God and the Raffle
I was talking to a Christian friend of mine about the raffle we are doing to raise support for the Ezekiel Project. He casually mentioned that they don't participate in raffles.
So that begs the question, is doing a raffle against the Scriptures? The argument would be that raffles are a form of gambling and God wants us to be wise stewards of our money (Luke 16:10) and not get involved with "get rich quick" schemes (Prov. 20:21).
So, does raffling off a go-cart fall under the prohibitions of Scripture? Is God opposed to this?
Consider this:
The idea of raffling off the go-cart was brought to my attention by a brother in our church who had been offered the go-cart for $500. He had no interest or need in a go-cart, but the thought came to mind that this offer could bring in several thousand dollars for the Ezekiel Project.
Seeing that his generosity and intentions were genuine, we decided to see if God was truly in this. Within a week, he bought the go-cart and I had an eager volunteer (thanks Holly!) to orchestrate raffling the car.
While in mid-step with pulling this off, we found out that you need the buy a license from the state to do a raffle. This usually takes a month to pull together. At this point, we felt like the idea was going to be delayed at best and possibly thwarted altogether. After talking it over with Michael Riley, we decided to press on with the raffle. By the end of that day, we had all the paperwork in hand and a promise by that state to hand us a raffle license the next day (which they delivered on)!!
I don't know about you, but when bureaucratic red tape gets cut through that fast there's either something illegal going on or God is pulling strings. As far as I'm aware, God was fighting for us. Thanks to God, today was the first day of our raffle!!
Now, we must never interpret Scripture in light of circumstance, but circumstance in light of Scripture. I feel this raffle falls more in line with multiplying your talents (Matthew 25:20-23) than an attempt to get rich quick (at most, the go-cart is worth $2500). By faith and hard work, we could multiply this brother's $500 investment to $2000 or more.
Besides, Paul said, "To the pure, all things are pure" (Titus 1: 15) and there is no question in my mind that our intentions and goal of this raffle is pure. I encourage you to visit the east Hy-Vee tomorrow (2/21) or Mayhem on 2/22 - 3/4 and support the raffle to remodel a powerful ministry center to the campus and community in Ames.
Comments
Don't a lot of people participate in a raffle simply because it's a fun way to donate to a good cause? I believe that sets it apart from gambling.
Posted by: Scott at February 21, 2006 10:04 AMI think the motivation of the person buying the ticket is what is important. If people are buying a ticket simply to help a Godly cause, then I think it’s a worthy venture. I myself have done this a lot.
However if people are only buying the tickets because they want a chance to win a big prize, then all you are doing is taking advantage of people’s innate greediness to further your own cause. In this case, I don’t think that the Godly ends would justify the sinful means.
so we assume a good motivation but dont really care to much if someone happens to be of the other kind :D
iv come up against the gambleing arguement in highschool while trying to raise money for a youth group... apparently to our pastor at the time Bingo with non monetary prizes (mostly worthless stuff anyway) was not to be allowed in the church and highly frowned on elsewhere by church groups...
so it was back to the same old boring fundraisers.
Posted by: Ben362 at February 21, 2006 03:16 PM