Q: On many occasions this year, I
have received emails or seen social networking posts that the way days of the
week fall within a month or the way numbers align in the date have the
potential to bring wealth, luck, or other benefits if I take certain action. First, is this legitimate? Second, is it acceptable for a Christian to
trust in such things to receive the promised benefits?
I have seen these posts myself. One of them claimed that the circumstance
that there were five Fridays, five Saturdays, and five Sundays occurring during
July 2011, was called “moneybags” and only happened every 823 years. It claimed that if a person re-posted or
forwarded the message, they would receive money, but if they did not, the
message warned, they would be without money.
Another message attached special
significance to four particular dates:
1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, and 11/11/11 with similar promises and
warnings that the recipient’s actions, which must occur at or before 11:11 on 11/11/11,
would bring them either a blessing or a curse.
To begin with, claims such as the
“moneybags” myth mentioned in the first example are factually inaccurate. The phenomenon described actually occurs once
every 5-11 years, depending on where the leap years fall. Secondly, even if the events described were
as rare as they are claimed to be, there is no observable evidence that the
benefits described have occurred in the past.
For Christians, 1 Timothy 4:7 gives
perspective on practices such as those described above. In that verse, Paul says, “Have nothing to do
with irreverent, silly myths. Rather
train yourself for godliness.
In the Old Testament, God had
forbidden all types of divination, which was the practice of seeking guidance
or knowledge of the future through manipulating or observing elements of nature
unrelated to the events in question. So,
for example, kings of unbelieving nations might ask a priest of their religion
to slaughter a sheep or goat and study its organs to find out how an upcoming
battle would go, or they might observe the pattern in which a flock of birds
fly to discern which strategy to use.
Horoscopes are an example of how this ideology continues even to this
day.
God clearly commanded His people that
they were not to engage in such practices, and connected this command to the
First and Second Commandments, which forbid idolatry, and the misuse of God’s
name. As such, these prohibitions
continue into the New Testament era for Christians. Because all of the above actions describe
trust in some other force than the Triune God for blessing, they are a form of
idolatry to be avoided by Christians.
The Bible does at times speak
positively about discerning the signs found in nature, but these are always
observed natural correlations between an event and the result which follows,
such as the color of the sky relating to weather which might follow, or the
color of leaves indicating the change of seasons.
Regarding the alignments of days in a
month or dates in a year, we must also note that our modern calendar is not a
divinely-given system, but rather a humanly-devised method or organizing
time. So, as such, it would bear no
correlation to divine promises for blessing.
Finally, assumptions such as those
above are opposed to a Christian worldview.
In the religion from which these superstitions arise, it is assumed that
the god/gods/universe are against us and inclined to do us harm, and it is only
if we act in the specified ways that they will be forced to bless us.
Christianity, on the other hand,
proposes that God, in fact, desires to act on our behalf and takes the
initiative Himself to bring us blessing.
He does this by providing for our obvious needs of food, clothing,
shelter, etc. but more importantly by forgiving sins because of the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus for all who trust in Him.
Even though it might appear that we
need to appease the deities and forces of the universe by our own action, the
God who created them has already acted, both through creation and through His
Son, to provide us with all of our needs of body and soul, not based on our own
worthiness or ability, but because of His own kindness and righteousness.
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