Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern day believers live out the teachings of the First Century Church.

This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard.

Dr. Bernard is dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives.

In Apostolic Life in the 21st century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible teaches and how those

teachings apply to everyday life. Thank you for joining us for this broadcast. Here in the United States anymore, it seems like you can hardly go to the gas station or the grocery store without being presented with the opportunity to buy a lottery ticket or participate in some form of gambling.

Every year, millions of people flock to Las Vegas, Nevada for the primary purpose of participating in legalized gambling. When municipalities

have a financial crisis, it seems like that almost every time legalizing gambling is presented as

an option to generate more tax revenues. If you read the Bible, the Bible never says thou shalt not

gamble. Is gambling against scriptural principles,

or is it just a harmless form of entertainment? Gambling is definitely against scriptural principles.

I think we can say gambling is a sin. Maybe not the worst sin, but it is a violation of God's

word. Historically, Christians of all groups have taught

that, or almost all, especially conservative Christians. And that might be a little, seem curious,

because you're right. The Bible never explicitly says gambling is a sin or thou should not gamble.

And I suppose the number one reason in biblical times,

there really wasn't much in the way. There were games of chance and there was gambling,

but the kind of organized mass gambling that we think of was really not part of the ancient

culture in any way like it is today. And so it probably

wasn't at the forefront of the average Christian. And probably the average Christian of the

first century, not to speak of the Israelites of ancient times, that wasn't a burning issue.

Shall I go out and spend all my money gambling? First of all,

they didn't have much, and second of all, there wasn't much opportunity. And that was probably

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