Today we're joined by Dr. Vern Poitras, who lives and works at Westminster Theological Seminary just north of Philly, and it's a huge honor to have you on the podcast. Dr. Poitras, thanks for being here. Well, thank you for inviting me. I consider it a privilege to be here. Of course.

Well, some of our listeners will not know you well, so here's your CV in brief. You have degrees from Cambridge and Harvard and Caltech, and of course, Westminster Theological Seminary where you now work and live. You've been editing the Westminster Theological Journal since 2005, and you serve as professor of New Testament interpretation at the school.

That's amazing in and of itself, but you've written several books on a range of topics that include the Mosaic Law, the Book of Revelation. You have a book on inerrancy, and one on Bible interpretation, and one on logic, and a book on worldview, one on science, one on sociology, one on linguistics, and a book on chance and probability.

That book is titled Chance in the Sovereignty of God, a God-Centered Approach to Probability and Random Events, published in 2014. That book, I mean, Chance in the Sovereignty of God, when I read it, I was just blown away. It's an excellent book, and I wanted to have you on for a long time to talk about coin tossing and casinos.

So let's start with casting lots today, and then we'll talk about casinos tomorrow. I'm no mathematician, and I don't have a PhD from Harvard, but by my count, I see about 30, over 30 references, I think, in the Bible to casting lots. I mean, what exactly is this, this casting of lots?

Right. It's a good question. The main cases where there is more explanation are religiously sanctioned, divinely sanctioned cases, so they're very special. For instance, when Achan has sinned against the Lord by taking some of the gold and silver out of Jericho when it's conquered, and God announces that there's been a violation of His commands.

So God says somebody has sinned, but nobody but God knows who it is. And then lots are cast under Joshua's supervision to find out who it is. Well, God already knows who it is. So this is, it is a very special episode, and there's casting lots to decide on the replacement for Judas in at the end of Acts 1.

And that's because they, you read through that, and it's again a case where the apostles know that Judas should be replaced, and Peter cites an Old Testament prophesy to that effect. And God knows who He wants, but they don't. But these are very special because it's special leaders like Joshua, whom God instructs, and it's in a time where God is giving direct revelation about His will to specially chosen people, people like the prophets and the apostles.

So it's very special. There may also have been cases where people gambled or whether they did things frivolously, but the Bible doesn't say much about that. Yeah, and I want to come back to Acts 1 in just a moment, but does anyone know what casting lots look like? I mean, was this a two-sided stone or what was it?

Yeah, well, we don't know all the details, but it's something like rolling dice. But our modern dice have six sides, and it may have been, as you say, two-sided, but we don't know the details. And of course, it doesn't matter because these special things are once for all events.

So God is not saying this should be a regular practice. Right. And yet we have Proverbs 16, 33, which says, "The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord." So aren't lots that are cast and coins that are tossed and dice that are rolled, aren't those always under God's sovereign control?

Right. Well, every flip of the coin is under God's control. There are many passages, I think, indicate that God's control of the world is comprehensive. Even the hairs of your head are numbered. If a sparrow falls to the ground, it's not apart from the will of God. Now, a lot of modern people have lost sight of that, and I think it's unhealthy spiritually to lose sight of that, because we are in the care of our Heavenly Father, and it matters that we affirm and really believe that with respect to details, as well as respect to the big issues of history.

But what I would answer, you know, is this, does this give us the will of God? That's often how it's framed. And I think you have to make a distinction between two ways of asking that question. It needs to be illustrated. So take the crucifixion of Christ. All the events that happened there happened according to the divine plan.

God was working out salvation for us. So there's one sense of the will of God. It's the will of God for history, for every event in history. But that's distinct from asking, did God morally approve of the actions of the high priest or of Herod and Pilate? And the answer is, no, he didn't.

It was highly unjust. So moral approval is quite distinct from saying God sovereignly planned it. And when the coin flips, what we know from Scripture teaching is God sovereignly planned how it would come out. But that gives us no information about his moral will. It's quite different. And people make a mistake.

I know there's, you know, immature people out there who think, I'm not sure what God's moral will for me is. I'll find out by flipping a coin. That's a misunderstanding of how God reveals his moral will. And yet coin tosses are never prohibited in Scripture. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but Christians, I don't think should use coin flips to divine God's moral will, of course.

Like you said, we don't need it. We have the revealed word. And yet Scripture never equates coin tosses with the evils of divination, soothsaying, magic, or necromancy, it seems. Dr. Griffin Yeah, that's right. But I think you're also right to point to the fact there is discussion. For instance, Deuteronomy 18, there's other passages, but in Deuteronomy 18, it's one that has a whole list of ways that in the ancient world, people sought for security.

That's a basic issue. They want to know something that would help their decision making and escape tragedy in the future. Fortune telling nowadays, and a lot of the things of consulting mediums, is trying to obtain secret knowledge that will give you extra security. And it's condemned in the Bible, not only because it is wrong, but because it's a violation of the fundamental principle of serving God alone.

We ought to rely on God and not on those other things. And so it's a form of idolatry in the end, and it's serious. I mean, I know some Christians who've come from a pagan background, they may not even realize immediately, "Stay away from this. It is condemned in the Bible." And it's unfortunate that this kind of thing is growing, and I continue to see it grow because people who no longer know God in a saving relationship, they're still hungry for God, or they're hungry for security.

A security, which I say, we find in God being, becoming our Heavenly Father. He has a fatherly care for everything that happens in our lives. If you don't have that, where do you go? You go to substitutes. You go to the fortune tellers, or you have a rabbit's foot, for instance, you know, for good luck.

You carry around, or some special thing that you think gives you good luck. If God is in charge, that's ridiculous. And as I say, it is really an insult to God because you're not relying on him, you're relying on this other thing. Yeah. Acts 126, the choosing of Matthias, it's the last mention of casting lots in the Bible.

And then Pentecost unfolds in the very next verse. I mean, redemptive historically does the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit somehow replace for the Christian life coin flips. Yeah. The Bible doesn't spell it all out, but it does seem logical because when the Holy Spirit is poured out in Pentecost, it gives us a new fullness of understanding the mind of God.

It's not as if the Holy Spirit isn't at work in the Old Testament, but this is a new fullness. It's the Spirit of Christ poured out from the ascended Christ. And Paul talks in 1 Corinthians 2 at the end about, we have the mind of Christ. Well, it doesn't make us divine, but it means we have a fundamental in Christ as we fellowship with him, we have a fundamental understanding of who God is and in communion with him, that gives us wisdom that we use in our decision making.

And too often I feel that Christian people even may seek for answers to hard decisions. Yeah, we have to face hard decisions and they seek for answers by some mechanical formula or some trick or some kind of magic, but that isn't what it's about. It's about fellowship with a God who made you and who has expressed his love for you in Christ and has given you the Holy Spirit so that you may be filled with wisdom.

And you have to grow into that, of course, but through their wisdom, you begin to move with more and more confidence, even with difficult decisions. Of course, you continue to pray. Of course, you continue to read your Bible, but there's a fundamental confidence God is for me, not because of what I did, anything I did, or not because I used some formula, but because of Christ.

Yes, amen. That is a good word. And it's a good place to stop for now. Really, all of this discussion today sets up a question for tomorrow, and that is, why do casinos always win in the end? So I'm looking forward to addressing that tomorrow. To follow up on today's topic of how do we as Christians approach the many decisions of life in communion with Christ, see what Pastor John recently said in episode number 799, where we talked about the little acronym he uses called Aptat.

If you didn't listen to that, check it out. It's episode number 799, just a few days ago. And there you'll find more reasons why we make decisions in communion with Christ. Well, for our apps and for past episodes, and to get us a question, find us online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I'll see you tomorrow with guest Dr. Vern Poythress. you you