Lesson Study #9 - The Triumph of Faith

Here is the direct link to this week's study:

http://www.ssnet.org/qrtrly/eng/06d/less09.html

Let the study and discussion of this week's lesson topic begin.

The Memory Text says, "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me" (Genesis 22:12).

Didn't Abraham have another son before he had Isaac, as brought out in a previous lesson?

Then why is Isaac referred to as Abraham's "only son"?

Sunday's study has an interesting title, Lying Through Silence.

How does one tell a lie through silence?

Maybe Ishmael didn't count because he was ill-conceived.

Because of Abraham's suppression of the truth, God said to Abimelech, "Behold, thou art but a dead man." I would say that's an injury.

But what I find most interesting is what God said in Gen 20:6: "Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her."

Because Abimelech acted with integrity in the matter, God kept him from sinning. Why doesn't God do this all the time?

I found this interesting:

"Even the intentional suppression of truth, by which injury may result to others, is a violation of the ninth commandment." {PP 309.3}

We must consider if a greater injury results from telling the truth or from omitting it.

In this case, murder vs adultery.

Are we in a position to make this determination?



But then

Full disclosure is not always possible, or advisable. But does that excuse "white lies" now and then?

Of course you misunderstood me. The quote says:

"Even the intentional suppression of truth, by which injury may result to others, is a violation of the ninth commandment." {PP 309.3}

Notice that the quote does not say, "by which injury may result to oneself," but "by which injury may result to others". So even if Abraham might be murdered, this wouldn’t have been a valid reason for omitting the truth if by this omission injury might result to others. Besides, the omission of truth must not be equivalent to a lie (white or whatever color).

Let’s exemplify. Suppose the police is persecuting Christians. If no one is at risk, you don’t need to raise your hand and say: "Hey, I’m a Christian. You must arrest me!" But suppose you are in a group of people and the police arrives and says: "Are there any Christians here?" Keeping silent would be equivalent to saying "No," therefore the omission of truth would be a lie. Or suppose the police says, "We know there is a Christian here. If this Christian doesn’t present himself, everybody here will die." The omission of truth would result in injury to others, therefore the Christian must reveal that he is a Christian, even if this results in injury to himself.

Actually, that is what I meant. Murder and adultery injure the perpetrator even more than the victim.

I see what you're talking about, but I'm not sure I really understand the underlying principles.

How about Rahab?

Rahab acted to the best of her knowledge, but she evidently lied.

What about Corrie Ten Boom in relation to her hiding of the Jews from the Germans?

While the discussion continues in relation to Sunday's study, I want to bring Monday's study on The Birth of Isaac into the topic.

With the birth of Isaac, the long awaited promise is fulfilled, however, even with the birth of the promised son, "What follows is a painful example of what it means to live with the consequences of sin, even after that sin has been forgiven."

From Monday's study comes the following questions:

1. What sad events eventually followed the birth of Isaac?
2. How did the Lord help ease Abraham's pain at having to send his son away?

That's another good example. I'm sure we can think of many.

But here's the quote again:

Does God ever sanction falsehood?

Webster's New World Dictionary defines "deceive" as "to make (a person) believe what is not true". But the additional explanation throws a better light on it: "deceive implies deliberate misrepresentation of facts by words, actions, etc., generally to further one's ends."

Could hiding people or objects (as Bibles) be classified as deceiving?

I think this could be classified as a forbidden action, or as a transgression of a law, but not as deceit, unless you are questioned about it and tell a lie (which was what Rahab did, but not what, as far as I know, Corrie did).

Jesus in His judgment did not say He was the Son of God until specifically questioned about it.

But what about the biblical testimony about Rahab?

Since it has been concluded here that she lied, and that lying is a sin, it concludes that the conviction of her is sinner.

But the bible say about her Heb 11:31 By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.

And Jam 2:25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

Despite 'sinning' in doing so, she is praised by these apostles who wrote these letters for both her faith and her works. How can this be? A lying whore gets praise among the giants of faith in hebrews and is the postergirl for James argument about working faith. Did we miss out on the letter or the spirit of the law since we have this difficulty in reaching the same conclusion that the apostles did?

Doesn't Jesus lineage include Rahab? I listed to a sermon by CD Brooks called "God in bad comapny", and this was mentioned explicitly. Worth checking out.
God Bless,
Will

This brings us to Wednesday's study on the interesting aspect of the close connection between Faith and Works in relation to this week's study.



What is faith not in the above quote?

What is faith in the following quote?



It says "faith means obeying God."

What does "faith means obeying God" actually mean?

There are 24 different hebrew words that are at least once translated as some versions of "deceit" in the KJV, ie, to deceive, deceitful, deceit and so forth. Which one that is used in the specific situation isnt unimportant. Strongs08267 for instance refers to lying while Strongs08582 refers to "causing to walk the wrong way" and a third strongs04123 refers to deception/illusion. Why do I write this? I am of the oppinion that the meaning of the hebrew word is much more interesting for understanding what the bible means than the english word that some translator choose to use. In some instances the word exists in 30-40 places in the OT and only be translated deception once. In such case it would be more profitable to know what the word means the 39 times it is not translated deception than what the word means in websters the one time it is translated deception.
IMO.

/Thomas

Isn't it interesting the various discussions that can come out of this week's lesson study!?!

Pursuing Wednesday's study further, I quote James 2:17-26 as noted in Wednesday's study.



The above quoted text said in two places that a man is justified by works.

I thought a man was justified by faith!?!?!

Can anybody help me here?

I've heard that "faith" as used in the Bible could be better translated "faithfulness." I've also heard that "faith" is more a verb than it is a noun. The following verse supports that idea.



The "faith chapter" of Hebrews lists people of faith. And each time, their faith was demonstrated by their actions.

Thomas,


Exactly. She acted to the best of her knowledge. At that time she didn’t know lying was wrong. She believed God and believed He could save her, and acted out her faith in God sheltering the spies, although she had so little knowledge about Him and His ways. This shows the size of her faith.


I just mentioned Webster because we were discussing a phrase of Ellen White ("an intention to deceive is what constitutes falsehood"), although a study about the biblical word could be very interesting.


Daryl,


Paul emphasizes that man is not justified by the works of the law (that is, obeying the law in order to be saved), and James is emphasizing that man is justified by the works of faith, in the sense that, if you have faith, you will act it out, as Arnold said.

But do we know what she though and what she knew? As I think has been mentioned earlier in this thread, there arent that many cultures on earth where lying is not considered wrong. Especially lying to ones own people to protect the enemy. They had likely all heard of what Israel had been up to in the desert and what else the rumors brought with them, we can just guess about. Maybe this is better compared with Abraham bringing Isaac to the sacrafice altar than innocently doing something not knowing if it was right or wrong according to different sin criteria.

Continuing on with the deception aspect of this study, what about what Moses said to the Pharoah that wasn't necessarily the truth?

Did God instruct Moses to say this?

An interesting thing about this, which is simply the definition of lying, is that one can lie by telling the truth! That is, is it is one's intention to deceive, and one inadvertantly says something which is true, that's still a lie.

In other words, it's the intent which makes something a lie, not the veracity of what's said.

I often wondered about this:



Afterwards, Moses always told the Pharoah:



I originally questioned the first one in relation to the subsequent ones, which made me wonder whether the first one was a type of deception on the part of God, however, seeing that God never lies and deceives, I now accept them all as being the same.

I am thankful to the LORD for this discussion as this was always a wonder that I had in my mind.

Daryl:The above quoted text said in two places that a man is justified by works.

Arnold:I've heard that "faith" as used in the Bible could be better translated "faithfulness." I've also heard that "faith" is more a verb than it is a noun.

This is an excellent observation! There are times when Paul refers to the "faith of Jesus," and this is an excellent example of your point; that is, this is really dealing with the faithfulness of Jesus, which reveals the righteousness (or character) of God. As we believe Jesus' teachings, then we may become faithful as a representative of God, as Jesus was.

Daryl, I like your "Merry Christmas" banner. Very nice.

The remnant will keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. I see that as knowing God's requirements, and having the faithfulness to obey, as Jesus did. WDYT?

Every sin, every unrighteous action, every transgression of the law of God, tells with a thousandfold more force upon the actor than the sufferer. {TDG 350.1}