Results 1 - 8 of 8
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | is it ok to lie in certain cases | Col 3:9 | bowler | 207913 | ||
Steve I agree that God's laws are perfect and absolute. But what about Rahab? What are we to think? What if laying down your life for the person someone else is trying to kill is not an option being laid out on the table, like Jonathon's lie of ommission in letting David go free when Saul was trying to kill him? Question; according to scripture was Rahab's motive to save her own hide? Yes, and to recognize God. Question was Jonathon's motive to save his own hide? No, it was to save David's and recognize David's right to be the future king of Israel. Both had their actions approved by God and that included lying, although the scriptures do not say that God condoned that particular part. But since there was never going to be plan B, then God ordained that they would lie, whether that was a sin or not, to save some lives that were central to God's plan that they remain alive; all of Israel through the actions of 4 spies to take Jericho, and David to be king of Israel. I am not saying God condones sin, but He used it to His own ends. That makes me think hard about Bathsheba, there was never going to be a plan B, David's adulterous relationship was always going to result in Solomon, of the direct lineage of Jesus. God chose not to do it any other way, and that involved two sins, murder and adultery. Man is still responible for his sins, whatever they are, they will be punished, but sin is also part of God's plan. Doc turned me on to a whole bunch of posts on this, but I can't find them right now. I think if you type "Secondary Causes" or "Causes as Secondary Causes" or some such you will be able to find it. Interesting stuff. This also makes me think about the woman who got caught by the Germans for hiding Anne Frank. If I have the story right, she never spent even one day suffering, or being punished in any way for hiding Anne Frank by the Germans. Her motive was not self protection in lying by ommission and illegaly hiding Jews. Someone correct me if I am wrong. I would say to you that you are right God's laws are never limited and they are absolute. But by the same token whatever He decides will happen are righteous and holy descisions that may include all kinds of things that His laws state are not righteous and holy - He never contradicts the law because He is perfect. Question; why would you assume that God would be pleased that you stood on Biblical principle and refused to lie as if that were a better good than saving a life just to save a life by lying? Which one is worse lying, or being complicit in murder? That reminds me of a certain group of people that believed you could not do anything on the Sabbath because it was one of the Ten Commandment sins, as is lying, but Jesus said to them, "which one of you would not break the law to save the life of his live stock if it fell down the well?" to paraphrase that is the jist of what He meant. I think that says it all right there. I think we should be willing to consider that there are higher goods and acts than law keeping and preservation of somebody elses life might be one of them. Luke 14:5 And He said to them, "Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?" blessings abound, bowler |
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2 | is it ok to lie in certain cases | Col 3:9 | azurelaw | 207914 | ||
Dear bowler, gotquestions.org provides the below article: Question: "Is it ever right to lie?" Answer: It is never right to lie. The ninth commandment prohibits bearing false witness (Exodus 20:16). Proverbs 6:16-19 lists “a lying tongue” and “a false witness who pours out lies” as two of the seven abominations to the Lord. Love “rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). See also (Psalm 119:29, 163; 120:2; Proverbs 12:22; 13:5; Ephesians 4:25; and Colossians 3:9.) There are many examples of liars in Scripture, from Jacob’s deceit in Genesis 27 to the pretense of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. Time after time, we see that falsehood leads to misery, loss, and judgment. Sometimes a question arises concerning lies that seem to have positive results. For example, the lie the Hebrew midwives tell Pharaoh seems to result in the Lord’s blessing (Exodus 1:15-21). However, it should be obvious that the Lord is blessing the midwives’ rescue of the children, rather than any falsehood they told. God in His mercy blessed them in spite of the lie, notbecause of it. Another example is Rahab’s lie in Joshua 2:5. God never condones her lie, but He does forgive it. Rahab’s life is spared in response to her faith, which she expresses in verses 9-11. God not only forgives Rahab’s lying, but also her idolatry and harlotry—another example of God’s mercy in action. Recommended Resource: Overcoming Sin and Temptation by John Owen. **** Shalom Azure |
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3 | is it ok to lie in certain cases | Col 3:9 | bowler | 207920 | ||
Azure I already pointed out in the cases of Rahab and Jonathon that it was the saving of lives that God accounted as right, and that they lying was not mentioned in the Bible as also being condoned. I was not condoning lying, but saving lives. Are you going to ignore what Jesus told the Pharisees? That they would of course break the law to save a life and that according to Jesus that was the right thing to do? Where did I say lying was right? I said to look at Doc's posts wherein he outlines the theological concept of God's use of Second Causes which sometimes includes man sinning to get done what He alone ordains by plan A because there is no plan B. I am not advocating lying. The entire problem here goes well beyond a simple it is wrong it is right outlook of what a Christian should do, as Jesus pointed out it is right to break a lesser law to save a life. Jesus was not merely showing Pharisees their sin, He was saying that they were hypocrites because anyone in their right mind would do what is necessary to save a life, even break a Ten Commandment that holds lesser weight than preserving a life. How often did Jesus say to the Pharisees that there law keeping of lesser things was not truly righteous. They had laws they made up and laws God made up and Jesus made a point of showing them that they once again were concerened about jots and tittles and were missing the larger intent of the law, which was not keeping jots and tittles in order to be righteous. It was to honor the "intent" of God's laws which could be summed up in two commandments - the Love the Lord they God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself - as He said all the other laws are summed up by these two. Therefore it is not right to allow someone to be murdered because you are so very concerned about lying, it is right, however to do what is in your power to do to save them because the excercise of love towards God and man in preserving a life that God preciously created is more important than maintaining the appearance of personal righteousness, whether virtual or real, keeping that does not trump saving a life. That is not condoning sin, it is choosing a higher commmandment by which to make a decisoin saving God's precious creation over lying. We are not law keepers, the love of Christ prevails over the law. The blood of Jesus is efficasious to cover as smaller sin of lying over being complicit in murder. The concept of saving a life over lying does not lend itself to other less dire reasons to lie, this is not about laying down normative principles of Christian behavior that lying is right. That is taking what I said way out of context. If you had to choose and God did not provide a way out for you, did not provide you another option; would you save the life or hold on to your righteous ability to not lie? God does not always provide a way out. "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. " This text is often misused to pressupose that God will make a way out of any situation as if "temptation" is referring to anything but what it means - to be tempted by a "desire" to sin, not a dire situation you cannot get out of. God did not allow David to escape from Saul for 13 years while he was on the run, God did not provide a way out when David had no choice by the run to Ziklag where he had to slaughter whole towns so that the ruler there would not discover David was lying to his face to survive, the lives of 600 plus people under David's resonsiblity were at stake. God did not provide a way out for any of the sticky situations David was in within which David resorted to subterfuge in various situations to survive until Saul was dead. God does not always provide an avenue where you will be able to do everything right. If he has done so for you, then God bless you. There are plently of people who have endured war time as civilians who did things to survive, it was either do what is necessary to survive or die. I do not think anyone except Jesus is so noble as to be able to endure all things the way He did that God would allow to happen. The Bible teaches that we are to strive and struggle with our salvation and to suffer for the sake of Christ. It does not say that we are supppossed to allow others to die so that we can appear to be righteous people simply for the sake of keeping God's laws. That is what Jesus was saying to the Pharisees. blessings abound, bowler |
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4 | is it ok to lie in certain cases | Col 3:9 | Val | 207923 | ||
Bowler, I agree with you. I heard someone say one time that God does not ask us to check our brains at the door when we come in to church nor should we check them at the door when lives are at stake. That is why I love to read the OT stories of people. There you see where God protects his people in all sorts of ways and sometimes it is to mislead the enemy. I believe he raised up Rahab to protect Israel. Common sense is common sense no matter how you cut it. Walk in the spirit and use common sense sounds good to me. | ||||||
5 | is it ok to lie in certain cases | Col 3:9 | bowler | 207967 | ||
Val Thank you Val. I really do believe that there are higher goods and lesser sins, although I have to admit that that concept of lessers sins has some problems with it. For instance if we break one sin, we break them all, so how could there be a lesser or a greater sin? Do you have any information or thoughts on this troublesome area of things Val? Mathew 7:13 Enter through the narrow gte; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. blessings abound, bowler |
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6 | is it ok to lie in certain cases | Col 3:9 | Val | 207985 | ||
I believe the "if we break one sin, we break them all" topic is in reference to salvation. There are degrees of sin. We have different punishments for different crimes legally. A child rapist is certainly more evil than someone who passes a bad check. The same principle goes in a time of war or personal crisis. An evil person may want to rape the women and children of the house, am I to expect the men of the house to idlely stand by and say well yeah they are in the upstairs bedroom to the right. Duh. I would expect them to do everything in their power lie, cheat, steal, whatever it took to save the women and children in this particular situation. Now God has said we may protect our families and our country so I take that to mean protect them. Its like the former illustration which is the worse the rape of children and women or passing a bad check? I would think very little of a person who did not do all he could to protect the defenseless and innocent. Now if we lived in a perfect world where there would be no evil people, life would be simple but its not so again we must use our common sense. It was given to us for a reason. When evil people threaten our lives and the lives of our loved ones, we can defend ourselves. War is ugly. We do the best we can. God is our judge not our fellow man. So don't sweat the small stuff bowler. Press on. Blessings, Val |
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7 | is it ok to lie in certain cases | Col 3:9 | Morant61 | 207987 | ||
Greetings Val! You wrote: "I would think very little of a person who did not do all he could to protect the defenseless and innocent." This is the problem with situational ethics questions. An assumption is made that there is only one way to achieve the desired end. Do we want to protect innocent women and children from evil? Certainly! But, do we have to sin to accomplish this? No! Self-defense and/or defense of others is not a sin. If someone came into my house and tried to rape my family, they would meet two friends of mine - Smith and Wesson. :-) There is also an omnipotent God that we can depend upon to protect our families. Why would we have to resort to lying, cheating, or stealing? Do we really have so little trust in God that we would have to do things that God has specifically command us not to do? Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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8 | is it ok to lie in certain cases | Col 3:9 | Val | 207990 | ||
Dear Tim, Not every person has guns in their homes so plan B has to go into effect. Again, common sense is the order of the day. God is our judge. He sees the motives of the heart. Let's leave it to Him. Blessings, Val |
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