Casting Lots After Pentecost

[Ernie]

The parallel between the use of the lot and the Urim and Thummim struck me as problematic (though I may be misunderstanding Ernie's point). The Urim and Thummim were part of an Old Covenant way of hearing from God. Christ's fulfillment of the Old Covenant, symbolized by the torn veil in the temple, I would understand as bringing an end to ways of hearing from God like the Urim and Thummim.

I think use of the lot can have value. I don't support it is understood to function in a way analogous to the Urim and Thummim.

There was a professor from Bethel or Hesston who use to attend as many Beachy Amish-Mennonite ordinations in Kansas as he could. For him, it was the closest thing to experiencing Urim and Thummim.

I personally don't put a lot of stock in the lot. I do think there are miraculous things associated with it at times, maybe often, but I prefer other methods that are more common in the New Testament.
When there are contentions, and they can't be resolved otherwise, the lot can put contentions to cease, i.e. if everyone is agreed to use that method. It is also a way to avoid a popularity contest.
And sometimes I think God can use it for a congregation's good whenever a church does its best to discern faithfulness to God. God may decide to spare the congregation from a leader who is either hiding something or is not prepared for the job. But I wouldn't bank on it.

[joshuabgood]

Questions I have about the lot: 1) Does God really work like this? 2) Maybe do like some churches and put an additional book in in case God doesn't want any of them 3) If the lot.works why not put all the folks in the lot? Why not hire employees this way? 4) What about where the lot chose what later became an obviously unqualified candidate? 5) Of all the leaders and disciples chosen in the NT only one was recorded being selected this way.

[Ernie]

Questions I have about the lot: 1) Does God really work like this? 2) Maybe do like some churches and put an additional book in in case God doesn't want any of them 3) If the lot.works why not put all the folks in the lot? Why not hire employees this way? 4) What about where the lot chose what later became an obviously unqualified candidate? 5) Of the leaders chosen in the NT only one was recorded being selected this way.

1. I don't know but it appears like it sometimes.
2. That's only if you aren't confident that God wants you to ordain someone.
3. Because the N.T. gives qualifications for leaders and I think God intends for us to do our part. I don't think we can expect God to work with us if we don't work with him. The lot is to decide who to ordain if there is more than one qualified person.
4. My observation is that this is the result of a congregation not doing its job. I'm not aware of a time when a congregation did its job and an unqualified person got ordained. I'd be interested in hearing about this if someone knows of a possible anomaly.
5. Yes. And we don't have any record of this method being used in the ante-nicene writings either.

[joshuabgood]

1) I am not as certain as you are.
2) A church's certainty is fallible. Let God decide.
3) We see as men, the outward, and not like God sees. That seems clear to me.
4) People, even groups of people, make mistakes.
5) So why not lay the random generators aside. We dont choose any other leaders like this in business, schools, nonprofits, spouses, special speakers, etc.

Sorry for being disagreeable

[Ernie]

1) I am not as certain as you are.
2) A church's certainty is fallible. Let God decide.
3) We see as men, the outward, and not like God sees. That seems clear to me.
4) People, even groups of people, make mistakes.
5) So why not lay the random generators aside. We dont choose any other leaders like this in business, schools, nonprofits, spouses, special speakers, etc.

Sorry for being disagreeable

I can handle it.

[mike]

1) I am not as certain as you are.
2) A church's certainty is fallible. Let God decide.
3) We see as men, the outward, and not like God sees. That seems clear to me.
4) People, even groups of people, make mistakes.
5) So why not lay the random generators aside. We dont choose any other leaders like this in business, schools, nonprofits, spouses, special speakers, etc.

Sorry for being disagreeable

How would you do it?

[JayP]

I know this will sound trite, but this discussion calls to mind mind a passage in Starship Troopers, in which reflecting on their form of government, after students give lots of wrong answers to the question “Why do we have this form of government?” The answer being, because it is what we have and it works.

There is so clearly no perfect answer to how a church group should choose leaders. From Protestants interviewing and hiring one, to the Catholic & orthodox having Apostolic Succession, to the Anabaptist use of the lot…..all have generated successful and unsuccessful results.

I knew people in Eastern who languishing over the Pilgrim split would mutter that Stephen should never have been allowed in the lot, or worse, something must have been wrong with that lot because God could not have possibly picked him.


Also I would add that short of someone down right awful (like a molester, etc.) an otherwise pretty poor minister may well have been chosen for a specific reason, such as being on the right place at the right time for something God wanted. I personally tend to think that just because I cannot figure it all out God owes me clarifications.

I think there is nothing wrong with the lot although I have seen that process, like others, badly abused. I find the whole vetting thing absurd since the “vetting” is so subjective. I do think the Anabaptists miss a great opportunity to ban more than one person from a family being in the ministry of a congregation but that is a “rule” they could never live with.