Should Christians Play the Lottery?
“Even after becoming a Believer, for years I defended the Christian liberty of others to gamble, including playing the lottery….I do not believe that playing the lottery is a matter of Christian liberty.” - John Ellis
- 19 views
I have written A LOT here about Christian Liberty. Probably the topic I’ve spend the most words on. For instance, https://sharperiron.org/tag/series-weak-faith
Christian Liberty…
If something is not prohibited in Scripture, we may be said to be “at liberty” to do it. (This sense of the word liberty is different from our “liberty from sin,” which is the ability God gives us to not sin.)
The difficulty is that we often differ about whether the Scriptures prohibit certain things.
In the attempt to define Christian Liberty, it is often said, “Christian Liberty is the set of things about which good men differ.” Well, even if you narrow the “good men” definition to be SharperIron Members, if you made a list of things about which we differ, you could make a pretty long list. And many things on the list are things to which we can apply Biblical principles.
This is the slot machine that I most enjoy playing. Every time I see this at a Casino tend to get all of my money back. While I have never lost anything, I haven’t really won anything either.
I have always used the comment: Christians always associate with Jesus on the cross, not the soldiers gambling for his garments at the foot of the cross.
Romaklok
I may be misreading it as well, but I took John’s question to Dan to be about how Dan could consider the issue of gambling to be wrong but still liberty. I read Dan’s post as Dan having a personal conviction against it while still considering it a liberty for others — as long as it doesn’t get into addiction and not providing for one’s family which he considers separate from whatever sin may be involved in buying a single lottery ticket.
Dave Barnhart
[dcbii]…I read Dan’s post as Dan having a personal conviction against it while still considering it a liberty for others…
Yes. That is well put. And I think that sort of thinking is always the way we should think of convictions. And it must be Biblical in order to be a “personal conviction.” If it isn’t Biblical, it’s just a personal like/dislike. So “Biblical conviction” does not imply “everyone should agree.” Though, as AaronB has said, “persuasion is always on the table.”
Discussion