Is Gambling Morally Wrong?
Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear
4.9 • 624 Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2022
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Show Notes:
Gambling can seem harmless. You throw a little bit of money on a sporting event, on a slot machine, or on a lottery ticket… what’s the harm in that? I am going to draw distinction between Las Vegas-type gambling and a $20 office pool.
Gambling is at least a $44 billion dollar industry in the US–and that’s just the legal gambling, to say nothing of off-the-books gambling. In fact, as more and more states legalize gambling, it’s getting worse. Some studies say up to 10% (6-9%) of young adults experience problems related to gambling.
And gambling has some big moral ramifications.
Three primary problems with it:
* First, it goes against the work ethic in Scripture.
* Second, the gambling industry intentionally takes advantage of the poor.
* Third, gambling is addictive.
Honestly, you need to use your own personal judgment on these. I realize it may sound ultra-spiritual, but this is exactly the kind of issue where the Holy Spirit guides us. What may feel totally right to one believer may feel morally wrong to another.
Al Mohler: https://albertmohler.com/2012/02/20/when-the-accounts-are-called-a-christian-understanding-of-gambling
Wayne Grudem, Politics According to the Bible, pp. 550-551
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Ask Me Anything. I'm Matt Love. I'm here with Pastor |
| 0:22.1 | J.D. Greer. And, you know, it's hard to kind of get through a day if you're on TV or on your |
| 0:29.1 | phone. You see that there's a ton of advertisements these days for sports gambling, sports |
| 0:35.3 | betting as it becomes legal in more states. |
| 0:38.2 | And, you know, it seems kind of harmless. |
| 0:39.5 | Seems like it might just be a game. |
| 0:41.1 | But today we ask Pastor J.D. |
| 0:42.9 | Is gambling morally wrong? |
| 0:46.0 | You know, to a lot of people, gambling seems harmless. |
| 0:48.2 | I mean, you throw a little bit of money at a sporting event on a slot machine. |
| 0:51.3 | Have a great time in Vegas or Atlantic City. |
| 0:53.7 | You know, buy a lottery ticket. |
| 0:55.2 | You know, they're like, what's the harm in that? |
| 0:57.3 | It's a great question, one that's really relevant. |
| 0:59.5 | I'd say a lot of Christians are, you know, not really sure or just believe that there's nothing |
| 1:04.0 | wrong with it at all. |
| 1:05.3 | I am going to draw a distinction, and maybe some of my listeners will object to this distinction. |
| 1:17.3 | But I'm going to draw a distinction between putting $20 in for an office pool on March Madness and, you know, going to Vegas. It's the difference between, I don't know, just something you and some friends are doing just on a very small scale versus, you know, like the industry of it. I do think that warrants a little |
| 1:29.7 | bit of a distinction, kind of like, you know, it's the difference. Remember, if you used to have |
| 1:34.0 | a VCR and you'd record something on TV, that's different than if you're pirating movies and |
| 1:38.9 | selling it. You know, you can draw that distinction. So anyway, let me think about the issue of gambling as an industry, |
| 1:47.2 | the lottery and the Vegas and that type of stuff. It's not a small one in our society. It's at least |
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