Odds n’ Ends #11

1. Israel's Outgoing Leader Says Israel Must Give Up Virtually All of the Land It Won in the 1967 '6-Day War', in an attempt to trade land for peace. http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20081002/ts_usnews/stunningwordsfromisraelslameduckleader;_ylt=Aigze_d1gvzZcO08xI0zQius0NUE; Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made his "stunning" comments this past Thursday. "What I'm telling you now has never been said by an Israeli leader before me," Olmert told journalists from Yediot Aharonot, the country's largest newspaper, in a lengthy pre-Rosh Hashana interview.
   

   
    

   Technically, he's right; no previous Israeli premier ever publicly stated his willingness to sign peace treaties that gave the Palestinians "almost all...if not all" (other reports place this at over 98% of what was gained by the 6-Day War) of the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, as well as the entire Golan Heights to Syria. And on the subject of Iran, Olmert didn't explicitly rule out an attack on its nuclear facilities, but implicitly, he did.
   

   
    

2. California Next? http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE49229820081003; SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has told U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that the most populous U.S. state may need the federal government to buy $7 billion of debt the state is unable to sell due to weak credit markets- and that California may not be alone.
   

 

1. The 5 Diseases We Should Most Worry About. http://www.popsci.com/melinda-wenner/gallery/2008-09/five-diseases-you-should-worry-about;
   

   Malaria is still listed as the number 1 threat with a continued Death Toll of 1 million + per year;
   

   Small Pox is listed as the second most dangerous threat because it could possibly be used by Bio-Terrorists. In the 1960's 2 million people were killed by Small pox per year;
   

   Ebola is also included in this list because it has a Kill Rate of between 50%-90% (!!); Check out the full list at the link shown above.
   

   
    

2. In Russia, 64% of Pregnancies End in Abortion. http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/oct/08100103.html; ST. PETERSBURG, September 31, 2008 (LifeSIteNews.com) – Alarmingly high abortion rates in Russia are leaving an increasing number of women infertile, said Marina Tarasova, deputy head of the St. Petersburg Research Institute For Gynecology and Obstetrics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at an international conference on Monday.
   

 

1. Animal Footprints Found and Dated Before the Cambrian Explosion. http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081005_prints; Faint, fossilized tracks of an ancient aquatic creature suggests animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought, some scientists say. But they admit the lack of a fossil of the creature itself will probably foster a healthy skepticism, and that researchers will need to look for additional evidence.
   

   
    

   The tracks two parallel rows of small dots, each about two millimeters wide are dated to some 570 million years ago, to a period called the Ediacaran. That preceded the Cambrian period, when most major groups of animals evolved.
   
   Scientists once thought that mainly microbes and simple multi-cellular animals existed before the Cambrian, but that idea is changing, said Loren Babcock, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.
   

   
    

   Tom's Note – Something is wrong here. Is it the dating method used by these goofballs? Is it the whole idea of the 'Cambrian Explosion' being so offensive to the atheistic worldview of some scientists that they are trying to tear it down with weak evidence. Stay tuned to this one…
   

 

Islam – Muhammad’s Influence

You can't understand the religion of Islam unless you understand its Prophet Muhammad who lived from 570 AD until his death in 632 AD. For this post I will discuss the central figure for the religion of Islam Muhammad. Muhammad was the one man who brought the Arab world out of a pagan religious system. He is the visionary who claimed to receive special revelation from God delivered by the angel Gabriel. He was the religious, political, military and judicial leader of the Islamic community, and ruled without challenge. And so, he continues as the strongest influence in the Arab world. His example is what is viewed in the Arab world as the best model.

 

However, although Muhammad is viewed as an ideal of what a man (and not a woman) can accomplish, he also heavily influenced future Muslim generations continuing through today. Some of his actions which continue to be followed in the Islamic world include:

 

• His healthy sexual appetite (he had somewhere between 11 and 16 wives), led to his revelation that Paradise (the Islamic description of Heaven) is a place of sexual delights;
  
• He warred and killed his fellow tribesman, the Meccans. We see this continue as those in Afghanistan and Iraq have no qualms about killing fellow Muslims of different beliefs;
  
• He ordered the killing of hundreds of Jews who refused to accept his revelation as the new revelation from God to replace the Old and New Testaments. And the hatred between Muslims and Jews continues to grow;
  
• His leadership as the religious, political and judicial leader of the community is the basis for today's Islamic nations combining all of these under one leader;
  
• The cities that are most important in the Islamic world are those that were important to Muhammad – Mecca is where he was born, and all Muslims are commanded to make a pilgrimage their at least once in their lifetime. And Jerusalem is also important where he had a dream/vision, see below.
  

 

Muhammad – The last and greatest prophet according to Muslims. He is also viewed in Islam as being the "best model for man in piety and perfection. He is a living proof of what man can be and of what he can accomplish in the realm of excellence and virtue." – Abdalati.

1. Muhammad is not viewed as being divine, nor a Son of God. He is not likened to Christ, which explains the Muslims aversion to a term such as 'Muhammadans'. Although he is not worshipped, he is venerated.
   
   1. But Muslims are more devoted to Muhammad than even to their god Allah. Remember Allah is viewed as being impersonal, and even capricious. "Love of the Prophet runs like blood in the veins of the community…You can deny God, but you cannot deny the Prophet!" – Schimmel.
      
   2. "Muslims will allow attacks on Allah: there are atheists and atheistic publications, and rationalistic societies in Arab cities: but to disparage Muhammad will provoke from even the most 'liberal' sections of the community a fanaticism of blazing vehemence." – Wilfred Cantwell Smith
      
2. Miracles performed by Muhammad? He stated that his only miracle that he performed is the Qur'an itself –When challenged to perform miracles by unbelievers, he could not (3:181-184, 4:153, and 6:8-9). No miracles by Muhammad are in the Qur'an.
   

• But the Hadiths (the
  
• example and tradition of Muhammad) tell stories of many miracles performed by Muhammad, including healing a companion's broken leg, providing water to 10,000 troops, turning water into milk, trees spoke with and saluted him, and feeding of large numbers of people. Reported miracles in the Hadiths were written at least 250 years after the death of Muhammad.
  
• Most Muslim scholars reject the vast majority of Hadith stories of miracles as not being authentic.
  

 

1. The Life of Muhammad.
   

Muhammad was born in 570 AD in Mecca. He was born in a well to do family, but his parents died while he was very young. He was brought up by his grandfather, as a shepherd. Later he became a camel driver, and at age 25 he married a wealthy widow, Khadija. At the age of 40 he claims to have been visited by the angel Gabriel (who is an angel described in Christian/Jewish religion). The message he received is the essence of the Qur'an. At first, he was deathly afraid that it was a visit from an evil spirit. But his wife convinced him that it was a message from Allah.

 

Muhammad's greatest directive was that of monotheism, preaching that there is only one God, named Allah. He also challenged the moral decadence, superstition, and idol worship of Mecca. While in Mecca, he began attracting a small group of followers, which caused the city leaders to begin persecution of Muhammad. It was at this point that Muhammad preached that the favorite deities worshipped in Mecca al-Lat, al-Uzza, and Manat could be considered divine beings whose intercession was effectual with God. This is what is referred to as the "Satanic Verses", and were later taken out and replaced in the Qur'an with sura 53:19-23.

 

Khadija died in 619 AD. After this Muhammad had a dream/vision where he took a journey into heaven where he was taken there by Gabriel from Mecca to Jerusalem (which explains the importance of Jerusalem to Muslims) and then through the 7 heavens. In the heavens he visited all of the previous prophets (Jesus was in the 2^nd heaven, Moses in the 6^th, and Abraham in the 7^th). Finally he was taken to the presence of Allah and received the specific procedures for Islamic worship of daily prayers. Many Muslim authorities consider this purely a spiritual event.

 

News of the fantastic mystical experience spread, and even many of the faithful began to doubt the prophet's truthfulness. Without much success in Mecca, Muhammad searched for other areas eventually leading him to use Medina, which is 200 miles north of Mecca. Failed assassination attempt upon Muhammad, and his father-in-law Abu Bakr. In 622 AD the Hijra (Flight) was when Muhammad and approx. 150 followers left to Medina. This is the beginning of the Islam calendar.

 

In Medina, this began a new period in Islamic history. He organized raids on caravans travelling to Mecca. Early raids were unsuccessful. This was the period when Jews living in Medina rejected Muhammad's audacious claim of being the true prophet. This was when he instructed his followers to face Mecca rather than Jerusalem. In 624, at the Battle of Badr Muhammad had 300 men to a Meccan force of 950, and was still able to win. This allowed Muhammad to implement a systematic elimination of all opponents in Medina. Included in these eliminations was his ordered assassination of poets who satirized him.

 

But in 625, Muhammad suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Uhud. Again outnumbering Muhammad's forces 3,000:1,000, the Meccans won after the Median archers abandoned their position against Muhammad's order to share in the plunder. This led to Muhammad expelling a 2^nd Jewish tribe, and taking all of their possessions.

 

In 627, Mecca decided to do away with Muhammad by laying siege to Medina. But because of a trench around the city, the Meccans were unable to break into Medina and withdrew after two weeks. This further strengthened Muhammad, and so he attacked the 3^rd and final Jewish tribe in Medina because of a suspected (made up?) plot with the Meccan enemies. All of the Jewish men were killed, and all of the women and children were placed into slavery. This was his greatest disappointment (the rejection by the Jews of his prophetic authority), which led to the fixed axiom that the Jews were the sworn enemies of Allah and His revelation.

 

Finally in 628 the Meccans made a peace treaty with Medina. The treaty was broken due to complex clan wars. Muhammad took advantage of this and attacked Mecca who surrendered to him with little opposition. Muhammad showed great restraint by offering a general amnesty to all of the leaders. After this, Islam quickly spread throughout the entire Arabian area. Muhammad died in June 632, at the age of 63. After this, one of his father-in-law's (Muhammad was married 11-14 times) Abu Bakr became the 1^st Caliph.

 

He won as a convert a man named Ali who later married Muhammad's daughter Fatima. They had two sons Hasan and Husain. Husain later became the third imam of the Shiites, who revere him.

 

That's all for now. May God bless you today in the growing knowledge of His love expressed through His only Son Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Islam – Basic Beliefs

 

    Islam is neither the spiritual nor moral equivalent of Christianity. But before I can show this, we need a basic understanding of what Muslims believe. It is the world's 2^nd largest religion, behind Christianity. My source for most of this information is from 'Answering Islam' – by Norman Geisller (1995).

 

Basic Tenets of Islam. Islam is the religion – Muslims are its believers.

 

1. Islam is a religion of the sword, teaching its followers to spread its religion by violence and force.
   
2. Islam Claims to be an extension of Judaism and Christianity. First came the Old Testament, then the New Testament, then the Qur'an, which supersedes both earlier revelations of God.
   

• Muhammad Abduh: The Bible, the New Testament and the Qur'an are three concordant Books. Religious men study all three and respect them equally. Thus, the divine teaching is completed and the true religion shines across the centuries.
  
• "Judaism lays stress on Justice and right, Christianity on love and charity, Islam on brotherhood and peace."
  

1. Islam is strictly Monotheistic – 1 God, creator of everything. Muslims name their God "Allah". Muslims have a difficult time in understanding Christianity's belief in the Trinity. Allah is viewed as impersonal and even capricious.
   
2. "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet." This is the prayer Muslims are to say at least 5 times a day as they kneel toward Mecca.
   
3. Muhammad as the final prophet of Allah. 25-28 earlier prophets noted in the Qur'an. These include Jesus, Moses, David, Solomon, Isaac, Jacob, and Abraham. They claim that the Arab world is descendants of Abraham, and his son Ishmael. And that they are the heirs of God's promise of making Abraham's descendant's as numerous as the stars in heaven. See Gen. 15:5. While Israel is descended from Abraham's son Isaac.
   

• Muhammad is not viewed as being divine, or a Son of God. He is not likened to Christ, which explains the Muslims aversion to a term such as 'Muhammadans'.
  
• But Muslims are more devoted to Muhammad than even to God. Remember God is viewed as being impersonal, and even capricious. "Love of the Prophet runs like blood in the veins of the community…You can deny God, but you cannot deny the Prophet!" – Schimmel.
  
• "Muslims will allow attacks on Allah: there are atheists and atheistic publications, and rationalistic societies: but to disparage Muhammad will provoke from even the most 'liberal' sections of the community a fanaticism of blazing vehemence." – Wilfred Cantwell Smith
  

  
   

1. 5 Highest Prophets: Muhammad, Abraham, Noah, Moses, and Jesus (possibly also Adam). But none compares to Muhammad. All prophets are men, and nothing more.
   
2. Belief in angels, and Jinn (who have free will with some being good and some evil).
   
3. Muslims believe that Jesus had a virgin birth, and in the Qur'an He is given honorific titles such as "Messiah", "Word of God", and "Speech of Truth". But they do not believe He died, or was resurrected, part of the Trinity, or the equivalent of God. Instead, He is claimed to be merely a prophet, and only a man.
   
4. Muslims claim Islam is unique in being the only universal religion. They claim that Jesus was a prophet only to the Jews.
   
5. Abrogation – progressive revelation. Muslims claim that truths came to Muhammad in stages, such as the world 1^st received God's message in the OT, then the NT, then the Qur'an. Each more truthful than the earlier, and each replacing the earlier. But this doctrine makes the Qur'an difficult to read, as the suras are not in chronological order, but instead arranged generally by length. E.g. adultery originally was to be punished by stoning and later changed to being whipped 100 times. The prohibition against adultery still stands, just the punishment has changed.
   
6. Tahrif – Islamic doctrine that the original teachings of the Bible, and of all other world religions, have been corrupted. Only the Qur'an is not corrupted.
   
7. 5 Pillars of Islam – confession, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage to Mecca (some also include a 6^th Pillar of Jihad, or holy war).
   
8. Islam believes in Paradise and Hell. Paradise is filled with sexual pleasures. One commentator suggests 2 angels question those who recently died (Munkar & Nakir). 3 questions are asked of the recently dead: Who is your Lord? What is your religion? and who is the Prophet. The answers claimed needed for entrance into Paradise: Allah, Islam, & Muhammad. Islam is a works based religion even to the end.
   

 

*** Big problem – no one is ever assured of a place in Paradise. Not even Muhammad knew he was going to paradise when he died. Must keep striving to earn your place in paradise.

1. Under orthodox Islam, there is no free will for man, Allah predestines everything. Allah alone is active, everything else is passive.
   
2. Hadith – Muhammad's sayings. 2^nd only to the Qur'an and the previous Scriptures in importance. Complementary to the Qur'an, which purports to explain and clarify it. There are hundreds of thousands of claimed Hadiths, with each sect relying on different hadiths. Greatest collector is Bukhari: He collected over 300,000 hadith, yet he considered only 100,000 might be true. And of these, only 3,000 are original stories (not repetitions) which are credible.
   
3. Sunnah – Muhammad's actions.
   
4. Islamic Law – is based on the Qur'an, the hadith, consensus of the community (ijma), and application of reasoning by analogy to the other three sources (qiyas).
   
5. Friday
   is holy day for Muslims. Will Western nations one day have a three day weekend?
   

I saw an article in today's AOL that I thought deserved a little more discussion. It speaks of a growing division between Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam. Here is a portion of the article (the link is below), that I thought was interesting:

 

Clerics' debate underlines Sunni-Shiite divide. http://news.aol.com/article/clerics-debate-underlines-sunni-shiite/187227;

 

BEIRUT, Lebanon -Two of the Arab world's most prominent Muslim theologians have waded into a bitter exchange of barbs, engaging in a debate that is a small-scale rendition of the worsening animosity between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam.

The fight began early this month when Youssef al-Qaradawi, a Sunni who is one of the best known Islamic television clerics, called Shiites "heretics" and accused them of seeking to infiltrate Sunni societies.

Lebanon's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, shot back that Qaradawi was trying to incite "fitna" — the word for internal civil strife among Muslims that is anathema to followers of Islam.

Centuries-old tensions between Islam's two main branches in the Middle East have flared into the open in recent years, following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the eruption of sectarian killings there.

Though sectarian violence has eased in Iraq this year, it has boiled over in other places, particularly Lebanon, which saw dozens killed in fighting in May between Sunni groups and the Shiite militants of Hezbollah…

 

I will try and provide a quick summary of what I learned from my research a few years ago about this division. I think all of the material is current, but if you have anything more recent, I think we would benefit from learning from each other on this. Here goes:

 

… ( a brief background on the end of Muhammed's life) In 627, Mecca decided to do away with Muhammad by laying siege to Medina. But because of a trench around the city, the Meccans were unable to break into Medina and withdrew after two weeks. This further strengthened Muhammad, and so he attacked the 3^rd and final Jewish tribe in Medina because of a suspected (made up?) plot with the Meccan enemies. All of the Jewish men were killed, and all of the women and children were placed into slavery. This was his greatest disappointment (the rejection by the Jews of his prophetic authority), which led to the fixed axiom that the Jews were the sworn enemies of Allah and His revelation.

 

Finally in 628 the Meccans made a peace treaty with Medina. The treaty was broken due to complex clan wars. Muhammad took advantage of this and attacked Mecca who surrendered to him with little opposition. Muhammad showed great restraint by offering a general amnesty to all of the leaders. After this, Islam quickly spread throughout the entire Arabian area. Muhammad died in June 632, at the age of 63. After this, one of his father-in-law's (Muhammad was married 11-14 times) Abu Bakr became the 1^st Caliph.

 

Wikipedia: "Almost all Muslims belong to one of two major denominations, the Sunni (85%) and Shi'a (15%). The schism developed in the late 7th century following disagreements over the religious and political leadership of the Muslim community."

 

The Shiites, who constitute the second-largest branch of Islam, believe in the political and religious leadership of Imams from the progeny of Ali ibn Abi Talib, who according to most Shi'a are in a state of ismah, meaning infallibility. They believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib, as the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, was his rightful successor, and they call him the first Imam (leader), rejecting the legitimacy of the previous Muslim caliphs. To most Shi'a, an Imam rules by right of divine appointment and holds "absolute spiritual authority" among Muslims, having final say in matters of doctrine and revelation

 

Sunnis - Sunni Muslims are the largest group in Islam. In Arabic, as-Sunnah literally means "principle" or "path". The Sunnah (the example of Muhammad's life) as recorded in the Qur'an and the hadith is the main pillar of Sunni doctrine. Sunnis believe that the first four caliphs were the rightful successors to Muhammad…

 

And a major part of the problem with the War in Iraq, if America just picked up and left is that Iraq is run by mostly Sunni leaders while Iran is run by Shiites, remember Ayatollah Khomeini he is of the Shiites. And so, this division among many others including the hard feelings from the Iran-Iraq War (and the use of chemical weapons), there would likely be mass genocide by Iran against Iraq. Anyway, here is my quick start on discussing the divide within Islam. If there is interest, I have more on Islam and Muhammad that I would like to share. Otherwise, if you have helpful information on this divide, Please feel free to share it here.

Love Jesus and Keep His Commands. But Which of His Commands?

Love Jesus and keep His Commandments. The Gospel of John quotes Jesus as saying "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15). But what Commandments is Jesus talking about? What Commandments should Christ-followers obey? That is what I will address in this today's post, and I will show that Jesus is speaking of more than just 'loving others'. I will show that there are many Commands of Jesus that born-again believers will obey, and by this show their love and appreciation to our Savior.

 

One might be easily convinced that when Jesus asks us to keep His Commandments (John 14:15, Luke 6:46, 1 John 2:3, among others), that we should follow only the two most important Commandments: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" ³⁷ And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ³⁸ This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:34-40, see, Mark 12:28-31, Luke 10:25-28). And so, are the two Greatest Commandments to love God and to love others, are these what Jesus is asking us to keep in order to show our love to Him?

 

I don't think so. What opened my eyes is the overwhelming number of Jesus' Commands that He has given us in the Gospels. I recently read a Commentary that listed all of the Commands of Jesus, and I decided to try and bring them altogether (I'm in the process of organizing them right now.) I count over 50 of Jesus' Commands in the Gospel of Matthew alone. To give you a flavor for what Jesus has commanded His followers to do, take a look at a few of Jesus' Commands:

 

• Do not divorce; Mt 19:6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate;
  
• Baptism, Mt 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit;
  
• Belief in Christ, Jn 6:29 Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?" ²⁹ Jesus answered them, **"This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. (see, John 14:1, 1 John 3:23);
  
• Chastity, Mt 5:27, 28. You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' ^28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.;
  
• Fear God, Mt 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell; . Lk 12:4, 5.
  
• Forsake all for Christ, Lk 14:33 (So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.).;
  
• Honesty, Mk 10:19 (You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.), and many more;
  
• Labor, Jn 6:27. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.
  

 

My thanks to the writers of the 'New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge' (entry for 1 John 2:3) for pulling Jesus' Commands together (and yes, Pastor MacArthur's Study Bible entry for 1 John 2:3 was also very helpful.). And yes, there are many, many verses on loving our neighbor, and how we should do this, but there are also many other ethical and moral commands that Jesus taught about in the Gospels. And we are to keep them ALL. By keeping Jesus' Commands we repay Him in the only way we can – we keep His Commands because it shows our love and gratitude for Him and what He has done for us and for our loved ones.

 

Now with "love and gratitude" as the reason that we keep Jesus' Commands, let's be clear that we do not receive salvation for our obedience. Salvation is by God's Grace through faith in Jesus alone. And so, obeying Jesus' Commands is the truest form of love we can show – there's nothing in it for us. This makes it even more appealing to me to obey Jesus' Commands. We don't have to earn our salvation or earn our heavenly Father's love through our actions. Instead, God already loves us because of our faith in Jesus, and instead helps us to grow in our development as a disciple of Jesus. He does this through helping us to grow in obedience.

 

And so, my application for any readers of this post is this – When you read about Jesus' Commands and how we should keep these Commands, are you filled with dread or gratitude? Are you so grateful of what Jesus has done for you that you trust in Him enough to give up something that is against what He has commanded. Or do you place your behavior as covered by the Blood of Jesus, Grace that God has provided to you, and you believe that you don't have to grow in obedience to these Commands? Let me challenge you to find more of Jesus' Commands through study of the Bible and take one Command and work on it this week. In Jesus' Precious and Almighty name I pray that you are blessed through this, Amen.

In the ER Last Night

Hi everyone,

 

I was the Emergency Room last night to have a new MRSA wound opened up on my left leg. My MRSA/ drug resistant staph is back. They put me on an IV giving me anti-biotics, and some morphine. Man, I'm discouraged by this battle with something that no one can explain to me why I keep getting.

 

Your prayers are appreciated.

Gambling

Are you a Gambler at heart? And do you think gambling is a sin? I've been taking a look at this topic because I have a Christian friend (it's really NOT me) who is caught in the snare of gambling. And I wanted to discuss it with them, and so I looked in the Bible for some good "fire and brimstone" verses on gambling and I couldn't find a single verse specifically against gambling. And so, I wanted to dig into it some more, which has led me to this post – Is gambling sinful?

 

OK, let's differentiate between casual gambling versus addictive gambling. I think everyone agrees that obsessive gambling is sinful, destructive to a person's life, and dangerous. But what about anything short of being a Gambleaholic, what should we as Christians think about others who enjoy gambling recreationally, or even count on it as a source of income?

 

First, let me lay my cards on the table (so to speak). I don't gamble. But I enjoy learning about games like Texas Hold'Em, and I do play it on my Windows Vista computer (it's one of the free Microsoft games that come with it.) And I recently played one game of Hold'Em with some friends, and I lost my $20 that I put in, but it was a lot of fun. I see gambling as combining two dangerous attractions for especially men: competing against others to dominate and win, and the lure of winning money. And so, being good at playing games like Blackjack or Texas Hold'Em is doubly hazardous because if you win, you think you deserve it. But if you lose you think you're good enough to win it back. But no one knows who Lady Luck is going to spend the evening with.

 

Alright, my last comment about "Lady Luck" brings up a rabbit trial on the sovereignty of God. The few Bible verses on gambling speak about God controlling things like the outcome of dice (or more properly the lot). See, as an example Proverbs 16:33. This is all considered as part of God's Providential work around us. And so, does this mean there is nothing truly random in the universe around us? I don't know, but I'm just raising it as something we should consider.

 

Now back to my Christian friend, who believes God is totally in control of the cards while he gambles, and so some nights God blesses him, and on others he does not. And so, this friend is trying to earn extra money through gambling because my friend is a pretty good player. This is where my common sense (yes, sometimes I do have common sense) kicked in. I remembered reading one commentator who believed that gambling was a violation of the 8^th Commandment (Thou Shall Not Steal), because it is seeking unearned wealth. But this is easily enough rationalized away – because if a gambler is better than the other players, then they are technically 'earning' their winnings.

 

So let me try a different tack in showing that Gambling is sinful. Because gambling is a zero-sum game (one person wins, while the other person loses), it always means there is someone who benefits and the other loses. Would you consider our holy God as someone Who takes from some people, while taking from others. On what grounds would God do this? Is it done because one person is more righteous than the other, God being a cosmic Robin Hood, taking from those that don't deserve it, and giving it to those who deserve it? This is the deceptive track for those who might believe this – it causes one to believe in their self-righteousness. And if they lose, then they deserved it because of something bad that thy recently did. This isn't what Jesus taught, and so we should stay away from this kind of thinking. Instead, we are not to judge others as being worse sinners than us, but instead we are to repent of our sinful activities (see Luke 13:1-5 – story of the Tower that fell killing 18 people.)

 

No, God causes the rain to fall on saints and sinners alike, and so this rationale (of thinking that God wants to bless gambling Christians) seems especially poor to me. This leads me to explain how I was blessed in my studying about gambling. It turns out that Martin Luther himself came to my rescue when he says that gambling is simply unloving. Gambling reveals a greedy heart where we want gain for ourselves, while taking away from others. And so here are a few quotes that helped me to see the utter sinfulness and emptiness of gambling:

 

Someone Once Said …

•     A young gambler is sure to be an old beggar if he lives long enough.—Charles Spurgeon

•     Gambling: unnecessarily risking the possessions which God has entrusted to us in games of chance or skill in the hope of gaining something from our neighbor without giving him a fair service or product in return whether for the sake of profit or thrills.—John Mark

•     No one gambles with another in order to give away to the other what is his own (for he could do that without gambling), nor in order to lose what is his own, nor in order to seek the gain of the other man as though it were his own. This is why gambling is always contrary to love and is motivated by greed because a man seeks, to the harm of another, what does not belong to him.—Martin Luther

•     Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on what people will do.—Oscar Wilde

•     The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.—Heywood Hale Broun, broadcaster

 

And now, here is what we are up against in America. Here are some of the statistics showing the dangers that come from Gambling:

• According to International Gaming and Wagering Business, Americans lost $50.9 billion in legal games in 1997, $27.2 billion of that in casinos and $16.6 billion in lotteries.
  
• The National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported in 1999 that:
  
• •     More than 20 million Americans have or could develop gambling problems.
  
• •     More than 5 million Americans are pathological or problem gamblers.
  
• •     More than 15 million Americans are at risk of becoming pathological gamblers.
  
• •     Over 1 million American teens engage in severe pathological gambling each year. (All of these quotes and stats come from Morgan, R. J. (2000). Nelson's complete book of stories, illustrations, and quotes (electronic ed.) (333). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.)
  

  
   

From what has been said above, I hope you will see the dangers of gambling, and that gambling is antithetical to everything that Jesus taught. Therefore, although there are not many Bible verses that specifically speak against gambling, it certainly is against some of the most important Biblical principles, including the principle of loving one's neighbor, while gambling only seeks their harm. And so, although gambling is so rampant in our society through lotteries, casinos, pull-tabs, and internet gambling sites, we need as Christians to stand up against this infestation, and discourage ourselves and others from getting involved in this un-loving activity. Amen!