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Should My Construction Company Help Build a Casino? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: We're now about a dozen years into the podcast. For
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  Speaker 1: eleven and a half years of podcasting, to be more exact,
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  Speaker 1: we have talked a lot about work over those years.
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  Speaker 1: We've talked about career building and finding our vocational calling,
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  Speaker 1: how to glorify God at work, and on the issues
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  Speaker 1: of when to leave a job, and how to avoid
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  Speaker 1: overworking and idolizing a career, and issues of laziness and
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  Speaker 1: personal productivity and how do you define all those things?
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  Speaker 1: Many huge issues in our past that have been covered,
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  Speaker 1: and I tried to write those up into a digest
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  Speaker 1: in the Aspastro John book on pages sixty seven to
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  Speaker 1: ninety four if you want to see the ground that
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  Speaker 1: we've covered in that section and in this podcast, we've
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  Speaker 1: also taken up the question of what vocations are worthy
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  Speaker 1: of the Christian and which ones are not worthy of
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  Speaker 1: the Christian. A marketer at Nike wants emailed in to
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  Speaker 1: ask of his job marketing luxury goods to people who
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  Speaker 1: don't need them but want them. Was that life vein
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  Speaker 1: You might remember that episode in ABJ fifteen nineteen that
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  Speaker 1: comes to my mind. We're back on a similar topic
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  Speaker 1: today in today's question from an anonymous man, Tello Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: I am a building contractor and in my region recently
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  Speaker 1: I was asked to join up with a construction partner
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  Speaker 1: I've worked with before and what I really like and
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  Speaker 1: enjoy working with, to help complete one of their own projects.
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  Speaker 1: The project is a Mormon temple. Is this out of
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  Speaker 1: the question for a Christian who leads a construction crew
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  Speaker 1: to consider working on such a project like a temple
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  Speaker 1: like this, or even a mosque or a casino or
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  Speaker 1: other things like that? How should I think through making
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  Speaker 1: this moral decision on behalf of the crew I lead?
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  Speaker 2: Probably I should start where I'm going to end, namely
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  Speaker 2: by saying that this is the kind of question that
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  Speaker 2: has enough layers of ambiguity that I should not be
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  Speaker 2: dogmatic but admit that good Christians believing the same Bible
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  Speaker 2: may come to different conclusions. There are just so many
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  Speaker 2: aspects to take into consideration. But having said that, let
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  Speaker 2: me spell out maybe four or five principles or thoughts
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  Speaker 2: that I hope will give some guidance to the consciences
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  Speaker 2: of God's people. The first thing I feel constrained to
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  Speaker 2: say is that believing in the reality of Hell the
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  Speaker 2: way Jesus does and he's more explicit on this in
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  Speaker 2: the Bible than anybody. Gives a kind of seriousness to
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  Speaker 2: most questions, especially questions like this. It just makes things
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  Speaker 2: so serious. And I mentioned this because Christians who keep
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  Speaker 2: the reality of Hell out of their minds and sometimes
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  Speaker 2: are not even sure they believe in it, those folks
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  Speaker 2: simply won't feel the way that I feel in answering
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  Speaker 2: a question like this, Because when I think of a
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  Speaker 2: question like this, one of the questions I ask is
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  Speaker 2: is this building that I'm working on going to be
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  Speaker 2: devoted to beliefs and activities which lead to eternal destruction?
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  Speaker 2: Some people don't even raise that question in trying to
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  Speaker 2: do ethics. I'm asking the eternal question about what becomes
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  Speaker 2: of human beings when they participate in what this building
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  Speaker 2: is for A person who doesn't think about Hell just
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  Speaker 2: won't take it that seriously, and therefore the question doesn't
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  Speaker 2: have the same weight that it does for me. That's
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  Speaker 2: the first thing I think I should draw attention to.
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  Speaker 2: The second thing would be to draw attention to the
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  Speaker 2: fact that there are many more applications for the ethical
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  Speaker 2: issue at stake here than just building a Mormon religious house.
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  Speaker 2: What about building an abortion clinic for planned parenthood. What
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  Speaker 2: about building a mosque for Muslims? What about building a
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  Speaker 2: brothel in a red light district? What about building a
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  Speaker 2: casino in northern Minnesota that you know is going to
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  Speaker 2: soak the meager savings of many poor people and continually
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  Speaker 2: divert their attention away from a healthy, productive life. What
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  Speaker 2: about building a room in somebody's attic without taking out
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  Speaker 2: a permit so that they can avoid fees from the city.
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  Speaker 2: What about building a meeting space for the central committee
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  Speaker 2: of the political party that makes child killing and homosexual
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  Speaker 2: behavior a matter of celebration. What about building a bar
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  Speaker 2: and a nightclub that includes strip tease performances? What about
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  Speaker 2: providing fixtures, doors, countertops, lights, tile for any of those structures?
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  Speaker 2: And though this goes on and on, so this question
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  Speaker 2: has a much broader relevance and layers of complexity than
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  Speaker 2: one might think. Another thing to take into account here
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  Speaker 2: is the degree to which the structure you're working on
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  Speaker 2: not only will be the place where evil happens, but
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  Speaker 2: rather also the place designed and intended for evil to happen.
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  Speaker 2: That's the purpose of the structure. Evil is not incidental here,
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  Speaker 2: but integral. Now, hardly any building anywhere is free from evil, right,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you can't build anything where evil's not going
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  Speaker 2: to happen. Evil happens everywhere in every structure. So the
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  Speaker 2: morally relevant question when it comes to participation in the
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  Speaker 2: building of structure is whether that's the intention of the structure,
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  Speaker 2: that's the reason it exists. So here's another factor to
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  Speaker 2: take into account. To what degree does the person involved
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  Speaker 2: in building the structure know what is involved in it,
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  Speaker 2: know what the intention is? Or to say differently, Given
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  Speaker 2: what a person knows, a builder knows, a construction worker knows,
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  Speaker 2: a provider knows, how clearly and substantially does his work
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  Speaker 2: add to the construction of the structure he disapproves of.
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  Speaker 2: Now that's complicated. Let me illustrate. If you work in
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  Speaker 2: a factory that makes windows, We've got to be one
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  Speaker 2: in Minnesota here. You may have no awareness at all
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  Speaker 2: as you do your work in that factory that some
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  Speaker 2: of these windows are being sold to a mosque or
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  Speaker 2: a casino or an abortion clinic. This is not in
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  Speaker 2: your mind at all as you go to work every
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  Speaker 2: day and make a window. The causal connection between your
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  Speaker 2: daily work and the purposes of those structures is so
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  Speaker 2: remote that I think it is of little moral significance.
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  Speaker 2: Your part is so remote that there is little moral
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  Speaker 2: connection between them. Your part in the window factory is
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  Speaker 2: not going to be seen as morally implicated by the
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  Speaker 2: evil purposes of the buildings down the economic chain out
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  Speaker 2: of your sight, then if it were part of what
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  Speaker 2: you're immediately intending to help construct. So the principle that
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  Speaker 2: is most explicit in the Bible, I think, and most
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  Speaker 2: helpful in all of this, is in First Corinthians ten,
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  Speaker 2: twenty seven and twenty eight, which may not sound like
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  Speaker 2: a building text. Listen carefully. If one of the believers
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  Speaker 2: invites you to a dinner, and you are disposed to
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  Speaker 2: go eat whatever set before you without raising any question
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  Speaker 2: on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you,
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  Speaker 2: this has been and offer it in sacrifice, then don't
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  Speaker 2: eat it for the sake of the one who informs you,
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  Speaker 2: and for conscience sake. In other words, if you don't
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  Speaker 2: know that the food involves you in the support of
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  Speaker 2: a pagan ritual, you can eat it. But if you
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  Speaker 2: do know that this pagan ritual is what the host intends,
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  Speaker 2: you won't eat it, So whether you eat or you
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  Speaker 2: don't eat depends on whether you know what the eating
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  Speaker 2: signifies about the false religion. It seems to me that
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  Speaker 2: this same principle applies to building something that is devoted
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  Speaker 2: to a false, destructive religion or lifestyle. So if you
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  Speaker 2: don't know what the building is for, you are probably
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  Speaker 2: not guilty for doing a good job in building it.
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  Speaker 2: You're just doing the job to the glory of Christ
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  Speaker 2: as best you can. But if you know that you
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  Speaker 2: are involved in promoting a destructive religion or practiced, then
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  Speaker 2: your participation may well be wrong. In fact, my inclination
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  Speaker 2: would be to encourage the Christian builder and construction worker
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  Speaker 2: provider not to be part of a building that is
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  Speaker 2: widely known to be explicitly anti Christian. So I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to end where I began. In general, I want to
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  Speaker 2: encourage builders and workers not to contribute to structures devoted
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  Speaker 2: to anti Christian beliefs and practices. But I realize that
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  Speaker 2: the complexities of various situations are such that we should
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  Speaker 2: be very careful not to pass judgment on a brother's
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  Speaker 2: effort to make a biblically informed, conscientious decision.
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  Speaker 1: Is this building that I'm working on going to be
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  Speaker 1: devoted to beliefs and activities which lead to eternal destruction.
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  Speaker 1: In question not always a question that can be easily answered,
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  Speaker 1: but sometimes it can. Thank you Pastor John, and thanks
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  Speaker 1: for joining us today. Have a question to ask Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: Find the link to email us and find our complete
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  Speaker 1: episode archive at askpastor John dot com. Every episode with
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: audio and full transcripts of the entire archive. Well, can
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  Speaker 1: we pray that God would teach someone a lesson to
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  Speaker 1: disrupt and make their life hard in order to get
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  Speaker 1: their attention? We're such a prayerful intent un Christian. That's
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  Speaker 1: the question. Next, I'm Tony Ranky. We'll see how Monday