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follower wrote:Thank for the thoughts, but I don't consider that the best understanding of the issue.

follower wrote:So how about 1 Samuel 16?

16 And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.

2 And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord.

3 And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee.

4 And Samuel did that which the Lord spake, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably?

5 And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.

If any person did what God did in this passage, most would call it being deceitful, if not outright lying.

Definitely food for thought when considering the subject of lying.

follower wrote:Thank for the thoughts, but I don't consider that the best understanding of the issue.

1) Even if it is okay to lie in specific, extreme circumstances, we’re talking about a tiny exception. 99.999999999999999% of the time we must tell the truth.

I’m concerned that all of you will leave this conversation believing in an exception that will probably never apply to you. For every one time someone has lied for a good reason one million people have lied for the wrong reason, thinking they were protecting themselves or someone else, when it reality they were refusing to trust God and were taking matters into their own hands.

Once you make room for this exception it becomes easy to rationalize (i.e. rational lies) fudging on the truth in situations that do not demand it.

2) I am not convinced that Rahab and the Hebrew midwives should be used to support lying for two reasons:

• First, the lack of explicit condemnation is not proof of God’s approval. Rahab was also a prostitute, which is mentioned and never condemned.

• Second, each of these women were non-Hebrews at the time. They are examples of people being drawn to the living God and to the people of God. They are not examples of mature faith and practice.

3) A better Old Testament example would be David on the run from Saul. David was a mature man of God who had received the Holy Spirit when Samuel anointed him the future king of Israel.

He lied to the high priest in order to obtain Goliath’s sword and holy bread from the temple. His actions resulted in almost all of the priests being slaughtered by King Saul and he took responsibility for their deaths. Later he deceived the King of the Philistines by pretending to be insane. He wrote a Psalm inspired by that experience.

I would love to see everyone delve into these examples a bit more. I don’t think they are conclusive one way or the other, but they are probably more applicable to modern believers than the examples of Rahab and the Hebrew midwives.

4) The lack of New Testament examples of lying “for a greater truth” make me question the whole argument. For that matter, I don’t see any New Testament examples of ever sacrificing one kind of obedience for the sake of some greater obedience.

Rather I read, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" — 1 Corinthians 10:13 (ESV).

Now, this verse is not specifically addressing lying, but there are enough examples of Christians refusing to lie and God providing "a way of escape" to convince me that this verse applies to the topic at hand.

5) I am not comfortable with the idea of moral contradictions — that wrong will ensue regardless of our choices, requiring us to select the lesser of two evils. It is easy to create such a situation in hypothetical, I have never heard of one in real life.

For example, you can create the hypothetical where a Nazi asks you whether a person with you is a Jew. If you say yes, she will be arrested. If you say no, you will be lying. Bad result either way, right? A classic moral contradiction.

We must stop playing God! We are not all-knowing. To think we can narrow the possible outcomes of our actions to two black-and-white scenarios is the height of arrogance and a refusal to believe that God can make a way even when we don’t see how.

The “hypothetical” example above actually happened to Corrie Ten Boom’s sister, Nollie. She chose to tell the truth, resulting in her own arrest and the arrest of the Jew with her. And yet she insisted that no ill would come to the Jew as a result her obedience. She trusted God to make a way. And He did. Five days later the Jew was miraculously rescued.

6) All that being said, I realize that even Corrie Ten Boom was unsure where to land on this question. This is not an easy topic and my remarks are only intended to counterbalance what has been a largely one-sided discussion so far. If everyone was arguing for the opposite position, I would probably have had some counter-balancing things to say in the other direction.

7) If anything I’ve said is unclear or bothers you in any way, please respond and let me know. I’d be happy to clarify or reconsider what I’ve written.

Valerie wrote:

follower wrote:Thank for the thoughts, but I don't consider that the best understanding of the issue.

Could you please explain why? Or what you are thinking about this in relation to the Scriptures you shared?

justme wrote:i've been thinking about this off and on this weekend.
this was the top religious leader of the time. when he said, "i'm coming to sacrifice to God," no one questioned him. his motive was NOT to worship God, his motive was to overthrow the current king. and the coup was sanctioned by God.

it's no wonder that people get caught up in cults. apparently even God knows that people don't usually question people in authority who invoke God's name.

Joy wrote:Follower, I don't understand what you mean by Samuel lying. Do you think he didn't sacrifice, or didn't come in peace, or what?

buckeyematt2 wrote:I don't think this is 100% clear cut. But the vast majority of us will probably never be in a situation where it would be okay.