Do you know that whoever wins the Super Bowl has an effect on the economy? I am not talking about your personal economy in case you bet money on the winner. According to Investopia.com, the Super Bowl Economic Indicator says that in years where an AFC team wins the Super Bowl, the economy will go down. In years where a NFC team wins, the economy will go up. So hold onto your butts and your money this coming year because the Super Bowl Economic Indicator is right 80% of the time!

Now this is a classic case of a fallacious axiom you should never use to plan your personal finances, even though it is a little fun. You would think that that is common sense and no one would do that. Yet people use them all the time. All the time we do not stop to think and we assume that things are related that are not and we make decisions on them. All the time we make decisions and do not stop to use the intelligence that the Lord has given us. Some people actually think that since the economy was a little better at the end of eight years of Barack Obama’s fiscal policy, he was the cause of it!

The people in the Bible used a lot of faulty reasoning too. Some of the decisions that people made in the Bible that have been recorded seem to have to weight of taking a Magic 8 Ball, shaking it, and seeing what the answer is. A case of that I remember reading about is where a king said, I am going to sacrifice the first thing I see, then he sees his daughter and he says, well the Lord must have wanted me to do it!(http://www.gotquestions.org/Jephthahs-daughter.html)

Similar reasoning was used by church people throughout time. An example of that is the idea of predestination by John Calvin and Martin Luther. They believed that if you were predestined you would be successful in work or that since you were successful in work you must be predestined.  If you are interested more in that you can read about it here: http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-myth-of-the-protestant-work-ethic. This is another example of an axiom that defies reason and is just wrong.

As believers in an unseen world, I know we all wish we had an “in” on the Lord’s mind and what He is going to do and what we should do and what the future will hold. But most of the time we don’t. We long for insight and assurance of good things in the future. Sure we can have faith that the Lord will be with us regardless of what  happens. And hey, maybe He will bless you with some special knowledge. But for the rest of us He has given us brains and the ability to study and learn and to examine our decisions. I imagine we should use them and not depend on post hoc reasoning and Super Bowl wins to predict our lives. Instead we should strive to obey the Lord’s laws and commands and use our heads, no matter how fun it would be to be able to predict the future from a football game.

Habakkuk 3:17 Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, 18 Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.…

——————————————————-W.