Lessons from Four Aces

Language issues can happen in online poker, every bit as much as in live tournaments. Take what happened today at National League of Poker....

Dealer: cher67 wins Main Pot ($740) with Four of a kind, aces
Me: wow excellent
cher67: holy sh

Cher may have stopped short of finishing the second word, because NLOP seems to have a language filter. (At least it does for us; profanity shows on our screen with asterisks.) But the first word was enough to get us thinking....

omajor: nh
cher67: too bad there wasnt more money on the table
Me: What makes that stuff holy, anyway? :-/

Exclamations beginning with "holy" have been around for a long time. We remember "Robin the Boy Wonder" uttering them all the time on the old Batman TV series. We avoid them because a Biblical warning:

Above all, my brothers, do not swear -- not by heaven, or by earth or by anything else.... -- James 5:12

So we had a little fun with the exclamation, in hopes of making a larger point. The fun stuff continues with this response....

cher67: oxidation
Me: Ohhhhhh.
Dealer: suarez801 wins Main Pot ($630)
cher67: didnt think i knew the answer didja
Dealer: stolen wins Main Pot ($1550)
Me: I was expecting more of a Biblical answer than that.
cher67: lol
Me: Something like "Be ye holy, for I am holy."

That quote comes from I Peter 1:15-16 -- but it's really based in Leviticus 11:44-45.

cher67: well i guess if you say grace before u eat
cher67: jk
Dealer: mjgtlc wins Main Pot ($1210) with Straight, ten to ace
Me: Welllll - that's always a good idea.

It's a good idea because Jesus did it, to perform a great miracle:

Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. -- Luke 9:16

Matthew 14:21 indicates more than 5,000 people were fed by that small donation. (In fact, we heard radio preacher Chuck Swindoll claim the other day the fish were little more than sardines.)

The "holy chat" ended there -- but we hopefully made others at the table think a bit. Holiness really doesn't come from exposure to the air, you know. It comes from exposure to God -- by "breathing in" the Holy Spirit, as God speaks to you in Bible study. The best "meat" to enjoy is the meat of God's word.