Casting the lot settles disputes and keeps strong opponents apart (Proverbs 18:18).

Baptists have a lot of unwritten (or vaguely referenced) rules, and one of them is that playing things by chance is a dangerous thing to do.  I grew up Conservative Baptist, so I can say this from first-hand experience.  Words like "fate" or even "coincidentally" felt almost like mild expletives; instead, it's considered much better to reference the Lord's providence and direction in everything, even the most seemingly random circumstances.  Flipping a coin to make a decision might be viewed as a sort of idolatry; it's considered better to take everything to the Lord in prayer.  And gambling of any sort is just plain forbidden.  I don't know exactly why, but I think these sorts of things create a feeling of undermining God's sovereignty and authority in the world today.  Nothing is really "up to chance," they would say; it's all up to the Lord.  To a certain extent, I can honestly appreciate this aspect of my spiritual heritage.  However, I've also learned through the years that chance is not as anti-biblical as I might have once been led to believe.  As a matter of fact, God can often work powerfully through instances of seemingly-random chance -- particularly when it comes to settling human disputes.

So my reformed view of Reformed / Baptist theology has developed to the point where I can now say, unashamedly, that in many situations, there's nothing like a good old-fashioned game of Paper-Rock-Scissors to make a decision between two equal parties and move on.

Especially when people's egos become attached to a particular outcome in a situation, it can be really helpful to have some harmless, random way of making a decision, like Paper-Rock-Scissors.  Proverbs 18:19 (the verse immediately following today's featured Proverb) says that, "A brother wronged is more unyielding than a fortified city; disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel."  So it is often necessary to have a way to deal with situations without someone yielding his position to another.  With a random game of ch*nce like Paper-Rock-Scissors, no one has to back down or lose face.  There can be a modest admission that the other person's point-of-view wouldn't automatically translate into an immediate catastrophe -- even while insisting that my own point-of-view is still my preferred point-of-view.  All I have to do is submit myself to the outcome of a game (or a 3-game series) of Paper-Rock-Scissors -- not to another person's opinion -- and then we can both move on and be done with the matter.  What restaurant are we going to eat at?  Should we schedule that meeting for the morning or the afternoon?  Will we buy the blue one or the red one?  Whose turn is it to clean the toilet?  These types of questions are perfect for Paper-Rock-Scissors, and applying such a game in the face of such a situation is a perfect application of Proverbs 18:18.  When it comes to bigger decisions -- about who to marry, where to move, or any kind of moral dilemma -- Paper-Rock-Scissors might not be quite as adviseable... But then again, maybe that's just the Baptist in me coming out again. :-)