Is it possible to determine God’s divine will through casting lots in the present day?

Levi was taken by the Lord for service in the Temple. Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, replaced Levi and Joseph.

God didn’t say there is only 12 apostles of the Lamb, but rather that the name of the twelve apostles of the lamb will be written there. Once again Nehemiah you get ahead of yourself and wind up with egg on your face on a public forum expecting the worst of people. You are what’s wrong with this place in my honest opinion. No grace, no humility, no patience.

Oh and in my other thread you strongly suggested I’m not even a Christian. You’re a bully, but I won’t be your punching bag.

Thanks for just chatting about it rather than jumping to the conclusion I’m calling God a liar or something.

Hmm I don’t see that. Which verse says they didn’t wait for power from the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Because from all I can see they were in the upper room on Pentecost.

There is no record of them being instructed to select an apostle to replace Judas.

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it says they prayed before casting lots. Looks like they communicated with God and He gave them an answer or they wouldn’t have casted lots I guess.

The record shows they took it upon themselves to do so, at Peter's urging.

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I don’t see it that way.

The word of God refutes you:

Acts 1:26
26And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

As you can see Matthias is an apostle. Now let’s talk about how your falsely accused me of calling God a liar. That’s called bearing false witness and it’s a sin on your hands.

Okay thanks I started listening to it then got distracted. I'll try to listen to this later. Thank you for contributing to the thread.

All through the old testament there were earthly type commands to lead people to spiritual truths. In order to tell them to keep their minds on clean things, they were given commands to keep food for the stomach clean. In order to explain circumcision to them they were told to cut flesh.

Christ changed that. In the sermon of the mount He explained that He did not change anything His Father said, then He told of the changes in the law. The law had been given in earthly type commands, now that law was the same but in the spirit direct to our hearts and minds.

In the old testament when they asked God for answers they asked God to give the answers in the flesh. When Christ came we ask God for answers and Christ answers through the Holy Spirit. The fleshly type commands are called the law of Moses, and we are not to use them any more.

They did ask God for answers before casting lots.

Acts 1:24-26
24And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, 25That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. 26And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

So given that Matthias is an apostle through prayer and the casting of lots. How is any of that earthly? This passage said that they prayed for God to show them who the 12th apostle is through the casting of lots. The people closest to Jesus used casting lots, seems like they should be seen as our role models.

In the old testament casting of lots was done with something material like stones to find what God's will was. In the new testament when Christ changed that, asking to know God's will was done through prayer.

Casting lots by definition means the 11 apostles did something like rolling dice or drew at straws. Casting lots may appear to be unspiritual, but it isn’t.

God sees casting lots as an appropriate method at times. There are numerous examples from the Old Testament when the command to cast lots came directly from the mouth of God Himself. I quoted a few in the OP.

I don’t think we should see casting lots i spiritual. It’s like the people who just see water baptism as getting wet and nothing more. There is more to casting lots than the physical appearance.

Acts 1:4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” ... 8 "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you." 15 In those days Peter stood up among the believers ... 21 "It is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us ... 23 So they nominated two men... 26 Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias.

I did not and do not deny that they were in the upper room. I was not saying they left before they received the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit. What I am saying is they acted on Peter's urging before they had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is plainly stated in the text. Your position assumes they had God's blessing in this, which is nowhere stated in the text. Guessing they would not have done this knowing ahead of time that God would answer seems presumptive, as if God always answers prayers definitively.

Hmm okay maybe I misunderstood you. What I see is that they were told to wait for power through the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but then you said they didn’t wait.

Now I think what you’re saying is that you think that by making Matthias an apostle they didn’t wait? If that’s true then I think we’re on the same page, but disagree.

They were just told to wait on the baptism of the Holy Spirit which was going to give them power. Electing Matthias as an apostle through prayer and casting lots didn’t violate the scope of what they were told to wait for as far as I can tell. I think they’re good. I trust the 11 disciples of Jesus made the right choice.

Jesus did not instruct them to do nothing. They were to wait in Jerusalem until they were "endued with power from on high.”

Mathias is counted among the Twelve in the NT. Paul did not meet the qualifications of a witness as outlined by Peter. Having 12 grown men witness an issue was important according to Jewish legal tradition. It's the same tradition that influenced US juris prudence for a jury of 12 peers.

Of course. And I agree with you. Some discount Matt because “Peter did something instead of waiting on the Lord”. Yet, they did wait. Matt was important as one of the twelve witnesses to the Jews. That”s why, although two men qualified, only one was chosen: because only one was needed.

He is in there only not by name. He is of the Eleven who stand with Peter and then mentioned in “the twelve” in Acts 6 and 1 Corinthians 15:5. He is as obscure as several others of the twelve who are not mentioned by name again.

Maybe. It's not something I am comfortable with or something I would recommend. I'm not sure what the lot-casting method was back then. Individuals and groups may have had lots that represented them. If someone tries to apply the principle to a coin, I'm not sure the 'kosherness' of using lots extends to coins, but I would like to point out that some coins can have relief images of human beings graven on them and even pagan imagery.

From all I can see from research the Bible doesn’t specify what the lots were. Scholarly sources say they lots were dice, sticks, or stones. I’m not sure how to interpret lots either.

Sounds a bit like trying to interpret how the bits fell. Maybe the right answer was received by faith from God which is what the point was anyway.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, how the lots fell is the evidence of things not seen.

Proverbs 16:33
33The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.

If we do not know how lots are cast, then we do not know how to do it. So from a practical standpoint, we can say no casting lots to determine the will of God. Case closed, and sticky doctrinal point turned into a non-issue as far as practice is concern..

But then someone who studied this aspect of the ancient world may say..... actually we do know how they were cast, then open up the can of words again.

The Old Testament did not allow divination, soothsaying, etc. I think an example of middle eastern divination might have been reading filaments in a liver to determine some entity's will. Romans interpreted the flight paths of birds. That's later and far away. I remember the word 'auspicious' and how it is related to the word for birds in Latin and their form of divination when I think about that.

The question about lots is a sticky one, I think, because it raises the issue of what exactly constitutes divination? The tarot card throwers are throwing down so many cards. Is that kind of like casting a lot. But the cards are infused with their practices based on.... whatever..... I'm not sure what's on the cards. I think I heard 'death' on some movie. I am guessing the cards have to do with religion/occult type stuff. I would not imagine the set of options are likely to be divinely ordained. What about Christian themed cards that were being used for 'readings' that someone was posting and complaining about? Is the set of option divinely ordained? Did God reveal cards to put in a deck? It's a whole different situation from a lot representing an individual because it has content on it.

I would guess from reading passages that an individual or group had a lot. The lot could indicate which individual or group was responsible or won a prize or was selected, or whatever.

I have wondered if the Urim and Thummin were basically a set of lots that could say 'yes' or 'no' or not response. But Jewish tradition said they glowed. And the responses from inquiring of the LORD in scripture can be extremely complicated. I suppose they could have asked so many questions and gotten responses and it could have been summarized in the text, or maybe complete sentences were communicated somehow. One theory was that the stones in the breastplate lit up to communicate some kind of message.

These are interesting mysteries, but not that practical for application, IMO, unless you confront people really casting lots to determine the will of God, don't feel right about it, and feel like you have to figure this out so you can tell them something about it.