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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| Liars and Lying. |
John 8:44: "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. [NASB] I love the clarity of Christ's words here in that He says, "he speaks from his own nature..." I have heard even (otherwise) godly men and mature believers use the example of Rahab to suggest that it is sometimes okay to lie. They reason that a lie is no longer wicked if it is being told to spare someone else pain, death or "needless" grief.
I suggest to you this day that there is only one reason that a person lies: It is because telling the truth in the given situation won't serve that person's desires.
I suggest to you this day that there is only one reason that a person lies: It is because telling the truth in the given situation won't serve that person's desires.
Even a lie that benefits others (think Rahab in Joshua 2:3-5) is still told because the teller believes that telling the lie will yeild a better outcome for them, than telling the truth would. By faith the harlot Rahab welcomed the spies of Israel in peace, and for this she was grafted into Israel - but there was nothing faithful about her lying. Had she spilled the beans, God would have saved her just the same, and He would have preserved those spies too.
I know that some of you reading don't really believe that, and you don't believe that because you think that life is more important than anything else. You believe that unless God preserves a person's life, He is not serving the greatest good, and that is because you have exalted life as a greater good than God. I have written on this philosophical pollutant before. Try to imagine, for a moment, that God is not obligated to keep Rahab or the spies alive, and you might understand why I say that it was wrong for Rahab to lie. Her life is not so valuable, nor the lives of those spies, as to warrant telling a single lie to protect them. In lying she was relying on her own resources to spare her life, because she loved her life more than she loved truth, and since it was her opinion that the truth wouldn't serve her life, she set it aside in order to embrace what she felt would.
This post however is not a judgment of Rahab, but I go there just because if I didn't someone else would.
Until we see the lie for what it is, we are blind. When we lie, we are doing exactly what Christ described the devil as doing: we are speak from our own nature, and we do so in order to protect, pamper, and serve that nature; we lie in order to satify and gratify the flesh and its desires.
I was going preemptively answer a bunch of objections at this point - you know, the fringe examples - what about this horrible, but unlikely situation where the "best" thing you can do is tell a lie. Listen: The best thing you can do is sometimes keep your mouth shut, and if you are forced into a choice between lying or telling the truth - let me reiterate this again - the deciding reason you will lie is because it serves your interests to do so. Maybe there are ten other reasons, all of them great reasons, and each of them presenting themselves as altruistic, holy, and good - and surely you will be powerfully motivated and moved by such things, but these will not be the primary reason you will set the truth aside. The primary reason you will set aside the truth is because you are convinced that it won't serve YOUR PURPOSES as well as a lie will.
Chew on that, liar, until you can swallow it.Labels: lies and lying |
posted by Daniel @
9:33 AM
 
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| 6 Comments: |
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There is a scene in The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom where her sister is hiding Jews and her house is raided. Without time to make it to their secret room, a couple young men hide under the kitchen table, hidden only by the tablecloth. When the Nazis ask if she is hiding any Jews, she says "Yes." When asked where, she says "Under the kitchen table." The Nazis, standing in the kitchen next to the table, think she is crazy or stupid, but do not believe she is telling the truth. They leave, never looking under the table.
I know this is an extreme example, but that lady believed lying was a sin, and also believed God would work good even if telling the truth would have revealed those men to the Nazis.
An amazing example of faith and obedience. I have thought on that many times for courage to do the right thing.
-Jen
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Correction -
Actually, it was the lady's two teenage sons who were hiding from the Nazis so they wouldn't be conscripted for service. My apologies for the error.
-Jen
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Amen! Now down with Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy! Lies that parents believe are beneficial.
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Good post Daniel.
Who wouldn't want his children to believe that their father is a man of his word, a man that tells the truth, and a man who is honest.
Lying is deadly. It's a root that needs to be cut from its deep embedding in the human heart.
And there are so many ways to lie. The devil has many ways he bends the truth: Satan loves to lie. It's a good feeling for him.
Can we have the tooth fairy, Santa, and Mickey Mouse?
Sure, but for the Christian it should be different than the unbeliever, I think.
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How can a Christian do Santa Claus with their children without lying?
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It's like make believe, like Scooby Doo and Shaggy aren't real, but yound kids may think they are. Or Mickey Mouse, or Bozo the Clown, and Captian Kangaroo.
Personally, I grew up with the whole Santa Claus thing, I was a child in a semi-devoted Catholic family with 5 siblings. We didn't really have Christ, just religion.
I wouldn't do the Santa thing now. But if I did, then it would be a make believe type of deal, like the tooth fairy.
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There is a scene in The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom where her sister is hiding Jews and her house is raided. Without time to make it to their secret room, a couple young men hide under the kitchen table, hidden only by the tablecloth. When the Nazis ask if she is hiding any Jews, she says "Yes." When asked where, she says "Under the kitchen table." The Nazis, standing in the kitchen next to the table, think she is crazy or stupid, but do not believe she is telling the truth. They leave, never looking under the table.
I know this is an extreme example, but that lady believed lying was a sin, and also believed God would work good even if telling the truth would have revealed those men to the Nazis.
An amazing example of faith and obedience. I have thought on that many times for courage to do the right thing.
-Jen