Posted on 09/02/2013 12:48:07 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
On a trip to Las Vegas a few years ago, I met Phil Ivey. It wasn’t in a casino, but on the driving range at a golf resort where the poker champion was working on his game in advance of a big-money golf match he had the next day.
We chatted for a short while. And I came away with the impression that he truly was a genuinely nice guy.
Yet, I do not condone what Ivey does for a living. While he’s had a successful career at the poker table – he has earned nearly $14 million in tournament poker, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal – it’s not honorable work.
Now, “honorable” work is not the same as “legal” work. For there are many jobs that are perfectly legal in the eyes of the law – perfectly acceptable to those who see through a glass darkly – that do not honor God.
And professional gambling is such an occupation.
Now I imagine some will quarrel with the assertion that gambling is an unGodly profession but the Scripture suggests otherwise. “Whatever you do,” it advises, “work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord.” We “serve the Lord Christ,” the passage continues. “Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs.”
Well, I’m pretty certain the Lord wouldn’t operate a casino. So no one who makes his or her living from gambling can claim to be working as to the Lord. What they are doing is wrong. And they need to come to repentance.
The same goes for any number of occupations.
For instance, abortion doctors kill more than one million pre-born babies each and every year. Such infanticide is perfectly lawful in this country. But it is an abomination in the eyes of God. Similarly, it’s perfectly legal to work in adult films; to sell one’s body for lucre. But the offense is rank, in the words of the Bard. It smells to heaven.
Then there are those professions, those occupations, that most of us have, that are not inherently sinful – like abortion or adult entertainment – that can afford us the opportunity to work as to the Lord, but that also can seduce us into using our skills for purposes that hardly glorify God.
Indeed, banks are not evil. But I would never take a bank job that required that I foreclose people’s homes. Tow-truck services are not bad. But I could not work for one that assigned me to repossess people’s vehicles.
I don’t think “the law is a ass – an idiot,” in the words of Dickens. But I would never seek acquittal for a criminal I knew to be guilty. I respect the Fourth Estate. But I could never work for an opinion page hostile to my Christian faith and conservative values.
So what should a person do who’s employed in a job that doesn’t honor the Lord? Follow the example of Matthew, who left his well-compensated job as a tax collector to answer Christ’s call to discipleship.
That’s not to suggest that anyone who earns a less-than-Godly living should resign abruptly – especially not in the current economy. No, let them seek first another job where they can work as to the Lord. Then let them quit their unredeeming job.
It’s arrogant to presume what God believes that honors him or not in so far as what people do for work.
I believe in God, accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior and tithe to the church. In so far as work, I will wait for God to tell me if my work honored him or not. Not a self appointed decider who presumes to speak for God.
So are all the people in Nevada dishonorable, since much of their prosperity is based on the gambling industry?
These analogies are terrible.
Agreed.
But there are some who are casualties of the most anemic economic recovery since the Great Depression who seek not to blow off their debts, but forbearance from their creditors. The same kind of forbearance, same kind of “grace,” the Lord has freely gifted us, though none of us deserve it.
We live in a fallen world and have to deal with non-Christian bankers, etc. who may feel no compulsion to offer forbearance to debtors, Christian or otherwise. Even in cases where the mortgagee has defaulted on his/her loan, due to illness, job loss or anything beyond their control, a Christian banker may be highly sympathetic but not have the authority to re-negotiate the mortgage and cannot be called 'dishonorable' for something he cannot control in a business that is based on lending money with the expectation of it being paid back in a systematic manner under an agreed contract. If being in that situation makes a Christian believe they are doing dishonorable work, they certainly should seek a different field of employment.
However, unless a Christian banker is personally signing the foreclosure notice I can't characterize working in a bank (e.g. as a teller) as 'dishonorable'. Likewise, working as a mechanic for a body shop that is contracted to pick up automobiles that are being repossessed hardly equates to being in a 'dishonorable' profession. Then again, being a blackjack dealer in a gambling casino seems to fit the definition of 'dishonorable' work.
I simply don't want to characterize entire professions or jobs as 'dishonorable' when many people working in them never have the slightest connection to some act the business entity may employ that the Christian worker has no part of, as in the examples I have offered. That having been noted, examining ones employment and determining if ones work is honorable is a challenge that many of us could make that would likely yield surprising conclusions (and likely some career changes). On that basis your premise is worthy of consideration and I thank you for your response.
FReegards!
LOL!! I was wondering the same thing.....
Capitalism is evil and big gov’t is good, right? I dare say Washington DC is dishonorable. Ivey pays his own way.
So, winning money in a Poker game is as bad as taking money to kill a baby?
"Pretty" certain?
Not "absolutely" certain?
Yet you claim the power to call someone to "repentance"?
LOL... just LOL...
"...in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."
Matthew 7
Not all that lose their jobs are idiots. Markets turn and crash, firms die, etc.
When you get into a 20 or 30 year mortgage, you (and the bank) make certain assumptions - mainly, that you (and/or your spouse) will continue to be employed at something approaching your current income for the life of the mortgage.
Most people who are qualified, educated, and working in a particular field assume that they will continue on that path. The last 5 years have demonstrated that this most definitely is no longer the case, but some decent people who are not "idiots" got caught in this very extended downturn.
I know well educated people working what used to be thought "safe" jobs who suddenly found themselves laid off, firms closing, corporations dissolving and going out of business. Most prudent people have a six month emergency fund set aside for medical emergencies or job loss, but that can't continue indefinitely. That's when people who are not "idiots" find themselves in a mortgage jam.
So don't be ugly to them, realize that times are particularly hard right now and decent folks have been hurt by an unexpectedly deep and long recession. Most of them do the right thing and short sell the house to the bank and downsize. So don't call them idiots - you could be in that situation some day through no fault of your own.
JOHN 7:24: “Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”
LUKE 12:57: “Yea, and why not even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?”
PSALM 37:30: “The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.”
PROVERBS 31:9: “Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.”
LUKE 17:3: “Take heed... If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.”
LEVITICUS 19:15-17: “Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor: I am the Lord. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.”
I CORINTHIANS 2:15; 6:2-3: “He that is spiritual judgeth all things... Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life?”
I have a day job friend. I derive no income whatsoever from my writings that appear on FR. You have falsely accused me of being a “pimp.” If you are a true Christ follower, you’ll apologize. If not, peace be with you.
I'd have a problem with a Christian who made a living by being a poker hustler but not one who plays the poker tournament circuit. The former takes advantage of people, the latter doesn't. The same could be said about professional billiards players. There are two paths to making money - being a shark or playing tournaments. Couldn't a tournament billiards player be doing it for God's glory?
This isn't a personal defense of Phil Ivey because I really don't much about him, other than he seems a pleasant person. Wasn't his name mentioned in the big internet poker scandal of a couple of years ago?
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