The triumphant return of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the public consciousness is a victory for a new generation being exposed to these characters for the first time as well as a nice dose of nostalgia for those of us who played the original games (including that painfully difficult NES title), enjoyed the original cartoon series, and knew all the words to Vanilla Ice’s “Go Ninja Go Ninja GO!” Ninja Rap. One of my fondest childhood gaming memories was the day my sister and I determinedly marched to our local arcade, each of us with a $10 roll of quarters in our hands and ONE mission in mind… to FINALLY play TMNT the arcade game through to completion. After months and months of trying unsuccessfully, we fully committed to taking down the villainous Shredder and stood triumphant at the end, defeating him with our VERY LAST quarter. At that time, I thought our combined $20 investment was HUGE… it certainly represented one of the most substantial purchases of my life up to that point. Fast forward to the present… the Ninja Turtles are in the midst of a creative renaissance, with Leanardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo and my personal favorite Raphael showing up EVERYWHERE, including the gaming realm. But they don’t have a new game on the shelves to call their own… their most recent release was the retro-inspired Shredder’s Revenge that was released in 2022. Instead, they are showing up in other games such as Fall Guys and Street Fighter 6… for a premium price, of course. In Fall Guys, unlocking everyone’s favorite crime-fighting reptiles will cost a cool twenty bucks… and if you want access to all FOUR Ninja Turtles in Street Fighter? That’s going to run you SIXTY dollars… almost as much as the full game itself. Cowabunga indeed… looks like all upcoming “pizza time” will require some serious couponing skills.

While there is a very compelling title in the future for TMNT in the form of an adaptation of “The Last Ronin”, for now anyone wanting to enjoy some Ninja Turtle goodness will either need to dive into the past to enjoy some of their older adventures or fork over some serious dough to enjoy them as guest stars in their current games. And the reality is that not ALL of the TMNT adventures from the past have aged as well as the others… while there are certainly some gaming adventures well worth a replay such as Turtles in Time, Smash-Up, or the previously mentioned Shredder’s Revenge, there are SEVERAL that are quite frankly not worthy of digging back up. Some were buried for a reason… many of the most recent releases over the years took a franchise built around FOUR turtles cooperatively working together and turned them into lackluster single-player adventures that failed to deliver a compelling story or even engaging gameplay. At the moment, our gaming options for TMNT are limited to living off of past glory or seeking a shallow, surface-level experience that we are over-paying for as “guest stars” in games we already possess. And in our spiritual lives, a very similar (though decidedly less turtle-based) challenge exists… in our search for ways to grow in our relationship with the Lord, we often neglect the personal self-development that He is seeking to perform within us by searching for growth through “guest stars”… paid appearances in formats we have come to trust that can absolutely add a valuable supplement to our spiritual journey, but are absolutely NOT a replacement for the real thing.

In my personal devotion time, I often fight a war between my own personal time spent with the Lord in prayer and Bible reading vs. the ease of simply turning on a sermon from a trusted minister or cracking open a book by a Christian author that promises to distill complicated Scriptural concepts into bite-sized morsels I can easily devour and absorb. While there is often incredible value to these messages and writings, I can also quickly fall into a pattern of neglecting my ACTUAL time with the Lord by enjoying the benefits of how OTHERS have spent time with Him… and while I can definitely learn and grow from the wisdom they have gained, these messages are designed to be SUPPLEMENTAL to my own personal devotional time, not stand in place of them. While there are clearly Scriptures that point out the value and importance of hearing the Word of God shared by His chosen ministers (Ephesians 4:11-13, Romans 10:17, Hebrews 13:17), I am frequently tempted to over-index on these “guest appearances” and convince myself that I have somehow spent quality time with the Lord through these experiences. Over the years, I have often leaned on these as my sole source of spiritual feeding and nourishment without seeing the actual point of what these ministers and their teachings were designed to do… to EQUIP me for performing what the Lord has called me to do, not replace my personal time with the Lord by spending virtual time with them. Their purpose is to continually push me into a place of personal hunger for a deeper understanding of God based on my OWN personal experience of searching for Him and finding Him through intentional prayer and Biblical study… and if that is not the result of my time spent in these sermons, teachings, books, and articles, that is not THEIR fault but MINE.

Ephesians 4:11-16 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

There are few feelings more wonderful to experience than when the Lord sends His Word into our lives through someone acting on His behalf to edify us, encourage us, and enlighten us… and in His administration of ministries in the body of Christ, we are ALL going to be used in a variety of ways to serve each other through written words, spoken sermons, songs, and more (1 Corinthians 14:26, Ephesians 5:19). But much like the way that the TMNT characters are popping up in so many places EXCEPT their own game right now, we cannot mistake these “guest appearances” in our spiritual development as a replacement for the GENUINE article… our OWN personal journey into a relationship with the Lord. While the addition of the Ninja Turtles to these different games certainly enhances those titles (for a price), they should only increase our appetite for a TRUE Ninja Turtle game release. If the increase in attention to the TMNT franchise does not generate anything more than a bunch of downloadable content in a handful of random games, this return to relevance will end up as nothing more than a fun side-story that never grows into anything more substantial… and that would be a shame. The intended outcome should be a TRULY epic series of games that finally capitalizes on this long-running franchise with stories that authentically unlock the depth of the opportunity that is present… and the same is true for us.

The expectation of our time spent in reading, listening, or viewing the output of ANY of the Lord’s ministers should be an increase in our desire to grow in our personal discipleship with Christ… and when we mistakenly equate our time lovingly spent at the feet of the Master with our investments of time into His servants, we miss the very point of their sermons. These “guest appearances”, no matter how valuable or well done, do not replace our own personal commitment to authentically and individually investing into one-on-one time with the Lord. And if we are not careful, we may find ourselves holding onto the coattails of another’s journey because it is more convenient than crafting one of our own. We are each responsible for working out our own faith with Christ (Philippians 2:12-13), and we can only hope to reap the benefits of a relationship with Christ that we have PERSONALLY invested into (Galatians 6:7-8).

Just as the appearances by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in these separate game franchises is a fun, easy, but ultimately shallow way to experience them in the game world, it is only when they finally come together in a unique and fully developed title of their OWN that we will truly get to enjoy the benefits of a deep, authentic narrative with these beloved characters. And as fellow disciples of Christ, there is much to be gained and learned from our shared experiences in following the Lord, and it is through the unique ministries in the body of Christ we are all grown and built into ONE cohesive fellowship. But these are only nutritional supplements designed to complement our existing diet of personal prayer and individual Bible study… just as the four Ninja Turtles exist in harmony with each other because their corresponding strengths and blind spots are complimentary, they are each exposed and vulnerable when alone because they are no longer in balance. It is only when all FOUR turtles are fully present with their individual gifts and unified in commitment to their goal that they succeed… and this requires each to be fully developed within their OWN disciplines, not simply leaning on the strength of the others to survive.

The Spirit of God jealously yearns for a relationship with each of us that is complimented by the work of His human ministers, but it is never REPLACED by it (James 4:5). Let’s show our appreciation for the “guest appearances” in our spiritual walk that are sacrificially given by those who the Lord has brought into our lives to minister into our hearts and souls… but let’s also keep our minds fixed on developing a relationship with Christ that moves beyond surface-level “DLC” and into a unique and intimate connection that transcends our passive attention. The greatest honor we can show the authors, pastors, teachers, and ministers in our lives is the spiritual fruit born of a deeper commitment to Christ… all thanks to the seed that they sowed into us reaching down past the ground level and inspiring deeper spiritual growth in direct connection to the one “True Vine” (Matthew 13, John 15). And if we truly want to grow in our faith, it must become OUR faith… which only comes when we are fully abiding in Christ through our own individual relationship and connection with Him, not simply existing in the comfortable shadows cast by the other branches. So… go ninja, go ninja… GROW 🙂

• Like us?  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, TikTok, or YouTube for our articles, podcasts, and videos!
• Facebook: Finding God in Video Games
• Twitter: @FindingGodIn_VG
• Instagram: Finding God in Video Games
• Podcasts on Spotify/Apple/Google: Finding God in Video Games
• TikTok: @FindingGodInVideoGames
• YouTube: Finding God in Video games
• Video versions of our articles are available here: