by Dr. Lani Wilson

Good day, prayer and fasting warriors! Middle of May; amazing, isn’t it? Such beautiful weather and it does make it easier to appreciate just being alive to see it. We’re in the middle of spring and every now and then it truly feels like it.

We’re given the word tell to consider. But of course, this verb is so obvious: To say something, reveal, communicate, distinguish (Apple Online Dictionary). But there are a couple of other uses as a noun that are interesting; a “noticeable, harmful effect” and an archaic use to “count” something (Ibid.). Just look at the example used to explain the latter: [ with obj. ] archaic count (the members of a series or group): the shepherd had told all his sheep (Ibid.). However, there is only one definition of tell being used as a noun.

(especially in poker) an unconscious action that is thought to betray an attempted deception.
Ibid.

There are 661 uses in English of the word in the New Testament, 661. Often, Jesus used it when He healed people; he would admonish them not to reveal what had happened and usually, they would do just the opposite. But in many instances tell was used to emphasize a point.

I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If had known what this means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.
Mathew 12:6-8 (NET)

The Message Bible puts it this way.

There is far more at stake here than religion. If you had any idea what this Scripture meant–‘I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual’-you wouldn’t be nitpicking like this. The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath; he’s in charge.

Other verses use tell for emphasis:

I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left.
Luke 17:34 (NET)

He answered, ‘I tell you, if they keep silent, the very stones will cry out!’
Luke 19:40 (NET)

Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
Luke 12:51 (NET)

I tell you, he will give them justice speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
Luke 18:8 (NET)

Even in common parlance today, when someone prefaces a statement with “I tell you,” we know that this is an emphatic clause. We are trying to make a point that we don’t want forgotten. In other words, we are saying, “Believe me!”

The public use of the internet really took off about 25 years ago.

Today is a significant day in the history of the Internet. On 6 August 1991, exactly twenty years ago, the World Wide Web became summary of the project on the alt.hypertext newsgroup and gave birth to a new technology which would fundamentally change the world as we knew it. The World Wide Web has its foundation in work that Berners-Lee did in the 1980s at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. He had been looking for a way for physicists to share information around the world without all using the same types of hardware and software. This culminated in his 1989 paper proposing ‘A large hypertext database with typed links’.
Martin Bryant, “20 Years Ago Today, the World Wide Web Was Born,” August 6, 2011, thenext.com/insider

For those of us old enough to remember the mind-altering explosion of The Web in the 1990s, we know that it was as significant a game changer to us as penicillin was to our parents’ generation. Nothing was going to be the same ever again. Along with all the incredible positive changes that have happened since then, as ever, there were also the negative. Let’s take gambling, for instance, one of the many compulsive addictions made easier online. At the beginning of the new millennium, societies around the world began to see a rise in gambling and subsequent addictions, specifically online gambling.

Traditional gambling is glamorized on TV and in the media in a way that other addictions are not. Today, all anyone needs is
a computer and the Internet to access the thousands of available online casinos. The 24-hour, seven-days a week availability of online casinos simulate the seductive and realistic experience of traditional casino luring millions of new users each year.
netaddiction.com/online-gambling

Compulsive gambling is not a new issue for human beings. It’s an escape that hints of magic because the challenges and responsibilities of the humdrum-ness of adult life are real. But the excitement of the possibility of winning something without really working for it; the unpredictability of the outcome; the ever-present potential for a payoff make the risks seem harmless…until they’re not. The problem is that the system is rigged against the gambler; otherwise, most if not all people would win. And people around the world are probably more alike than different.

The Global Online Gambling Market: Trends and Opportunities (2015- 2020) research report of 60 pages on the online gambling industry is now available with MarketReportsOnline.com under IT & telecommunication intelligence collection of its research store at http://www.marketreportsonline.com/444858.html. Global online gambling market increased at a significant CAGR during the span of 5 years i.e. 2010-2014 and projections are made that the market would rise in the next five years i.e. 2015-2020 tremendously. Global sports betting and online gaming markets are the segment of global online gambling market which exhibited an increase, driving the global online gambling market. The upsurge in the market was due to various benefits of online gambling over traditional gambling (land based gambling), increase in internet connectivity of people, rise in the ownership of gadgets such as mobile, tablets, desktops, laptops etc. and various amendments in the regulations regarding the online gambling market in various countries. The report titled "Global online gambling Market: Trends & Opportunities (2015-2020)" provides an in-depth analysis of the global online gambling market with detailed analysis of market sizing and growth, market share and economic impact of the industry. The report also provides market size of the global gambling market…The report provides detailed regional analysis of Europe, Asia & Middle East and North America for the online gambling market. Regional analysis includes market sizing by value along with the market segments…The report also assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry. Growth of the overall global online gambling market has also been forecasted for the period 2015-2020, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends...The major growth drivers for the online gambling market are: increase in mobile penetration rate causing the rise in the mobile gambling market, technological developments which help in expansion of online gambling and increase in customer demographics.
“Online Gambling Market Growing Tremendously to 2020, Globally,” PUNE, India, February 4, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To keep people coming back, you have to keep the prize just within reach and intermittently reinforce them with a win. This intermittent reinforcement is one of the strongest behavioral reinforcements there is. B.F. Skinner proved that at the beginning of the 20th century, but gambling businesses have banked on that for thousands of years. This professional business report outlining prospects for online gambling through the first 20 years of the new millennium is chilling. The effect of this new modality has brick-and-mortar consequences.

The city’s decline began a decade ago, when Pennsylvania and other states legalized gambling. Unlike glitzy Las Vegas, Atlantic City had a low-rent, bus-born business model, based on its position as the shortest distance between a gambler and a slot machine. Now, suddenly, it wasn’t. “We were the ‘convenience gambler.’ Well, [we] lost the convenience gambler. It’s all gone,” said Nick Amato, a lawyer at the firm Genova Burns who has worked in casinos and government here.
“Atlantic City’s Mr. Fix-It,” Ed O’Keefe, The Washington Post, January 26, 2016

A corner of the Boardwalk this month in Atlantic City.
(Yana Paskova for The Washington Post)

One of the reasons why online gambling is attractive is because you don’t have to go anywhere to do it. Smartphones make it possible to gamble conveniently, continuously, and economically: That’s the business end of it. At the other end, the individual, interpersonal end, one can gamble anonymously and the only thing you risk by playing is money. That may sound like it’s the worst part, but obviously, it is not a deterrent because people lose many thousands and are not dissuaded.

A THERAPIST [sic] who specialises in treating women with gambling problems warned today how easy it is to slip from playing online games on the daily commute into developing an addiction. Liz Karter, founder of Level Ground Therapy in Cannon Street, treats dozens of women a month and said technology is making it easier to fall into secret addiction — with even non-gambling games such as Candy Crush leading to those involving betting. "You can do it in the office, on the commute, on your tablet — not just at home. It's so easy to hide now," she said.
“Women can end up as gambling addicts because of online games,” Rehema Figueiredo, The Evening Standard, 11/16/15

And what is vastly different from traditional “land gambling,” as the brick-and-mortar casinos of Atlantic City fame were known, is that you do it alone, no human contact is necessary. Thus, there is no exposure, no public shame, no interpersonal risk, and you don’t need to worry if you have a tell. There is nothing to emphasize or conceal; you need not worry about any unconscious behavior that would give away your position. It is just you and the fantasy. And the scariest part of all of this is that the young are becoming addicted…in high school.

Beginning in the early 2000s I noticed a common pattern among a growing percentage of the community college students I worked with. They were working 20-30 hours per week, trying to maintain 10-12 units per semester, living at home with family, but were not making headway. One young woman in particular exemplified the issue. When I went over her budget to see how we could reduce her work hours and focus more on school, she revealed that she was paying off personal loans. But they weren’t for school; they were for gambling. She said she would gamble during her free time between work and school, home and work, and she could do it anywhere and no one knew. As I began to notice similar attributes in the lives of other students, both male and female, what came to light was that these students in their late teens had been gambling online since high school. They reported that most of their friends did the same. What was there to risk? Nothing except the money they made at these part-time jobs. There was no one to say, “Believe me! This will get you nowhere.” There was no one who might see the tell that would give away a winning poker hand or sense that they might be bluffing. There was nothing to reveal, nothing to hide, no public risk or humiliating exposure. In other words, there was no accountability toward others or themselves, except in their empty bank accounts.

A YOUNG accountant who plunged to his death from a London office building "died of shame" as his life was torn apart by an online gambling addiction, his father said today. Joshua Jones, 23, jumped from a ninth-floor balcony after his debts mounted and he saw no way of keeping up with the crippling loans he had taken out to feed his habit, an inquest heard. After the hearing his father Martin called for a shakeup of the online gambling industry so addicts can be permanently banned from placing bets. His graduate son had won a job with prestigious accountancy firm PwC but he had a "double life" and was addicted to online betting, his father told Southwark coroner's court.
“Online Gambling Drove My Son to Suicide,” John Dunne, The Evening Standard, April 27, 2016

When Jesus wasn’t explicitly saying to people not to tell others what He had done for them, He was telling stories (parables)and at the end of the parables, Jesus would have to exclaim the obvious lesson to be learned. The five (5) verses at the beginning of our discussion give us dramatic conclusions to each of the lessons He was trying to get across to us.

• There is something much more important than carrying out rituals to God (Mathew 12:6).
• There is a choice to be made about one’s future (Luke 17:34).
• All creation knows who He is and rejoices (Luke 19:40).
• Acknowledging Him will be controversial (Luke 12:51).
• Even He doesn’t know what humanity will do (Luke 18:8).

Jesus didn’t have tells because He had nothing to conceal. But He could certainly read all of ours.

• The Samaritan woman at the well.
• The young, wealthy man who couldn’t part with his material possessions.
• The woman He saved from stoning.
• The mother who begged Him to heal her daughter.
• The woman who touched the hem of His robe for her healing.
• The Roman Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant.
• Jairus who asked Him to come and heal his daughter.

All of these people and the others who Jesus “read” even before they spoke to Him bore unconscious revelations about themselves, their tells. But unlike in poker, they were beyond deception. If they had been keeping up a façade, by the time they got to The Nazarene all that was left was the desperation that sits behind a gambling tell. If you’ve travelled as far as you can go along a perilous path so that you are now on the border between despair and hope, life and death, you don’t care about appearances. All you have is need. And God through Christ makes it possible for us to break through all of our “unconscious action” and “attempted deception” and finally get what we obviously are - sometimes - dying for. Why is it that so often we would rather bear all the unnecessary and immaterial - pride and position and things and status and veneer - than just release and admit that we are needy creatures; that we are not self-sufficient; that we are not flexible; that we are not self-salvageable; that we are not well-defended; that we are not inherently tough; that all of that effort tires us?

Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Mathew 11:28 (NET)

Do we really think that The Christ was talking only to those peasants, the laborers, the gleaners, the farmers, the Am-ha’aretz, all the people we think we are not? Who are we kidding? Not The Christ…not Him…and ergo, not God.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me-watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Mathew 11:28-30 (TMB)

Maybe we modern, progressive, forward, solidly American, genuinely capitalist, church going, definitely sophisticated, committee-running, religiously appointed Christian-types should play a game called “What’s your tell?” And after we’ve run it into the ground where it belongs, we might just become Christians.

Jesus, LORD, my tell is tattered, tired, and beat up. It’s transparent and loose. Doesn’t fit anymore; doesn’t help anymore; doesn’t work anymore. Dig us out from behind it and lighten us up with Your grace. Because there is nowhere else to hide and no one left to hide from. All that’s left is You. And you can already tell that we’re ready to surrender the gamble.

Last call?
I fold.
I’m out.
Bring me in, Jesus.
Call in Your marker.
I’m Yours.

Amen.