RIGHT or WRONG? Buying lottery tickets

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Posted: 4/11/08

RIGHT or WRONG?
Buying lottery tickets

I buy one or two lottery tickets a week, just for fun. I don’t expect to win; I just do it for the entertainment value, like playing a video game or something. Is this really gambling? Since it is just a small amount of leisure income, is it wrong?


Allow me to answer the easy part of this very common question first. Yes, this really is gambling. The amount is irrelevant. You are wagering a small amount for the potential of winning a larger amount. You may see it as a form of personal entertainment, but the fact is you are entertaining yourself by gambling.

The next part of the question is harder to answer. Is it wrong to gamble a small amount, especially if it is truly leisure income? Let me address this from three perspectives.

First, gambling a dollar or two of your leisure income may be a completely innocent entertainment indulgence on your part. In today’s society, however, there may not be a better example of the principle discussed in 1 Corinthians 8 about eating meat that had been offered to idols. We are warned not to let the exercise of our freedom become a stumbling block to a weaker believer. You may not have a problem, but thousands do, and we are admonished to deny ourselves an innocent pleasure rather than cause someone else to fall.

Second, you should realize what your dollar supports. The lottery is a dangerous, immoral social evil. I do not use these strong words lightly. The facts on the lottery bear witness to the truth. The lottery is in essence a regressive tax that preys on the people who least can afford it. The lottery is not an entertainment venue for most of its participants, but a gluttonous parasite that drains people of the money they need to survive. As Christians, we must oppose institutions like the lottery that have at their heart the propensity and desire to do such violent damage to individuals, families and society as a whole. At the very least, we must not support them.

The third, and for me the most significant, perspective opposes the lottery because it has encroached upon one of the most significant roles of the church. Most people play the lottery not for entertainment, but because it gives them hope. People have come to believe that money, and a lot of it, is the solution to their problems.

Christians know better than that. We know where to find hope, and it is certainly not in the lottery. Ephesians 4 says there is one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, one hope when we were called, and that hope is not the lottery. Christians must not abdicate the role of providing true hope to a desperate world.

In short, yes, it is wrong, and you need to find something better to do with your $2 each week.

Van Christian, pastor

First Baptist Church

Comanche

Right or Wrong? is sponsored by the T.B. Maston Chair of Christian Ethics at Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to [email protected].

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