Questions and Answers | Send Me

Even though your friendly wagers are just for fun, you raise a serious issue. Throughout most of its history, the church has tended to frown on gambling, considering it irresponsible at best and a sin at worst. How should we view gambling in this age when Christians increasingly view it as a legitimate form of entertainment, and municipalities, schools, and even some churches engage in some form of it for funding?

Isaiah 65:11 criticizes those who put their trust in chance by worshiping the gods of chance. They “spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny.” This is not an explicit reference to gambling but to idolatry. It is, however, a condemnation of those who entrust their fate to chance instead of God. Tertullian, a church leader in the second century, warned that gambling was unworthy behavior for a Christian. “If you say that you are a Christian when you are a dice player,” he cautioned, “you say that you are what you are not because you are a partner with the world.” Martin Luther condemned gambling because it sought to take advantage of those who lost. John Calvin viewed gambling as a form of excess and outlawed games played for gold or silver, along with those that could produce excessive expenses for those who lost.

Proverbs 16:33 says: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” Yet gambling in- creases the risk that we might trivialize God’s providential work. For some, it may even be a form of tempting God. The lure of gambling is more than the excitement of winning, an element in every game. Gambling appeals to a combination of greed and selfishness—the one who wins gains because they have taken advantage of the loser.

The fact that there is no explicit prohibition of gambling in the Bible makes it a matter of individual conscience. Christ counsels us to look to God to provide for our daily needs and to seek the kingdom more than riches (Matt. 6:11, 33). God provides money to meet our needs, so we may also be generous and willing to share (2 Cor. 9:11; 1 Tim. 6:18). Given this, we might question whether gambling is the best way to be stewards of our disposable income.

In Joshua 7, the Lord revealed Achan’s guilt in two ways. First, He spoke directly to Joshua at some length both to explain the reason for Israel’s defeat and to describe a process for identifying the one who had disobeyed by taking the “devoted” items (vv. 10–15). Second, the Lord singled Achan out in a kind of trial by elimination that involved the casting of lots (vv. 16–18). Joshua 7 describes how people come forward by tribe, clan, family, and then individually. Once identified, the guilty party would be punished (vv. 14–15).

The text does not explicitly state the exact means used to narrow the field of suspects except to say that the Lord would do the sorting (v. 14). This indictment made by divine revelation would then be confirmed by physical evidence after the guilty party was shown to have the forbidden items in their possession.

The sorting described in verses 10–15 suggests a binary method, where the answer to the question of guilt was either a yes or a no. It seems likely that this answer was obtained using the Urim and Thummim, objects placed in the high priest’s breastplate. According to Exodus 28:30, they were “a means of making decisions for the Israelites.” In 1 Samuel 14:42, the word “taken,” which repeatedly appears in Joshua 7, is used in a similar case that explicitly involved the use of the Urim and Thummim. Scripture does not describe their appearance except to indicate that they were small enough to be cast. They may have been small gems or stones, similar to dice.

This lengthy procedure was not carried out so God could learn who had taken the forbidden plunder. Rather, the process was intended to draw attention to the gravity of what had happened. The Lord already knew that Achan had committed the crime. The involvement of the entire congregation in his exposure underscored that Achan was not just guilty as an individual but had also brought guilt on the entire community by violating the covenant.