In considering whether it is ever OK to tell a lie, we should distinguished between a general principle and a legitimate exception.
Peter was enunciating a general principle when he wrote:
…1 Peter 2:13–15 — Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme 14 or to governors as those he commissions to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good. 15 For God wants you to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good.
Is forgiveness unilateral? Must we – can we, even – forgive those who refuse to repent?
Our gut reaction – especially in a day when ‘unconditional love’ is such a popular notion – is probably that it is, we must, and we can (forgive the unrepentant, that is).
But God doesn’t do that. If we we imagine that we can be reconclied with God, regardless of repentance, then we have landed ourselves right in the middle of the heresy of universalism.…
Thinking about our Lord’s teaching on truthfulness in Matthew 5:33-37, I was led to this article, by Paul Carter.
What follows is a summary:
1. What Does Not Constitute A Lie?
(a) A simple mistake
Some people are better ‘historians’ than others. They recall, with a high degree of precision, names, dates and times. Others of us are not so gifted in the area. We might get a detail wrong, and be corrected by someone with a more reliable memory (our wives, perhaps?).…
Psa 122:6a – Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
This psalm, and especially this particular expression, is a favourite of Christian Zionists, who urge all Christians simply to obey the command, and pray for the city, so troubled and divided to this very day. Indeed, it is sometimes implied that if Christians do not do this, then they are living, in a rather fundamental way, out of God’s will and purpose. Citing this verse, Kenneth Hagee claims that ‘the scriptural principle of prosperity is tied to blessing Israel and the city of Jerusalem.’ …
An honest man’s the noblest work of God. Alexander Pope.
One’s mere word should be as trustworthy as a signed agreement attested by legal witnesses.
Curtis Vaughan
If faith does not make a man honest, it is not an honest faith
C. H. Spurgeon
Honesty is a question of right and wrong, not a matter of policy.
Anon.
Truth is always strong, no matter how weak it looks, and falsehood is always weak, no matter how strong it looks.…
I have observed that a Christian denomination (no less than an individual Christian, or a local congregation) can drift away from the central truths of our faith without actually denying any one of those truths.
D.A. Carson puts it like this:
‘I have heard a Mennonite leader assess his own movement in this way. One generation of Mennonites cherished the gospel and believed that the entailment of the gospel lay in certain social and political commitments.…
17:34 “I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 17:35 There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
Is one ‘taken’ in judgment, or in salvation?
Interpreters hold a range of opinions.
(a) Some are not sure
Perrin: ‘whether in judgment or salvation is not clear’.
Some others do venture an opinion, but tentatively.…
Numbers 3:40 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Number all the firstborn males of the Israelites from a month old and upward, and take the number of their names. 3:41 And take the Levites for me—I am the LORD—instead of all the firstborn males among the Israelites, and the livestock of the Levites instead of all the firstborn of the livestock of the Israelites.” 3:42 So Moses numbered all the firstborn males among the Israelites, as the LORD had commanded him.…
If firm evidence of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt is scant, then we might try looking in the opposite direction.
What signs are there that the Israelites, after their entry to the Promised Land, brought with them signs of their Egyptian past?
James Bejon argues that traces of Egypt’s influence can be found within the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures.
One notable example is the word for the Acacia tree (shittah). Of its 28 occurrences in the Bible, 26 are found in the Book of Exodus. …
Summarising Whose Promised Land? (5th edition), by Colin Chapman, part of chapter 4.
From Gen 12:1-3 onwards, the promise that Abraham and his descendants will inherit ‘the land’ looms large in the storyline of the Old Testament.
Abraham himself owned just a tiny parcel of land – a field which served as the final resting-place of his wife Sarah (Gen 23:17f). The conquest of the land would fall to Joshua and others.
This biblical account no doubt resonates with many Israeli Jews today. …
