WWUTT 2500 Q&A Clapping in Church, Sports Gambling, Happy Reformation Day

Is it okay to clap in church? Is sports betting all right? Gambling, is that a sin? And in communion, do the bread and the cup change into anything? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary in the word of Christ that we may grow in the knowledge of His will. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

Reformation Day and the Psalm 24 Call to Worship

Starting with Psalm 24. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?

And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of His salvation.

Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob, Selah. Welcome to the Friday edition of the broadcast. This is When We Understand the Text. When we take questions from the listeners, and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com, or send us a voicemail to www .utt .com.

Click on that voicemail tab, record a voicemail either from your phone or from your computer. Babe. Yes. Happy Reformation Day.

Woo-woo, yes.

I don't remember the last time we had an episode that actually fell on Reformation Day, October 31st.

Yeah, I don't know.

This would be the 508th, 508th anniversary, yep.

Is that it?

Yep, 508 years. Feels like it was just yesterday.

I know, that's what I was thinking.

Feels like the 500th anniversary was just yesterday. Yes. Yeah, okay.

Sorry, I was not there for the first one. I thought it went without saying.

I was right there. Luther nailing the thing to the door.

I was part of that crowd.

I can still hear the hammer ringing in my ears.

Dun, dun.

Somebody had posted on our church chat online, somebody had posted the picture of a bunch of Reese's hanging on the door and the pumpkin with Martin Luther's face on it.

Oh, funny.

And they just posted it on the chat and said, I don't get it, what is this?

The 95 Theses.

95 Reese's, yeah, right. I made the comment, I got 95 Reese's and the Pope ain't one.

Yep.

That was what I said. Anyway, some people will get that joke. But since it is Reformation Day, we do have something Roman Catholic we're gonna respond to here. It's actually something I'm making a video out of and I don't have it done.

I'm hoping I will get it done on the 31st because it would be nice to post it on Reformation Day, but I don't know yet that I'm gonna make it. We'll find out, but I'm still gonna play the audio clip and we'll do a response to it here in just a little bit.

All right.

But in the meantime, let's get to a couple of questions here. I've got one email, one voicemail.

Okay.

We're looking at this week.

Awesome.

So as opposed to last week when I tried to cram six into an hour.

Well, I guess we did try. We went a little over.

We did, hour and five or something.

It wasn't bad.

It was pretty good. I mean, considering sometimes we only get one answered, so.

That's true, yeah. So we did all that pretty well. So this is, these are the two. One is an email, one is a voicemail. So here we go. This is from Keith. Hey, Gabe and Becky, I love your ministry and I have benefited from it greatly.

After getting married, I moved to my wife's church. It's great, doctrinally sound. One thing they do differently is that they clap at the end of each song. I guess like applause.

Okay.

So they applaud at the end of the song. I found it odd. My wife also thinks it's odd. This week, we have a church meeting to talk and vote on different things. I was considering bringing it up. What are your thoughts?

Is it important enough to bring up? So we're getting this in time for, I guess the church meeting would be coming up on Sunday.

Yeah, probably.

And I just got this email this week. So we're answering it in a timely enough manner here. I remember when I was a kid, I would have the chance to do the offertory in church. Whatever music is supposed to be playing while the offering plates are going around.

Sometimes that was where my church would let special music be done.

Right.

So somebody else could sing a song, play an instrument, whatever. And it was always strange to me when I would sing during offertory and I didn't get applause.

Okay.

I was like, oh, come on. I wouldn't want to clap.

Okay.

I want somebody to say good job. You know? Sure. I was a kid. So anyway, I remember how stoic my church was growing up. There was never any applause, never anything.

It was just kind of like dead silence when they began the next thing.

Right, yeah. And then the pastor came up and started preaching right after that.

Well, at least he didn't interrupt, I suppose.

So it happened a few times. Like there would be a rare occasion where one or two people would start clapping and then that would get everybody clapping. But it was still kind of this awkward, you know, trickle of

Like, do we, do we not?

Exactly, right?

Do I join in? How long is this gonna go? Am I gonna get into class?

Yeah, I'm doing it.

Yeah.

Oh, that person's not clapping. I'm gonna stop.

Yeah.

So it is different because generally in our church right now, we don't really do that.

No.

But we don't have special music either, I guess.

I mean, not really, no.

Yes.

Clapping after each song. I suppose that would be, you know, when you have the worship leader that would say something like, give a praise offering to God. And then everybody applauds. I always thought that was like, that's a cheap ask for an applause.

You think this person's asking for applause to God, but it's just, I just want you to applause because it feels right after the song that you clap for me.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm not claiming to know their heart. It's just, you know, it's just funny.

Well, I mean, to get down to the heart of it, I would ask why, like not everybody or the church as a whole, but like maybe ask one-on-one about somebody who's been there a little while that you can kind of trust and they can inform you of why they clap if it's like impulse, you know?

Cause I mean, that's what you do after somebody performs as you clap. Or if it's like, oh no, we do that because of this and this and this and this, you know? I mean, they could be, there could be a reason behind it.

I mean, you could say out of Psalm 47 one, somebody could give this defense and say, clap your hands, all peoples, shout to God with loud songs of joy.

Yeah, exactly.

So you could

Could go together.

Right, yeah.

You could say And that could be their thought behind it.

You could say, this is our obedience to the Psalms. We sing as the scriptures tell us to do. And now we're also, we're clapping our hands. Psalm 98, eight, let the rivers clap their hands. If the rivers can clap their hands, can we be clapping our hands in church?

Sure.

I guess in my response to this, we're just kind of bantering about it.

Yeah.

It's like, I don't really see it as that big a deal.

No.

When we don't do it

I mean, it's awkward if you haven't been there, but I'm sure you'll get used to it over time too. And then if you don't feel led to clap, then don't clap, you know?

Yeah, don't clap.

It's not that big of a deal.

Right, it's just the same as like putting your hands up.

Right.

You know?

Right.

But if you don't wanna put your hands in the air, don't put your hands in the air.

Right.

And I'm not looking around in the audience going, okay, who's got their hands up? I'm gonna go tell them to put them down. I think we can get a little gun shy sometimes about some amounts of charismaticism.

Okay.

When, you know, it's perfectly fine if a person wants to say amen.

Right.

We have enough of that that goes on in the congregation of people agreeing with what I'm preaching.

Yeah.

That if there's nothing there, it's now gotten to the point for me where if it's just quiet, I'm going, okay, something's wrong. Maybe you're not getting

Yeah.

What I'm saying.

Let me dive this a little bit further.

Yeah, right. Let me hit this again. I'll try to reword it another way until I hear an amen. Just because we get it so often from our congregation, now I'm used to it. It's not that I expect people to just say amens when I'm preaching, but, you know, we have a few in our church that like to say that and I've come to expect that.

So this could be the same kind of a thing where he's used to a quieter service and now we're applauding at the end of songs.

Yeah.

Just seems a little unusual for what he's used to.

Yeah.

But Keith, I would tell you, not really to bring it up at a business meeting or

Especially not since you're new there.

Yeah.

Or I guess

Just ask.

I guess you could just bring it up and say, hey, I come from a background where there's not a lot of applause during the worship service. Everybody's applauding after songs. I was just curious if somebody could tell me why we do that.

Yeah, but then if there's not a reason why, then it's gonna make it awkward. That's why we speak in one-on-one, you know, with like somebody who's been there for a long time, who has like the know.

If there's not a reason why, I guess maybe asking the question would be enough to make people go, yeah, why do we do that?

Yeah, okay, fair. I guess it depends on your personality.

I mean, we should do all things in worship deliberately. So if we don't know why we're doing that I guess it would be

But I would not have the guts to do that. That's why I'm saying it depends on his personality.

True.

I'm more of behind the scenes kind of person.

So I guess, Keith, I'm a little on the fence about it. I mean, you could bring it up or you could just let it go. I don't know, it's up to you.

I mean, as long as it's in the appropriate places, I probably would just let it slide, honestly, but I don't know.

Yeah.

But like you said, we should be doing everything deliberately. So I don't know.

That's a regulative principle of worship. You know, if the scripture says it, then it's fitting for worship.

True.

So we're not going to do anything outside of what the scripture tells us with regards to what corporate worship's supposed to look like among the body of Christ.

Amen.

And like I said, you can make a case from the Psalms that there is clapping in worship.

Yeah.

People even clapping along to songs.

Yes.

And dancing.

Yeah, we're not going that far. Hold on there. Hold on.

Oh, wait, they were outside for that.

Nevermind.

There was a Heading up to the mountain, right? Or the temple?

No, yeah, heading into Jerusalem.

Into Jerusalem.

With the Ark of God.

Yes, that's what it was.

David was dancing, yeah. And you still have, like in Psalm 30, where it says, you've turned my morning into dancing. Or Psalm 149. So this is at the very end of the Psalms. This is like the summary Psalms when you're getting to the very end of the Psalter.

Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. So some have used that passage to say dancing in the worship service is acceptable. I actually attended a church when I was in college that did this.

And they had a group of people who took dance classes together at the church outside of worship. And then they would dance in whatever dance they learned in those classes. They would go around the sanctuary dancing.

And this was my charismatic days. I'm just saying.

I would find that awkward coming from a Catholic background.

I mean, very awkward. I mean, I would find it awkward now. I probably found it awkward then.

We let the silence set.

Oh yeah.

Like where the background noise, the background, not noises, but music and stuff like that. Like if somebody coughs, you're like, what's going on over there?

Right.

But even when it's at the end of the Psalm, Psalm 150, praising with tambourine and dance. So even when it's at the end of the Psalms, it's still worth asking in what context. We're just talking about dancing in corporate worship or is it dancing in another context?

So anyway, all that plays into the regulative principle of worship.

Sure, definitely.

Does the Bible say it? Therefore, is it acceptable? I'm gonna give Keith a heart attack now. It's like, man, we've gone from clapping to dancing. Oh my goodness. There was that parody song years ago. It was, I could have danced all night from My Fair Lady.

Okay, yeah.

And the lyric was, I cannot dance tonight or any other night because I'm Southern Baptist.

Oh.

All right, so moving on from that. This is a voicemail from Spencer. Here we go.

Hi, Pastor Gabe. Spencer from South Florida. I was listening to your yearly recap of 2024 where you mentioned sports betting has reached an all-time high. It's very odd to me because I never watched traditional sports growing up.

I mainly watched combat sports where the gambling is kind of baked into those kinds of sports. But in the recent years, I'm very surprised to see how ads for sports betting are just bombarding regular sports.

Recently, our men's group at church, this topic was brought up and several of our guys mentioned they regularly participate in sports betting. And that kind of got a conversation started among the group where even though most of our guys will not physically walk into a casino, they don't see anything wrong with sports betting.

So here's my question to you. What does the Bible say about gambling or sports betting in general? And can one remain a faithful Christian and still participate in those? Thank you.

Gambling, Sports Betting, and Christian Stewardship

Well, thank you for your question. I actually had to go back to my article and figure out what it was that I said about this exactly. So this was the year-end article at the conclusion of 2024. And here's kind of the notes.

I can't remember. Did you do the top 40 biggest events of the year with me?

I don't think so.

I don't think you did.

There was something that I missed. I don't remember which one it was, though.

It might've been that one. Anyway, so, oh, it could have been. You just did one half with me. Maybe it was just the top 20 we did.

That could be.

Anyway.

Something came up.

So this was back in February of last year where online sports gambling reached an all-time high. It's even worse now.

Oh, goodness.

So, I mean, we're a year and a half later and it's already worse.

Well, yeah, it's in everybody's pocket.

Yeah. So you got smartphones. Well, the NBA opened up to sports gambling.

Yeah.

I think there was a story this week on Albert Mueller's podcast. I think this was on Monday about sports gambling. Well, the big fiasco that just recently happened in the NBA. Anyway, I'll bring that up here in a second.

But here was what I said in the news article that I had somewhat posted at the end of 2024. It took 89 years to go from one state with legalized sports betting to two states. 89 years.

Wow.

It has taken less than six years to go from two states to 39 states.

Yikes.

With Missouri last year becoming the most recent to legalize online sports betting. And that may have increased since. I don't know if more states have been added since then. But anyway, in 2024 alone, Americans wagered over $20 billion in the Super Bowl and would later wager billions more during March Madness.

Now, why is this considered a Christian crisis? Because my end of the year story are 40 of the biggest stories that have happened in Christianity. So why would I include this as a Christian headline? Well, because in states like Alabama and Texas where sports betting was not yet legal, and I'm guessing is still not yet legal, the strongest opponents against it are Christians.

So many Christians in those red states were preventing those states from becoming heavy gambling states. And you'll always hear whenever a state starts pushing toward legalizing gambling, or maybe they will cover it in language like we're expanding the lottery.

The clever.

And when they start doing that, what you will hear, one of the main arguments that you will hear is that our neighboring states, it's legal there. And so all of those tax dollars are going to those states and we're losing that tax revenue for our state.

So we need to make gambling legal in our state so that we can have that tax revenue, which is absurd justification for

Of course.

Let's make gambling legal. Why is gambling illegal? And why is it that the Gambling Commission itself considers gambling a health crisis?

Because it's addicting.

Exactly. It leads to ruin. There are people that have gotten into so much debt from gambling, they can't ever get out of it. There are people that will have bookies that they owe.

Yeah.

There's a lot of crime associated with gambling.

On the way other end of that, where it's just like, we're just doing it for fun. So my friends would come back from going to a casino and they were like, look, I won 20 bucks. And I'm like, well, that's great.

How much did you spend? I'm thinking like dimes, because those are little slot things. Nickel slot machines. Yeah, the nickel slot. And they're like, oh, probably about 7 ,500. I'm like, what, what, what, what, what?

Then you didn't win $20.

You didn't win.

Yeah.

You just lost 80.

Yeah.

There's your whole paycheck.

Two of my brothers went to Vegas because a friend of theirs was getting married and they got married in Vegas. And so of course they went to the casinos and stuff like this. My brother, Jacob, was really big into blackjack.

So he's trying to win big at the blackjack tables. He thinks that he can do it. And then my other brother, Jesse, was really not into gambling at all. He was just there to have fun. Jacob lost hundreds of dollars in blackjack.

My brother, Jesse, just takes a token and goes up to a slot machine and puts it in a slot machine and pulls the handle.

Jackpot.

And he won.

Yeah, right, yeah. And it wasn't like thousands of dollars. It was just a few hundred.

Right.

But he's still like, you know, got this bucket full of coins or tokens or whatever. And he goes over to my brother, Jacob, at the blackjack table and he just slams the bucket down. And he's like, Jacob, stop playing blackjack.

We're getting out of here. So, and on the way home, Jacob had said, if I could go back and confront myself 14 hours ago, I would punch that guy in the face.

Right, exactly.

Don't sit down at the table and gamble.

Right.

It's kind of understood. I think we just understand how destructive it can be, how dangerous it is to get into gambling.

Definitely.

And you're not investing in anything. The Bible actually says quite a bit about investing. It's wise to invest.

Right.

Invest for your future, invest for your children, but gambling is not that. Gambling is like you go to somebody who's got a 20-sided die. All right. Here's a hundred dollars. I'm gonna put a hundred bucks on four.

Okay.

And then the odds that you're gonna roll a four on that 20-sided die.

On that next roll.

Yeah, exactly. So that you can, I mean, it's not a coin flip. It's not even a six-sided die. And I'm even giving you better odds by saying a 20-sided die.

That's true.

The, you're always playing the house and the odds are always in the house's favor.

Mm-hmm.

So this is not something through which a person can get rich quick.

It happens very seldomly. Unless you own the casino.

Yeah, right, yeah. If you're owning the casino, then you're probably making a whole lot of money. But other than that, this is not the way that God has encouraged us to use our money. We are told in scripture to be good stewards with those things that God has given to us.

Right.

And even the money that we make, it comes from God. So Colossians chapter three, where it says, remember that you work first for God before you work for man.

Right.

So your employer, yeah, you have to serve your employer. You have to do what it is that he tells you to do or you're gonna lose your job. That's part of stewarding the job that you have.

Right.

But ultimately doing a good job is first for God before it's for your employer or even for yourself or for your family. You do it first and foremost for the Lord. But in gambling, we're squandering God-given resources.

Remember in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, verses 14 through 30, Jesus teaches there that believers are supposed to be good stewards entrusted with wealth, investing wisely for God's kingdom.

Now, of course, this is about more than money in this parable, but you're still talking about a master going on a journey. He gives three servants several amounts of money. One receives 10, one receives five, one receives one talent.

And then when he comes back, the guy who has the 10 talents, he's invested it. Now he's got 20. The guy who had five talents, he has invested it and now he's got 10. But the guy has the one talent goes, see, I knew you were a hard man to please.

So I went and buried my talent. And it's safe, here it is. And you get your talent back. And the master says, you wicked servant. You could have at least put the talent in the bank and gotten it back at interest.

But because you haven't done anything, you haven't been a good steward with what I gave to you. I'm gonna take it from you. I'm gonna give to the guy who has the 10 and then he's gonna be thrown out with the hypocrites.

So even though the talent is supposed to represent something else, still you're talking about amounts of money that serve as examples. And none of those men use that money or play it on chance. Even the guy who was called wicked, he just didn't do anything at all.

Right, he buried it.

Right, he didn't try to gamble it and lose it. He didn't even lose it. And yet he was called wicked.

True.

And gambling would be even worse than that. So consider Proverbs 21, five, the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who tries to get rich in a hasty way only comes to poverty.

Which is so true. I mean, all of those that win the lottery usually end up going bankrupt.

Oh, people who win the lottery talk about how miserable they were after they won the lottery.

Right.

I've never played the lottery in my life. Never bought a lottery ticket. I'm not saying that to be holier than thou. It's just, I've seen no value in it.

Yeah.

Even when they say, you know, when you turn 18, you need to go buy a lottery ticket. I didn't even do it then. Or is it 21? I don't remember when you're old enough now to finally play the lottery.

It used to be 18. I don't know about now.

I guess it depends by state or something.

True, that's true.

Yeah, I've never even done that before. I've never played slot machines. I mean, I've gotten together with friends and we've played poker. And it's a five or 10 or $20 buy-in or something like that. And we've done that just for fun.

And then if you win, you take that money and you invest it in the next time we get together and play poker.

Right.

You know?

You're the one that buys the pizza.

Right, yeah, something like that, yeah. It's just what you would do to get together and have fun. And like you said, I've had friends too that would go to the casino and they would, you know, put $100 limit on themselves or something like that.

Yeah.

I think I had a friend one time that won 300 bucks.

Yeah.

So he goes and he spends 100 and then after what he got back, his net gain was $300. But it, you know, it wasn't that big a deal. It was just, this was the way we go out and spend a Friday night. And I would be blowing this on whatever, you know, if we went to a theme park or something, it could cost that much money.

Exactly.

So we just decided to go to the casino.

That's fair.

And I've spent the money there. I don't know that I'm okay with that even, just on a personal level. I'll let that be between you and God.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. Like if it's just for entertainment, okay, whatever. But if you're like counting on it or if you don't set your limit and stick to it, or if you know that you can't do that, can't stick to your limit, then don't test yourself.

I mean.

It's not worth it.

When you're talking about gambling, there's no work involved in gambling. I know that people who are professional gamblers would strongly disagree with that.

Touche.

But there's no work. Second Thessalonians 3 .10, if he's not willing to work, let him not eat. Ephesians 4 .28, let each person work with his hands so that he gains something, he earns something that he might share with others.

Yeah.

And when you're taking money that God has given to you to be a good steward with and you squander it and you lose it, that was money that you could have used to bless somebody else with even.

True.

But now you're just out that money. You're never gonna gain it back.

Yeah.

As much as you wanna try to qualify it as, well, I'll gamble again and again and again until I make it back. You have no guarantee you're gonna do that. You're just continuing to play the odds.