Posted on 08/19/2023 5:40:04 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Interesting answer. Some truth to that.
Clearly Rahab lied, clearly Esau cheated (a form of lying) and were blessed.
I think the subtle answer is, “Honey, if you like it, I love it.”
The current variation from my wife:
“I don’t really look like an old woman, do I?”
:-)
I think you should further study the case of Esau ... Two times it is recorded that the Heavenly Father hated Esau ... and loved Jacob ... in the record of the new testament the Heavenly Father says He hated Esau before he was even born of woman... Esau sold his birthright ... and the Heavenly Father took his blessing ..
To have the Heavenly Father state two times He hated Esau is not a blessing in my thinking.
The point remains, God blessed a cheater and liar, for whatever His reason.
No the midwives in Egypt.
Rahab and Esau are not pure examples.
The midwives were (1) God fearing Jews and (2) Obeying God.
God blesses cheaters every day. Or else everybody would be dead.
We have all sinned and gone astray.
God knows everything. Was there something he overlooked? Of course not.
What God cares about is the HEART. In the short term, our actions lie (in either direction). For example, you can do GOOD things for a bad motive.
God is not fooled by outward appearances like we are.
I’ve met guys who were POWs in Hanoi. They lied. Good on ‘em! Not everyone deserves the truth and the verses against lying aren’t meant to cover that situation.
“Two times it is recorded that the Heavenly Father hated Esau”
Actually, that refers to Esau AS A TRIBE. The man was treated well by God.
I don’t agree with him either.
The word says Esau .... Not tribe Malachi 1:3-14
1 The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.
2 I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob,
3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
4 Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.
5 And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel.
6 A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name?
7 Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.
8 And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts.
9 And now, I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us: this hath been by your means: will he regard your persons? saith the Lord of hosts.
10 Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.
11 For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.
12 But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible.
13 Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord.
14 But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.
Romans 9... nothing to do about a tribe it was Esau the daddy of the bear nation....
6Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: 7Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. 9For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. 10And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; 11(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) 12It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. 13As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Dude, Malachi was written LONG after Esau died!
Well, just duh…. Madam. Malachi was Written to you and me.. Malachi is called a minor prophet. You might be surprised what else the other minor prophets penned for our benefit.. but carry on, some of the prophecies do not apply to those with the spirit of slumber.
Oh, I am a mom of three. And I have done my homework!
Well, MADAM - Did God bless Esau DURING HIS LIFE? Sure looks like it. His descendants turned away and were punished, but that doesn’t mean God hated the man Esau.
OF COURSE Malachi was written for our benefit - assuming we understand what it says and what it does not.
““Was not Esau Jacob’s brother! saith the Lord: and I loved Jacob, and Esau have I hated.” “While they were yet in their mother’s womb, before any good or evil deserts of either, God said to their mother Genesis 25:23, The older shall serve the younger. The hatred was not a proper and formed hatred (for God could not hate Esau before he sinned) but only a lesser love,” which, in comparison to the great love for Jacob, seemed as if it were not love.
“So he says Genesis 29:31. The Lord saw that Leah was hated; where Jacob’s neglect of Leah, and lesser love than for Rachel, is called ‘hatred;’ yet Jacob did not literally hate Leah, whom he loved and cared for as his wife.”
This greater love was shown in preferring the Jews to the Edomites, giving to the Jews His law, Church, temple, prophets, and subjecting Edom to them; and especially in the recent deliverance “He does not speak directly of predestination, but of pre-election, to temporal goods.” God gave both nations alike over to the Chaldees for the punishment of their sins; but the Jews He brought back, Edom He left unrestored.”
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/bnb/malachi-1.html
Well yes, if He never blessed cheaters and liars, we’d all be doomed.
The theological point is, is lying blessed? Or is it a sin that Christ covered for us?
Some think that some lies are not sins (I am in that camp). But I could be wrong. And I know the danger is, once you think that, you can start justifying all sorts of lies, not just the very narrow situations.
Let us not forget the Hebrew midwives, specifically commended for the act:
Exodus 1
“19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they [e]are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
20 Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and [f]grew very mighty. 21 And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He [g]provided households for them.”
Some say they were therefore blessed for their justifiable lie. Some say they were blessed for their faith, in spite of sinning by lying. For me that is a stretch.
Maybe the answer to this, like all other decisons, is what is in our hearts when we do it.......................
that’s what I was mentioning....how can someone who’s supposedly a expert on biblical topics NOT know about this?
There are two approaches to the "Gestapo officer at the door and you are hiding Jews" question, neither of which the article seems to address.
One is the "mental reservation" approach. You say to the officer, "There are no Jews here". What you mean is "There are no Jews here whom I will permit you to take and kill", but you simply don't say the last part. The idea is that carefully chosen silence is not the same as a lie.
I don't really like that approach.
My preference is the argument that lying is deceiving or withholding truth from someone who has the right to know.
It's a slam dunk that, if I have a well-founded suspicion that the person asking the question is going to do something extremely evil with the information (killing completely innocent people), he doesn't have the "right to know," and it is totally reasonable to withhold truth or even to lie outright if there's no other choice.
I feel like I should note that "something extremely evil" doesn't include "inflicting just punishment on me for a crime I have committed," which would be just, not extremely evil. I would not therefore be morally justified in lying to cover up a crime I had committed.
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