The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Lying

Tom,


Didn't you see my response?

Sorry I missed your response, but I will give you credit for it.

Tom

[img]https://the-highway.com/Smileys/censored.gif[/img]. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. 2 The king of Jericho was told, “Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” 3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.” 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.

Did she break commandment number nine "You shall not bear false witness?"

God detests lying and reminds us from beginning to end of this. Yet, here Rahab is commended for what she did for her faith, and is included in our Lord's ancestry.
Matt. 1:5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,

Heb. 11:31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

Consider the lies of Sarah:
Gen. 18:15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

and those of her husband: Gen. 20:1 Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, 2 and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”

This does not excuse lying for convenience and it would be dangerous to consider lies of convenience as morally permissible. Are these examples of situational ethics?

If christians are to live as people of the Truth, particularly in an era when truth is seen as something that is highly subjective, the question of lying poses an interesting problem to consider. Thanks for the post.

None of the people in the examples you gave were commended for their lying, but their "acts of faith". Rahab sinned when she lied; plain and simple. Because of the weakness of our flesh and the remaining indwelling sin, Christians will lie given the right circumstances. But, being vulnerable to temptation doesn't excuse us or abrogate the Ninth Commandment, unless you are an Antinomian of course, then you don't have to worry about any of those moral laws! . But for those of us who hold to objective, "true truth", and who are called to be analogs of God, in Whom there is no falsehood, we are obligated to tell the truth in all situations.

In His Grace,

Oy Vay Pilgrim, I've been called a lot of things before but an antanomian heretic? Yikes, certainly a leap off the board.

Antinomian heretic: One who maintains that, under the gospel dispensation, the moral law is of no use or obligation, but that faith alone is necessary to salvation. The sect of Antinomians originated with John Agricola, in Germany, about the year 1535. --Mosheim. (yours truly Anne Hutchinson)

My position certainly does not to embrace such heresy but to the contrary advocates a solid commitment to obedience of the scriptures. 1 John 1:5 "This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth." Not that I am successful. I fall short but I make it my goal to obey the Lord in all things. I strive to speak the truth in love. Eph. 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

I aim for the truth, making perfection my goal, yet I fail to achieve this my goal of godliness. Oi vay, for certainly I am a profane woman. I want to do the right thing and don't, and as such I depend totally on Christ for my redemption. As I confess these things to you, I find comfort in St. Augustines words, "But my true brothers are those who rejoice for me in their hearts when they find good in me, and grieve for me when they find sin. They are my true brothers, because whether they see good in me or evil, the love me still."

And this too is true, the more I contemplate the holiness of God the more dread I feel for my soul. Like Isaiah when he was in the temple.

Is. 6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

…and recognizing more deeply my complete dependence on His grace, and desire to live in the light.

chestnutmare,

Obviously, you took something I wrote which was NOT intended as a reference to YOU and applied it to yourself and consequently went off on a mini tirade! :laugh; Here is what I specifically wrote:

The you in the above quote was meant to be generic, NOT a direct reference to you personally. Perhaps you haven't been reading some of the other threads going on here that are discussing the perpetuity and binding nature of the moral law of God in regard to believers? Thus my tongue-in-cheek comment was directed at those who are trying desperately to defend their Antinomian views against the great weight of Scripture and the long history of the Calvinistic churches. Please notice also, the Smiley which was included in that remark as well. It was meant as a "rib" and not a judgment upon the view you have been expressing.

Okay, now that this unfortunate misunderstanding has been cleared up.... carry on!!

In His Grace,

You're right. I haven't had time to look at all of the other threads yet so I didn't understand your reference. However, I tried to put some of those characters in my post and couldn't so you missed some of my humor as well. I'll have to read up on graemlin useage.

Chestnut Mare,
Go to the graemlin you want and click it. The "code" for the graemlin will go to the place where the curser is flashing in the reply box. Click on "More Graemlins" for more choices.
Hope that makes sense!

Susan,

I suppose next you will be asking to get paid for giving out this type of advice here, eh?

Yeah, it's time for a raise!

Oh dear! Not another one....

Right! I know you all might think I'm lying but, I really did try that before. And furthermore, why does Pilgrim get all of the fun graemlins?

Well, how did I do?

You should check out this: Emotipad Plus. (Click on the "EmotiPad Plus" button on the left.)

And although this thread is quite old, the "Special Offer" is still valid for The Highway registered members: Emotipad PLUS Special Offer. See the bottom link on the page.

Long defunct now.

you were going to say its in the mail

You really DO have a sense of humor, don't you John! But, if I would have said that, then I'd be a , and we know that lying isn't acceptable under any circumstances, even to placate Susan.