O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
… who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved. (Ps 15:1-2a, 5)
According to Psalm 15, a holy person does not put his money out at interest. Look at it again. See? That’s what it says. (more…)
As I preached through James recently, I became fascinated with trials and tests. It was not just a matter of idle exegetical curiosity, since by any measure the church I am part of belongs to the wealthiest class of the most materialistic civilisation on earth. We just expect to have whatever we want and I struggle with greed as much as anyone. I concluded that being rich is a trial as much as suffering hardship. This might be a hard thing for someone who is not rich to accept—how can the rich complain?! But this appears to be the teaching of God’s word here in the letter of James.
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Gambling seems obviously wrong to many Christians, and yet one searches in vain for a direct forbidding of it in the Bible. Are we justified in opposing the practice? Michael Hill takes up the issue.
When I think about gambling I think about a comment our first daughter made when she was just six years old. Overhearing my wife and I discussing whether or not we had enough money to buy something, she chipped in, “Why don’t you buy a Lotto ticket? Then you’ll get some money.”