Should We Flip a Coin to Find God’s Will?

00:00:00.000 | Today we're joined by Dr. Vern Poitras, who lives and works at Westminster Theological

00:00:09.680 | Seminary just north of Philly, and it's a huge honor to have you on the podcast. Dr.

00:00:13.960 | Poitras, thanks for being here.

00:00:14.960 | Well, thank you for inviting me. I consider it a privilege to be here.

00:00:19.880 | Of course. Well, some of our listeners will not know you well, so here's your CV in brief.

00:00:25.200 | You have degrees from Cambridge and Harvard and Caltech, and of course, Westminster Theological

00:00:32.000 | Seminary where you now work and live. You've been editing the Westminster Theological Journal

00:00:36.760 | since 2005, and you serve as professor of New Testament interpretation at the school.

00:00:42.880 | That's amazing in and of itself, but you've written several books on a range of topics

00:00:46.400 | that include the Mosaic Law, the Book of Revelation. You have a book on inerrancy, and one on Bible

00:00:52.920 | interpretation, and one on logic, and a book on worldview, one on science, one on sociology,

00:01:01.040 | one on linguistics, and a book on chance and probability. That book is titled Chance in

00:01:07.880 | the Sovereignty of God, a God-Centered Approach to Probability and Random Events, published

00:01:14.160 | in 2014. That book, I mean, Chance in the Sovereignty of God, when I read it, I was

00:01:20.480 | just blown away. It's an excellent book, and I wanted to have you on for a long time to

00:01:23.880 | talk about coin tossing and casinos. So let's start with casting lots today, and then we'll

00:01:30.000 | talk about casinos tomorrow. I'm no mathematician, and I don't have a PhD from Harvard, but by

00:01:36.200 | my count, I see about 30, over 30 references, I think, in the Bible to casting lots. I mean,

00:01:42.520 | what exactly is this, this casting of lots?

00:01:45.560 | Right. It's a good question. The main cases where there is more explanation are religiously

00:01:55.480 | sanctioned, divinely sanctioned cases, so they're very special. For instance, when Achan

00:02:03.080 | has sinned against the Lord by taking some of the gold and silver out of Jericho when

00:02:11.160 | it's conquered, and God announces that there's been a violation of His commands. So God says

00:02:18.520 | somebody has sinned, but nobody but God knows who it is. And then lots are cast under Joshua's

00:02:27.080 | supervision to find out who it is. Well, God already knows who it is. So this is, it is

00:02:33.200 | a very special episode, and there's casting lots to decide on the replacement for Judas

00:02:38.880 | in at the end of Acts 1. And that's because they, you read through that, and it's again

00:02:45.160 | a case where the apostles know that Judas should be replaced, and Peter cites an Old

00:02:50.840 | Testament prophesy to that effect. And God knows who He wants, but they don't. But these

00:02:56.760 | are very special because it's special leaders like Joshua, whom God instructs, and it's

00:03:04.040 | in a time where God is giving direct revelation about His will to specially chosen people,

00:03:13.720 | people like the prophets and the apostles. So it's very special. There may also have

00:03:18.680 | been cases where people gambled or whether they did things frivolously, but the Bible

00:03:24.960 | doesn't say much about that.

00:03:26.560 | Yeah, and I want to come back to Acts 1 in just a moment, but does anyone know what casting

00:03:31.920 | lots look like? I mean, was this a two-sided stone or what was it?

00:03:36.040 | Yeah, well, we don't know all the details, but it's something like rolling dice. But

00:03:42.440 | our modern dice have six sides, and it may have been, as you say, two-sided, but we don't

00:03:49.000 | know the details. And of course, it doesn't matter because these special things are once

00:03:54.360 | for all events. So God is not saying this should be a regular practice.

00:03:58.520 | Right. And yet we have Proverbs 16, 33, which says, "The lot is cast into the lap, but

00:04:05.200 | it's every decision is from the Lord." So aren't lots that are cast and coins that

00:04:11.640 | are tossed and dice that are rolled, aren't those always under God's sovereign control?

00:04:16.640 | Right. Well, every flip of the coin is under God's control. There are many passages,

00:04:23.200 | I think, indicate that God's control of the world is comprehensive. Even the hairs

00:04:30.200 | of your head are numbered. If a sparrow falls to the ground, it's not apart from the will

00:04:36.480 | of God. Now, a lot of modern people have lost sight

00:04:40.840 | of that, and I think it's unhealthy spiritually to lose sight of that, because we are in the

00:04:46.840 | care of our Heavenly Father, and it matters that we affirm and really believe that with

00:04:53.840 | respect to details, as well as respect to the big issues of history. But what I would

00:05:01.280 | answer, you know, is this, does this give us the will of God? That's often how it's

00:05:07.480 | framed. And I think you have to make a distinction between two ways of asking that question.

00:05:13.520 | It needs to be illustrated. So take the crucifixion of Christ. All the events that happened there

00:05:20.920 | happened according to the divine plan. God was working out salvation for us. So there's

00:05:27.120 | one sense of the will of God. It's the will of God for history, for every event in history.

00:05:33.440 | But that's distinct from asking, did God morally approve of the actions of the high priest

00:05:41.320 | or of Herod and Pilate? And the answer is, no, he didn't. It was highly unjust. So moral

00:05:47.880 | approval is quite distinct from saying God sovereignly planned it. And when the coin

00:05:55.600 | flips, what we know from Scripture teaching is God sovereignly planned how it would come

00:06:02.200 | out. But that gives us no information about his moral will. It's quite different. And

00:06:07.720 | people make a mistake. I know there's, you know, immature people out there who think,

00:06:15.800 | I'm not sure what God's moral will for me is. I'll find out by flipping a coin. That's

00:06:21.440 | a misunderstanding of how God reveals his moral will.

00:06:25.520 | And yet coin tosses are never prohibited in Scripture. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but

00:06:30.480 | Christians, I don't think should use coin flips to divine God's moral will, of course.

00:06:36.800 | Like you said, we don't need it. We have the revealed word. And yet Scripture never equates

00:06:42.240 | coin tosses with the evils of divination, soothsaying, magic, or necromancy, it seems.

00:06:48.400 | Dr. Griffin Yeah, that's right. But I think you're also right to point to the fact there

00:06:54.200 | is discussion. For instance, Deuteronomy 18, there's other passages, but in Deuteronomy

00:06:58.760 | 18, it's one that has a whole list of ways that in the ancient world, people sought for

00:07:05.240 | security. That's a basic issue. They want to know something that would help their decision

00:07:11.240 | making and escape tragedy in the future. Fortune telling nowadays, and a lot of the things

00:07:17.880 | of consulting mediums, is trying to obtain secret knowledge that will give you extra

00:07:24.720 | security. And it's condemned in the Bible, not only because it is wrong, but because

00:07:31.960 | it's a violation of the fundamental principle of serving God alone. We ought to rely on

00:07:37.800 | God and not on those other things. And so it's a form of idolatry in the end, and it's

00:07:44.720 | serious. I mean, I know some Christians who've come from a pagan background, they may not

00:07:49.240 | even realize immediately, "Stay away from this. It is condemned in the Bible." And it's

00:07:55.320 | unfortunate that this kind of thing is growing, and I continue to see it grow because people

00:08:00.240 | who no longer know God in a saving relationship, they're still hungry for God, or they're hungry

00:08:06.200 | for security. A security, which I say, we find in God being, becoming our Heavenly Father.

00:08:12.680 | He has a fatherly care for everything that happens in our lives. If you don't have that,

00:08:17.880 | where do you go? You go to substitutes. You go to the fortune tellers, or you have a rabbit's

00:08:23.040 | foot, for instance, you know, for good luck. You carry around, or some special thing that

00:08:28.040 | you think gives you good luck. If God is in charge, that's ridiculous. And as I say, it

00:08:32.960 | is really an insult to God because you're not relying on him, you're relying on this

00:08:37.840 | other thing.

00:08:38.840 | Yeah. Acts 126, the choosing of Matthias, it's the last mention of casting lots in the

00:08:44.040 | Bible. And then Pentecost unfolds in the very next verse. I mean, redemptive historically

00:08:50.280 | does the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit somehow replace for the Christian life coin

00:08:56.200 | flips.

00:08:57.200 | Yeah. The Bible doesn't spell it all out, but it does seem logical because when the

00:09:04.480 | Holy Spirit is poured out in Pentecost, it gives us a new fullness of understanding the

00:09:09.620 | mind of God. It's not as if the Holy Spirit isn't at work in the Old Testament, but this

00:09:14.240 | is a new fullness. It's the Spirit of Christ poured out from the ascended Christ. And Paul

00:09:21.000 | talks in 1 Corinthians 2 at the end about, we have the mind of Christ. Well, it doesn't

00:09:25.600 | make us divine, but it means we have a fundamental in Christ as we fellowship with him, we have

00:09:32.880 | a fundamental understanding of who God is and in communion with him, that gives us wisdom

00:09:41.000 | that we use in our decision making. And too often I feel that Christian people even may

00:09:48.180 | seek for answers to hard decisions. Yeah, we have to face hard decisions and they seek

00:09:53.720 | for answers by some mechanical formula or some trick or some kind of magic, but that

00:10:00.040 | isn't what it's about. It's about fellowship with a God who made you and who has expressed

00:10:05.480 | his love for you in Christ and has given you the Holy Spirit so that you may be filled

00:10:10.840 | with wisdom. And you have to grow into that, of course, but through their wisdom, you begin

00:10:16.680 | to move with more and more confidence, even with difficult decisions. Of course, you continue

00:10:21.840 | to pray. Of course, you continue to read your Bible, but there's a fundamental confidence

00:10:26.760 | God is for me, not because of what I did, anything I did, or not because I used some

00:10:33.120 | formula, but because of Christ. Yes, amen. That is a good word. And it's a good place

00:10:38.520 | to stop for now. Really, all of this discussion today sets up a question for tomorrow, and

00:10:44.400 | that is, why do casinos always win in the end? So I'm looking forward to addressing

00:10:49.960 | that tomorrow. To follow up on today's topic of how do we as Christians approach the many

00:10:54.320 | decisions of life in communion with Christ, see what Pastor John recently said in episode

00:10:58.600 | number 799, where we talked about the little acronym he uses called Aptat. If you didn't

00:11:04.200 | listen to that, check it out. It's episode number 799, just a few days ago. And there

00:11:08.840 | you'll find more reasons why we make decisions in communion with Christ. Well, for our apps

00:11:14.000 | and for past episodes, and to get us a question, find us online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:11:18.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow with guest Dr. Vern Poythress.

00:11:23.840 | [END]

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Should We Flip a Coin to Find God’s Will?

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