive him. She says the words but she keeps the offense. Keeping the offense is relational sin2 and words without heart are meaningless.

She may believe that she cannot forgive because of the way Jack made her feel. She reasons that because Jack made her feel bad she is justified in keeping the offense. She reasons that she did nothing wrong. It was Jack who made her feel bad, not her. He hurt her and she cannot just ignore it. Accordingly, she retains the offense because she is justified in doing so and because it is the natural thing to do. She does not have to forgive Jack.

There are consequences associated with disobeying God’s command to forgive and not to judge. And it doesn’t make any difference whether the person who disobeys knows what God’s word says or not because God’s word is not there to require a particular behavior; it is there in order to reveal what we are really facing within. God's word is there to disclose a reality that is obscured by a natural impulse. In this instance, both Jack and Jill have sinned and both Jack and Jill will pay the price. They have both adulterated their love.

Having taken up the offense, Jill will now internalize it and when it has been internalized, it will become a “coin” that can be used later on to justify retribution against Jack. Jack owes her now and Jill means to collect.

Maybe Jill did not initially intend to ever use the coin, but she soon discovers that if she keeps the coin, things that she may say or do against Jack can be “paid for” with the coin. She can justify what she does against Jack because she has the coin. And as long as she has the coin she does not have to forgive Jack. Jack deserves what he gets and Jill keeps her coin. Jill remembers.

But coins always demand some type of response because no one can live comfortably with unforgiveness. Coins demand an outlet. The outlet may be venting or it may be an unexpressed emotional response. Or it may be self-pity or repeated dissatisfaction and complaining. It may be a distancing from Jack that Jill cannot reverse. Or, it may take a more overt form and be used to justify adultery or some type of retribution, such as gossip or perhaps just plain anger that explodes at the next convenient time. But it will always be something because coins demand expression and that expression is always destructive. Vengeance can be satisfying, but vengeance is sin3 and the devil will have his due from both parties.

The more coins Jill collects the more freedom she feels to injure or slander Jack and at the same time feel fully justified. After all, Jack is the one to blame for each one of the coins. It was Jack who created them, not her.

When Jill’s collection of coins becomes large enough and with a sufficiently broad enough spectrum of different kinds of offenses, she reaches the point where she may confer upon herself the title of Victim.

Once the title of Victim has been conferred, every perceived offense can be used to solidify the title. Jill is now searching for offenses for that very purpose. She is proficient and thorough in her search and she is successful. She finds offenses in the most unlikely places and stores each one of them in her coin purse.

With sufficient coins in the coin purse, the Victim no longer has to burden herself with the embarrassment and humiliation of confession of whatever sins she commits. In order to unburden herself of guilt, all she has to do is to point to the appropriate coin or the title of Victim and her sin is balanced in her mind. And if it is not fully balanced, the anesthetic of self-pity is always available. Jill keeps her coins and covers her sin with them.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of acquiring the title of Victim is that the use of the coins is no longer limited to justification against the perpetrator who put them there. They have become generalized now and can be used anywhere because the Victim is now a victim of life in general.

The phrase “Hurting people hurt people” is the mantra of the coin gamers. It means, “I have been injured so I injure others and I am justified when I do.” It is a truism for the unforgiving, because unforgiving people will always use their own hurt to justify hurting others. People who chant that mantra have achieved the title of Victim. They are unhappy people because they keep coins. The more coins they keep, the more unhappiness they acquire. Coins are the soil that nourishes the root of bitterness and Jill’s bitterness is rooted deep into her coins. It flourishes in her heart and blooms like winding briers after a spring rain.4

In our example, Jill is indeed a victim, but not in the way that she thinks. She is a victim of her own unforgiveness because the bitterness created by her coins destroys her from within. Some Victims are Christians who confess the root of bitterness but keep the coins anyway because they are afraid to let them go because without them they would have to face the unthinkable. Giving up the coins would mean that the scale of guilt and blame would become unbalanced and fall back hard upon them. Or they may fear that they would be forced to admit what they have become; and pride will not permit this. Jill is storing up punishment for herself5 and anesthetizing her guilt with the self-pity created by the coins.

As long as she keeps the coins, forgiveness for her own sin cannot come to her because he who asks for forgiveness must also confess his own sin and the coins are kept for the purpose of avoiding exactly that.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.6

One cannot experience the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and at the same time refuse to forgive others.7 Jill’s only true remedy is confession and forgiveness, but the coins have become a part of her now; they are precious and they are necessary. She keeps them and says whatever she is expected to say about forgiveness.

Ultimately, Jill will realize that the coins are spiritual poison. But she cannot let them go. Nor can she keep them because of what they are doing to her. Her only relief is to express the pain that now echoes in the void that is inside her. She is a hurting person.

Like a pressure cooker with a broken valve, Jill must relieve the pressure or explode. She relieves the pressure by expression and the expression may be directly to Jack or, for the sake of peace, it may be to friends about Jack. When it is to friends, it is called gossip (slander). Gossip lays generally on the bottom of the sin barrel:

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and hatred. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips…8

Gossip is on par with murder in this scripture, and those who practice it are worthy of death.9† God promises that He will destroy or cut-off those who practice this sin.10† The practical consequence of this sin is to be cut-off from God’s presence and peace.

Scripture does not require that the gossip be false.11† It need only be a derogatory report about someone else when it is told to someone who is neither part of the problem nor part of the solution. Gossip is slander and it does not matter if it is true. It is still slander.

Coin gamers are compulsive gossips. Scripture commands against it12 but slander is their primary outlet. It relieves the pressure because each slander bolsters the belief that the speaker is justified in he or she does. Gossip becomes self-perpetuating.

A perverse man spreads strife, and a slanderer separates intimate friends.13

Gossips will find other gossips who are willing to listen to them and ratify their slanderous words with sympathetic responses. They are verifying their title of Victim and they are relieving themselves.

If the coin gamer is the wife, she will find another wife with whom she can commiserate about her husband. They share stories and gossip passes quietly over cups of coffee. Seeds are planted and the newly initiated wife returns home wondering if she will see verification that her newly minted suspicions about her husband are correct. And sure enough, something inevitably occurs that confirms to her that he is indeed imperfect and deserving of her rejection and her slander. She knows that each imperfection is only an indication that darker sins are just under the surface.

Families can withstand bankruptcy, death, loss of jobs, illness, accidents and even adultery, and sometimes grow stronger because of it. But when faced with the relentless assault of the coin gamers with their cups of coffee, the family will die.

Any wife who permits herself to slander or listen to slander about her husband, whether it is true or not, is adulterating her marriage. Any husband who permits himself to slander or listen slander about his wife, whether it is true or not, is adulterating his marriage. It is the duty of each spouse to defend the other and in doing so to defend the family itself. Listening to slander is to permit the family to be compromised.

The coin game is not merely a prerequisite for the death of love; it is the killer. The death of love comes when the lover continually commits any relational sin (either silently or overtly). So, the scriptural dynamic in Jill’s life is obvious. The love for her husband that she had previously enjoyed has departed step by step with each coin retained. There are remnants of it to be sure but what once was is no longer.

The presence of God departs with the continued commission of sin, especially relational sin.14 And when the presence of God departs so does His agápe. His agápe departs because He is agápe15 and God does not share quarters with Satan. When God’s agápe departs, the coin gamer is left with whatever remnant of human love that can co-exist with an established root of bitterness-not much.

Jack and Jill believe that the problem with their marriage is the failure of the other to admit to a wrong; or because the other does not realize the extent of the damage he does with his words. This may go back and forth for years as they grasp at the last flickers of sincere affection. But eventually they will silently conclude that they are simply no longer in love; and they are right. Their marriage counselor says that their problem is communication and lack of empathy. But the real problem is sin.

From the world’s perspective, the coins are insignificant. They are nothing but offenses for which the offending party is guilty and the offending party is deserving of the condemnation represented by the coins. The world teaches that if they can just make sense of who did what and let the blame fall where it is supposed to fall (on the other spouse), then they can unravel what has happened and get back to where they were and learn to love again so they can save their family. They are wrong.

If only they could communicate better and fight fair, couldn't they work it out? What communication skills did Jack and Jill need in order to fall in love in the first place? How long did it take them to learn how to caress, how to hold hands, how to make love or to make breakfast together? What instruction did they need? Very little to be sure. So what has been lost? Have communication skills been lost? No. They never learned communication skills and never needed them. Communication was as natural as leaves in springtime. Method? Perhaps they lost the methodology of relating. If they could only relearn it they could make it work. No. They never had a method and never needed on. Sex? Again, no. Sex is no more than an exercise without love. Love is what has been lost.

The world’s way is to fix it is like a judge balancing the rights of the respective parties in hopes of achieving an equanimity. One must unravel, explain, vent and, implicitly perhaps, assign blame. But this is the same poison that brought them to where they are now-supervised this time and better organized. It is no fix at all. And better communication skills are always excellent as long as they don't simply result in a much more controlled argument. The world’s way is useless if it does address the root cause of emotional separation, which is the sins of criticism and unforgiveness. Love is impossible when these two sins remain and they are sleepers.

Marriages are healed by obeying scripture and eradicating sin because what saves marriages is the same thing that created them in the first place: love. And true love comes with source of love: Jesus Christ. It is true love, the original spark, the natural chemistry that heals marriages, not method. But can real love be regained once it has been lost? Yes.

But first, let is look at the other side of criticism: reproof.