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casting lots

7 paragraphs · about 2 minutes

Every paragraph the index cites under casting lots, once, in the order of the book. Beside each stand the entries that cite it.

Paper 90 · Shamanism—Medicine Men and Priests

2. Shamanistic Practices

90:2.4The shamans were great be­liev­ers in the mis­sion of chance as rev­e­la­tory of the will of the spir­its; they fre­quently cast lots to ar­rive at de­ci­sions. Mod­ern sur­vivals of this pro­cliv­ity for cast­ing lots are il­lus­trated, not only in the many games of chance, but also in the well-known “count­ing-out” rhymes. Once, the per­son counted out must die; now, he is only it in some child­ish game. That which was se­ri­ous busi­ness to prim­i­tive man has sur­vived as a di­ver­sion of the mod­ern child.

Paper 150 · The Third Preaching Tour

3. Sabbath at Tiberias

150:3.75. Cast­ing lots, while it may be a con­ve­nient way of set­tling many mi­nor dif­fi­cul­ties, is not a method de­signed to dis­close the di­vine will. Such out­comes are purely mat­ters of ma­te­rial chance. The only means of com­mu­nion with the spir­i­tual world is em­braced in the spirit en­dow­ment of man­kind, the in­dwelling spirit of the Fa­ther, to­gether with the out­poured spirit of the Son and the om­ni­pres­ent in­flu­ence of the In­fi­nite Spirit.

150:3.8–11 · four paragraphs not cited here ·

150:3.86. Div­ina­tion, sor­cery, and witch­craft are su­per­sti­tions of ig­no­rant minds, as also are the delu­sions of magic. The be­lief in magic num­bers, omens of good luck, and harbingers of bad luck, is pure and un­founded su­per­sti­tion.

150:3.97. The in­ter­pre­ta­tion of dreams is largely a su­per­sti­tious and ground­less sys­tem of ig­no­rant and fan­tas­tic spec­u­la­tion. The gospel of the king­dom must have noth­ing in com­mon with the sooth­sayer priests of prim­i­tive re­li­gion.

150:3.108. The spir­its of good or evil can­not dwell within ma­te­rial sym­bols of clay, wood, or metal; idols are noth­ing more than the ma­te­rial of which they are made.

150:3.119. The prac­tices of the en­chanters, the wiz­ards, the ma­gi­cians, and the sor­cer­ers, were de­rived from the su­per­sti­tions of the Egyp­tians, the As­syr­i­ans, the Baby­lo­ni­ans, and the an­cient Ca­naan­ites. Amulets and all sorts of in­can­ta­tions are fu­tile ei­ther to win the pro­tec­tion of good spir­its or to ward off sup­posed evil spir­its.

150:3.1210. He ex­posed and de­nounced their be­lief in spells, or­deals, be­witch­ing, curs­ing, signs, man­drakes, knot­ted cords, and all other forms of ig­no­rant and en­slav­ing su­per­sti­tion.

Paper 187 · The Crucifixion

2. The Crucifixion

187:2.8As Je­sus saw his mother, with John and his brother and sis­ter, he smiled but said noth­ing. Mean­while the four sol­diers as­signed to the Mas­ter’s cru­ci­fix­ion, as was the cus­tom, had di­vided his clothes among them, one tak­ing the san­dals, one the tur­ban, one the gir­dle, and the fourth the cloak. This left the tu­nic, or seam­less vest­ment reach­ing down to near the knees, to be cut up into four pieces, but when the sol­diers saw what an un­usual gar­ment it was, they de­cided to cast lots for it. Je­sus looked down on them while they di­vided his gar­ments, and the thought­less crowd jeered at him.

Paper 193 · Final Appearances and Ascension

6. Peter Calls a Meeting

193:6.3The eleven apos­tles then went down­stairs, where they agreed to cast lots in or­der to de­ter­mine which of these men should be­come an apos­tle to serve in Ju­das’s place. The lot fell on Matthias, and he was de­clared to be the new apos­tle. He was duly in­ducted into his of­fice and then ap­pointed trea­surer. But Matthias had lit­tle part in the sub­se­quent ac­tiv­i­ties of the apos­tles.

193:6.4–5 · two paragraphs not cited here ·

193:6.4Soon af­ter Pen­te­cost the twins re­turned to their homes in Gal­i­lee. Si­mon Ze­lo­tes was in re­tire­ment for some time be­fore he went forth preach­ing the gospel. Thomas wor­ried for a shorter pe­riod and then re­sumed his teach­ing. Na­than­iel dif­fered in­creas­ingly with Pe­ter re­gard­ing preach­ing about Je­sus in the place of pro­claim­ing the for­mer gospel of the king­dom. This dis­agree­ment be­came so acute by the mid­dle of the fol­low­ing month that Na­than­iel with­drew, go­ing to Phil­a­del­phia to visit Ab­ner and Laz­a­rus; and af­ter tar­ry­ing there for more than a year, he went on into the lands be­yond Mes­o­po­ta­mia preach­ing the gospel as he un­der­stood it.

193:6.5This left but six of the orig­i­nal twelve apos­tles to be­come ac­tors on the stage of the early procla­ma­tion of the gospel in Je­ru­sa­lem: Pe­ter, An­drew, James, John, Philip, and Mat­thew.

193:6.6Just about noon the apos­tles re­turned to their breth­ren in the up­per cham­ber and an­nounced that Matthias had been cho­sen as the new apos­tle. And then Pe­ter called all of the be­liev­ers to en­gage in prayer, prayer that they might be pre­pared to re­ceive the gift of the spirit which the Mas­ter had prom­ised to send.

Paper 195 · After Pentecost

2. The Roman Influence

195:2.1The Ro­mans bod­ily took over Greek cul­ture, putting rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment in the place of gov­ern­ment by lot. And pres­ently this change fa­vored Chris­tian­ity in that Rome brought into the whole West­ern world a new tol­er­ance for strange lan­guages, peo­ples, and even re­li­gions.

Onward

See also superstition

Cited alongside: Matthias, superstition