The Pursuit

My Trip to Maine

Thursday, October 18th, 2007 | Alcohol, Church Covenant, Gambling, fellowship, just for fun, testimony, tradition, worship | 5 Comments

Many of you know that I am originally from the great state of Maine. This past weekend I flew up for a close friends wedding. Here is a list of some things I did while in Maine…

Friday:

1. Landed in PWM and was picked up by my mom at 7:00 PM.
2. Went to Alex’s Pizza - got a double pepperoni, just the way I like it.
3. Went home and had a couple scoops of Peppermint Stick Ice-Cream from Martel’s.

Saturday:

1. Went to the Village by the Sea in Wells (where the wedding, reception, and our hotel room was located).
2. Enjoyed one of the best weddings I’ve witnessed (lasted about 15 minutes, YAY!)
3. Went to the reception.
4. Open bar for the first hour, so I decided to get a Bailey’s Irish Creme on the rocks.
5. Danced.
6. Danced with the bride.
7. Danced some more.
8. Danced with my mom.
9. Danced some more.
10. Danced even more.
11. After finding out that I went to seminary, some girl asked me what Biblical character I most resemble… I said I had no idea but I try to resemble Jesus.
12. Went to the after-party with the family and friends.
13. Went to the after-after-party to finish watching the Red Sox game - everyone fell asleep, so I went to my own room and finished the game.

Sunday:

1. Headed to Rosa Linda’s for breakfast (I just realized, every place in Maine that I enjoy is named after a person).
2. Went to visit my Nana for a couple hours.
3. Went to the after-after-party at the Bride and Groom’s house… had to leave early because I didn’t bring my allergy medicine and they have two cats.
4. Went to Seabrook Poker Room in New Hampshire with my dad to play in a Texas Hold’em Tournament (came in somewhere around 21st).

Monday:

1. Mom made me some Fried Dough for breakfast (yum!).
2. My cousin Amy came over to visit - had the opportunity to talk about Christianity, Religion, and what the Bible actually says about Jesus. We talked for a few hours, it was a great conversation. She has some health issues and is a little upset at God right now. So please be in prayer for her.
3. Drove to Best Buy and picked up my parents some networking hardware for their computers.
4. Went to visit my Aunt Patty and Aunt Barbara & Uncle Donald (Pronounced ahnt not ant).

Tuesday:

1. Bride’s parents came over for one last visit with me.
2. Mom went to get some famous donuts from Reilly’s Bakery (see, another name!).
3. Family friend came over to visit with me.
4. Picked up a couple more pizza’s from Alex’s’ to bring home for me and Kati (we use to eat them almost every Friday when we lived in Maine).
5. Got a Spaghetti and Bacon pizza from Amato’s (I think this is a person’s or family name too!).
6. I setup the networking equipment and some other stuff for my parents.
7. Mom made me some of her famous fried chicken livers for dinner.
8. Headed back home to North Carolina.

The Gambling Question…

Thursday, August 16th, 2007 | Gambling | 9 Comments

I recently read Prof argues against expanded gambling in the BPNews. Hershael York, a professors at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary argued against Kentucky’s proposal for “expanded gambling.” York purports that gambling is sin, plain and simple.

After being saved I was told that gambling was a sin. Why? For many reasons, some of which York claims, such as, it breaks up families, it is greed, it is like stealing from your neighbor, etc. At the time my buddies and I got together every Friday night to play Texas Hold’em. It was a favorite of ours, we would all come to the table, put ten dollars down for poker chips and use the pot to pay for pizza. Usually the last one standing got the rest of the dough (the money, not the pizza).

One of my closest friends was pretty upset about me stopping. He posed an excellent question to me. He asked, “What is the difference between spending 10$ on a movie and 10$ playing cards.” It was a good question to ask in the face of my “stewardship” defense. My backup defense was that I was putting my money up to “chance.” My pastor at the time told me that he use to gamble in Seminary but it wasn’t for money, because of the stewardship issue, it was for toothpicks or some other “no value” item.

As I started to ask myself the “Why?” questions and I looked to Scripture for answers, I came up empty handed.

I realized that the “chance” argument was completely flawed. How could I, who claims that God is sovereign over everything believe in chance? Of course I don’t and didn’t. So then, what do I say about the good stewardship thing? My friend had a point - so if I stop gambling because of stewardship, then I should stop having pizza night. If stewardship was really the issue, then we should all probably go to drinking river water and eating locusts.

What about the other issues?

Does gambling break up families? No. This is called shifting the blame. It would be like saying cabbage breaks up families or space breaks up families. Gambling doesn’t break anything up, people who abuse their family relationships break up families. If you take away gambling it will be with TV, or Computers, or Trading Cards, or Metal Detecting that ‘breaks up families.’

Are you greedy? Perhaps. The problem here is the old chicken and the egg issue. Are you greedy because you gamble or do you gamble because you are greedy? I think the latter. If I am correct, then taking away gambling does not stop the sin (greed).

Are you really stealing from your neighbor? No. A thief takes something from someone when he does not know and when he is not suspecting. When you are at a table playing poker with other players, you are all in a contract with one another. You have agreed to pay the other person if they do a better job than you. When you are at the slots, you are in a contract with the casino. You have agreed to pay the casino for the sake of entertainment or for the opportunity of getting a larger return than “invested.”

So what is wrong with gambling? In my estimation, nothing. The problems York and others have listed stem from the heart, not from the game. Only Jesus can fix the heart. I think we should spend more of our energy helping others with their heart problems and less time worrying about these distractions.