When Deep Spiritual Truth Attacks

When I was very young, my mom pointed out that Proverbs has 31 chapters -- one for every day of the month (yes, Martha, even those months with 30 or 28 days). I've been in the New Testament for the past long time, so today I decided to add a chapter of Proverbs to what I was reading in Philippians.

When I got to the end of Proverbs 5 (which is not really a G-rated chapter) this morning, I read this:

For the Lord sees clearly what a man does,

examining every path he takes.
An evil man is held captive by his own sins;
they are ropes that catch and hold him.
He will die for lack of self-control;
he will be lost because of his great foolishness.
(Proverbs 5:21-23, NLT)

I imagined what it would've been like under the old covenant; before Jesus had come and before believers had received the Holy Spirit. There is the fact that a believer is to resist the devil, and to run away from temptation, but because we have the Holy Spirit living in us, those of us post-Christ really had an advantage. We have the same choices to make as those who lived under the old covenant, but with an Ace in the hole, and I thought about what a great blog post that would make.

I began to ponder other Scripture that would address this kind of situation, and I thought about common objections that might come up. Had to be prepared for contingencies, you know.

Before very long, the Holy Spirit pointed out to me what it was that God wanted to tell me this morning. And here's what He said:

For the Lord sees clearly what a man does,
examining every path he takes.
An evil man is held captive by his own sins;
they are ropes that catch and hold him.
He will die for lack of self-control;
he will be lost because of his great foolishness.
(Proverbs 5:21-23, NLT)

Sometimes going for "deeper" truth is a worthy and excellent thing. However, sometimes that urge is a tool the enemy uses to obscure the plan and simple meaning of Scripture.

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The "Best" Lies...

I thought I stole this from a wise old adage, but I can't find the saying, so I guess it's possible that this is a new adage (though, I think, a saying must be old in order to qualify for adage-ness). I tweeted it the other day.

The most heinous lies are woven with the fabric of partial truth. This is why hypocrisy among the saints conveys such a damaging message.

(I was going to say "damning message," but I have enough followers on Twitter that I thought I'd run the risk of ruining the message of the tweet by using what would likely be deemed a curse word by some, so I didn't. In this context, however, "damning" wouldn't qualify as an expletive.)

I want to say "adage" a couple of more times in the post, so... I think that the phrase might qualify for "adage" if I'd used the bad word and left off the second sentence. Nobody remembers a long adage. But the point I wanted to make was actually the second sentence.

Speaking of remembering, I did find an old saying about lies, and smiled when I read it. Abe Lincoln was a pretty smart man: "No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar." Maybe that's why we think partial truth helps.

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Rationalizing Our Words

Sometimes a phrase will mean one thing to us and something else entirely to another person.

The first recording I engineered from start to finish ('way back in the late 80's, when we actually had to use grease pencils and razor blades to splice things and had to flip the reel-to-reel tape around backward when we wanted to make cool, trade secret special effects like reverse reverb) was of a band called Aces 'n' Eights, and the song they recorded (yes, just one song) was called "Runs, Runs, Runs."

I don't know if I really need to elaborate on that much further.



Sometimes this kind of faux pas can go in the "Whoops!" category, which will hopefully make it funny (like the example above).

But as we move from childhood to adulthood, I've observed that we begin to realize that all situations are not necessarily black and white, and as a result we can fall into a snare of rationalization that has us massaging a particular set of words or circumstances to give an impression of one thing so that we'll be technically accurate, but can gracefully sidestep the real truth. It's a conscious effort at first, but the more it's done, the more we begin to think that this is somehow acceptable. Very dangerous ground for someone who claims to walk in the Truth!

This is where we begin to climb into one of the many limbs of hypocrisy, and it doesn't end with just words. Here are some everyday "rationalization situations" (I think Jesse Jackson needs to use that phrase some time...):

• "Oh, no! I forgot to finish this spreadsheet! I'd better see if my buddy Joe dropped the ball on anything so that I can hint that it's his fault! I won't come out and say it's his fault -- that'd be lying."
• "They just wouldn't understand if I told them the whole situation." (This statement has validity sometimes; depends upon when it's said.)
• "I told my buddy Joe that I couldn’t have lunch with him today because ‘something came up.’ Now I’ll have to find a far-away restaurant to eat lunch with Fred (the thing that ‘came up’)."

I believe what happens is that we learn to manipulate situations and conversation instead of speaking the plain, pure truth. Just as faith like a child does not involve hedging one's bets, living with a pure heart does not involve deceit.

Does anyone want to live a life
    that is long and prosperous?
Then keep your tongue from speaking evil
    and your lips from telling lies!
- Psalm 34:12-13 (NLT)

Given all this, what happens when we're presented with a situation in which someone asks us, "Does this outfit make me look big?" and we actually think that it does make them look big? How do you edify without lying?

• "This food is tasty [but it tastes horrible!]." (thanks to Tony for bringing this one to mind)
• "No one can sing quite like she can [thank goodness!]."
• "Your son's performance on the test was unbelievable [-- you can tell he didn't read the book.]."

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Elihu Syndrome?

Came across this in today's Scripture reading. Isn't it odd how Job's friend Elihu was absolutely right about what he was saying about God, but wrong in applying it to Job?

Look up into the sky,
and see the clouds high above you.
If you sin, how does that affect God?
Even if you sin again and again,
what effect will it have on him?
If you are good, is this some great gift to him?
What could you possibly give him?
No, your sins affect only people like yourself,
and your good deeds also affect only humans.
- Job 35:5-8 (NLT)

This is the same thing that we're prone to do when reading a Scripture and thinking, "Jeepers, so-and-so needs this word from the Lord (but I don't)." I've mentioned this syndrome before, and I think surely it's got to have a name.

(By the way, here's a great perspective-giving line from the above Scripture: "If you are good, is this some great gift to [God]?")

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