Who won the game last night? When do they play next? You open your computer to check the scores, and along the way, the ads are inescapable. You couldn’t avoid them if you tried. Sports betting has arrived in full force.

The advertisers are not wasting their money either. In February 2024, an estimated 68 million Americans were expected to wager over 23 billion dollars on the Super Bowl. This comes as no surprise since just under 120 billion dollars was bet on sports in 2023. That’s $360 per person in the United States. Sports betting has most likely arrived in your church, and it might have even set up shop in your own home. If it hasn’t yet, the bookies are certainly knocking on the door.

Sports betting has infiltrated the sporting ecosystem. How should Christians respond?

Stewardship Problem

Some respond by suggesting that gambling in any form — including sports betting — is reckless and fails to contribute anything meaningful to the real world. The money wagered also belongs ultimately to our God, so failure to manage it well amounts to embezzlement against him. Additionally, he gives each of us one life to live, and better investments abound for the money and the time used to engage with sports betting.

Sports betting has also become something of a Trojan horse for more nefarious forms of gambling as well as gambling addiction. Sports betting functions as a door into the wide hall of Internet gambling — particularly for young people who ordinarily would not set foot into a casino. Gambling companies, driven by their bottom line, see a return on investment of 500 percent when they convert a sports better into a casino gambler.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the desire for thrill and gain can escalate occasional game-specific sports betting into 24-hour-a-day forms of online gambling. After all, Paul warns Timothy, “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:9–10).

‘Responsible’ Sports Betting?

The stewardship argument certainly carries weight, and sober-minded Christians should have a category for the slippery slope, especially in activities so closely related to greed.

But more and more, a common rationalization has come to the forefront: What about “responsible” sports betting? Sports betting is now legal in many places, so the social stigma has lessened. Do we not spend money on other hobbies and activities? So what could be wrong with betting on a limited budget, especially while remaining focused on enjoying the sports experience with friends? Is there no room for carefully enhancing and intensifying the sports-watching experience?

Beyond the stewardship problem and the risk of gambling addiction, however, several other aspects of sports betting point to a serious, sobering reality: Sports betting wagers more than just our resources. Due to how it shapes our view of risk, how it corrupts the nature of sports, and how it fails to love our neighbor, sports betting is unwise and even sinful.

1. Sports betting distorts our view of risk.

Sports betting distorts our view of risk and dulls our capacity for true and lasting joy. While betting companies pitch sports betting as a risk to enhance enjoyment, the practice ultimately encourages risk for immediate financial reward.

“Sports betting fails to love anyone but self — and it even fails at that.”

The book of Proverbs warns against betting slogans like, “The more you play, the more you’ll earn.” Proverbs 13:11 counsels, “Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little makes it grow.” Or consider Proverbs 28:20: “A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished.” Sports betting conditions our hearts to love risk for the sake of immediate financial gain, and chasing such wealth leads to destruction.

We should not conclude, however, that we should never take risks. The farmer who “observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap,” declares the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 11:4. Rather than seeing dismal prospects and refusing to take God-honoring, entrepreneurial risk, the Preacher calls for humility and faithful labor before the “God who makes everything” (Ecclesiastes 11:5–6).

Two factors distinguish the faithful entrepreneur from the sports bettor. First, whereas the sports bettor aims to gather quick wealth, the faithful entrepreneur aims to create wealth. Christian business seeks to love neighbor by providing a good or service at a fair price. Sports betting fails to love anyone but self — and it even fails at that.

Second, the faithful entrepreneur embraces risk but also seeks to mitigate risk in the areas he can control. By doing so, he embraces risk with wisdom and faith, whereas sports betting increases risks for the sake of higher payouts. In other words, sports betting teaches us to embrace risk in the wrong ways.

Additionally, Christians take gospel risks for the sake of eternal joy. Jesus calls upon us to give up our life in order to gain it (Luke 9:24). Paul calls death in Christ gain for the one dying (Philippians 1:21). Acts 15:26 describes Paul and Barnabas as “men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Whereas sports betting conditions people to take risks for immediate hits of dopamine or rapid financial reward, Christians take risks with Christ and immortal souls in mind. So, we should avoid participating in activities that train us to think of risk deficiently.

2. Sports betting corrupts sport.

Not only does sports betting distort our view of risk, but it also corrupts God’s holy purposes for sport. The same God who created the sea monster to play in the depths of the ocean (Psalm 104:26) created humans to enjoy the world he has given to us (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13). Holy play today, as a momentary rest from the burdens of daily life, helps us look forward with hope to the new creation awaiting us tomorrow.

Though not utilitarian in essence, sports can also benefit humanity. In particular, competition can cultivate self-control and skill — though we should be wary of the envy that lurks at the door (Ecclesiastes 4:4). At its best, sports can bring out the best in competitors.

Sports betting, however, corrupts both imaginative play and athletic competition. By reducing the game to wins and losses — or worse, point spreads or in-game betting — the result of the game supersedes the game itself. Certainly, the bettor has more on the line related to the outcome, but he can no longer enjoy the game for the simple beauty of the play or the nuances of the competition.

Not only this, but more and more players in professional sports have been swept up by the sports-gambling flood. Fans of these sports have reason to be concerned when players have been found to bet on their own sports, bet on their own team, and bet on their own personal performance — sometimes even betting that they will not perform well and then checking out of the game with an “injury.”

Sports betting corrupts the nature of sports and the purpose of sports, and it also incentivizes players to participate in the corruption, making it unwise for Christians to participate in such a broken and detrimental system.

3. Sports betting lacks love for neighbor.

Let’s say you do very well in sports betting. You are one of the few who outsmart the system and make a decent amount of money doing so. The question then becomes “Who loses?” In reality, sports betting is not a zero-sum game; it is a negative-sum game. The house, by definition, must win. To do so, sportsbooks subtly stack the odds so that if bettors wager an even amount of money on both teams, the sportsbook will still make money.

Scripture establishes the command to “love your neighbor as yourself,” which Jesus affirms as one of the two — along with love for God — upon which all the Law and the Prophets depend (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:37–40). Paul calls upon Christians in Philippians 2:4, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

The bookies cannot lose money. Therefore, in order for you to win, your neighbor must lose. And as you take your neighbor’s money — possibly contributing to a destructive gambling addiction — you make a profit for the predatory sportsbook as well. Sports betting lacks love for neighbor.

This lack of love requires repentance, even if done unintentionally or ignorantly (Numbers 15:27–31).

Guard Your Heart

Proverbs issues a warning to all who would walk the path of wisdom:

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. . . . Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or the left; turn your foot away from evil. (Proverbs 4:23)

Sports betting calls us down a crooked path, one that will reshape our hearts away from life. It promises pleasures, but they are, at best, fleeting and fraught with unholy risk. That path swerves from the deep and enduring joys that come by following God’s designs in God’s ways.

So, yes, sports betting has arrived in full force. And how should we respond? It may feel like we cannot avoid sports betting — or at least the ads. But because sports betting distorts our view of risk, corrupts sports, and lacks love for neighbor, participating is unwise and even sinful. Do not risk your heart, and your neighbor, for quick financial gain.

What do we do when life just doesn’t make sense? Illness strikes. A job is lost. Friendships fade. Uncertainty looms. Whether the gray-haired saint facing cancer or the college student burdened by the pressures of the future, crisis and suffering have a way of shaking even the most confident Christian.

We may know that God is in control of all things at all times in all places, yet we often feel frustrated because we don’t understand what he is up to. So what do we do when life doesn’t make sense?

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes asked a similar question. Often, when someone mentions Ecclesiastes, we can think, “Whoa — he was a downer.” In reality, though, Ecclesiastes does not push the depressed over the edge, but rather gives the frustrated a foothold of joy in our puzzling world. The Preacher declares a simple message of hope for the struggling: enjoy life by fearing God even when you cannot understand his works and ways.

God Weaves All Things Together

When we do not understand why life is the way it is, the Preacher would have us be certain that God orchestrates all its changing seasons.

Everything has its time: “A time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2). The Preacher poetically introduces his subject by using birth and death to encapsulate all things in life. All things — the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between — occur according to an appointed time. In his words, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Who appoints this timing? The Preacher does not leave us wondering for long: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Just as beauty befits a lover (Song of Solomon 1:8, 15; 2:10), so God works all things together in a fitting, beautiful way according to his will. He is the artist; all of life is his mosaic. He is the great weaver who threads all things together to form an exquisite tapestry. Perhaps we know what passage Paul meditated on as he wrote, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

Mystery from Beginning to End

Yet even with confidence in the sovereign rule of God over all things at all times in all places, the Preacher recognizes his own inability to understand. He writes, “Also, [God] has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In context, “eternity” parallels “what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Humanity has a God-given desire to comprehend “what God has done from the beginning to the end,” but God placed this desire in our hearts in such a way that we “cannot find out” what he has done. As Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) writes, “For all eternity he put in men’s hearts the fact that they might never discover what God has done from the beginning right to the end” (Homilies on Ecclesiastes, 79).

Naturally, as we arrive at the intersection of our finiteness and God’s infinity, we leave frustrated. The Preacher writes, “What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with” (Ecclesiastes 3:9–10). His question implies a negative answer: none. The worker has no gain from his toil.

What toil? In general, the activities noted in Ecclesiastes 3:2–8 constitute our toil through life, but Ecclesiastes 8:17 also reveals a specific piece of our struggle: “Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out.” No matter how hard we try, we cannot make sense of God’s works and ways.

“God’s works and ways make sense — beautiful, wise, and fitting sense — just not always to us.”

At the very least, we should consider reframing the original question. Instead of asking, “What do we do when life doesn’t make sense?” we might ask, “What do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us?” God works all things together according to his wisdom, but we do not have the capacity to understand all he does. God’s works and ways make sense — beautiful, wise, and fitting sense — just not always to us. Isaiah would not be surprised by this conclusion: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).

Fear Before Him

So what do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us?

The Preacher does not leave us alone to suffer in nihilistic resignation: “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

God is not merely playing with his creation because he wants to have some fun at our expense. He has not created a world with no meaning, leaving humans to wander through life without hope of understanding. Instead, God designed us to desire infinite knowledge so that we would fear him.

To fear God means to remember who God is and to remember who we are in relationship (and outside of relationship) with him. We remind ourselves of God’s sovereign control of all things in life, humbly accepting our own inability to always understand his ways. At the same time, we can do so with joy because we know that God works all things together beautifully for our good.

Like Job in the face of great calamity, we ask, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). We look uncertainty and tragedy in the eye, as painful as it may be, and by his grace declare, “Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Embrace the Life You Can See

We do not stop at fear, though. Rightly fearing God starts the process, but God wants more. The Preacher writes, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil — this is God’s gift to man” (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13). Don’t read the Preacher’s words as some sort of carpe diem motto that urges us to make the most of life while we can. Even when we cannot understand God’s work or ways, he wants us to enjoy life — every season of it — within the context of a holy fear.

In his book Things of Earth, Joe Rigney urges Christians to “embrace your creatureliness. Don’t seek to be God. Instead, embrace the glorious limitations and boundaries that God has placed on you as a character in his story” (234). Rigney’s exhortation hits at the core of Ecclesiastes 3: rightly fearing God and enjoying his world. To fear God rightly is to remember our humanity. When we can’t see around the dark corner of life yet to come, no matter how much we want to, we remember our humanity. We remember that God is God, and we are not. He controls all things at all times at all places, and he is good.

“God is God, and we are not. He controls all things at all times at all places, and he is good.”

So, we ask God for the grace to embrace the life we can see — the life he has given to us — and to enjoy it fully. Breathe deeply the cool air of a fall morning as you walk the dog. Slowly sip hot chocolate with your children. Work hard at the temp job as you await a permanent position. Let your hand linger with your ailing loved one. Even when we do not understand God’s works and ways, we can delight in his good gifts to us. We can find a unique pleasure in our toil as we throw ourselves upon our rock, Jesus Christ, through the storms of life.

Jason DeRouchie ably summarizes the tension between finitude, infinity, frustration, and joy: “This is the goal of Ecclesiastes: that believers feeling the weight of the curse and the burden of life’s enigmas would turn their eyes toward God, resting in his purposes and delighting whenever possible in his beautiful, disfigured world” (“Shepherding Wind and One Wise Shepherd,” 15).

Do Good Like God

After inviting us to enjoy the life God has given, the Preacher adds one more dimension to our well-being: “There is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live” (Ecclesiastes 3:12). When we embrace our finiteness and enjoy God and his gifts to us, we ultimately live like God by doing good to others. We soak up the joy of the life he has given to us, and then we channel that joy to others.

So, what do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us? We face all things — the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between — with confidence because we know our God is weaving all things together for good, even when we cannot see past our current circumstances. We walk hand in hand with our Savior on the path of life, enjoying all his gifts, big and small. And then we do good to others by inviting them to do the same.