Ethics of gambling post

This was a great post on Feb 8 by Ben Witherington (read the whole thing on his blog) about the ethics of gambling and why Christians should not participate. His excellent points are:

- that gambling is the opposite of the usual work ethic, where a worker is worth his hire, and tries to get something for nothing, or at least a lot for a little.
- gambling relies on most people losing most of the time, and is therefore probably against the laws about not lending at excessive interest or profiting from the poor.
- gambling is not a good use of the money under our stewardship, since it is purely a personal and selfish entertainment, and an addictive one.
- often, it is driven by a selfish fear of poverty or a wish to provide luxuries for oneself. Really, God provides for our needs, through work or through the church and luxuries which we can't earn or be given we can learn to do without.
- gambling is a whole industry based on the sin of greed, and plays on this in order to make a profit. Everyone who participates in this either supports it by losing money to it or profiting from those who.

Quote of the day:

Gambling is an act of despair by those who either never trusted God or have given up doing so. James was right--- "the love of money is a root of all imaginable sorts of evil".

Go Ben!