Fudging the Facts

It was the great Sir Walter Scott who coined the well-known saying Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. Well it is my observation that our society has now got it down pitch perfect given the eons of practice—from the first blood on the ground of the brothers Cain and Abel. Where is your brother? I don’t know!

The euphemisms we employ lend support to the fact that we innately seem to know that lying is wrong; why else would we have assembled such a line-up of alternate words such as: spin, misstatement, misspeak, misinformation, inaccuracies of recollection, deficiencies in reporting the facts, economical with the truth?  And many more.

We lie because we are afraid of the consequences. We lie because we are ashamed and don’t want to be found out. Then we have to lie some more to keep the narrative consistent. It was Quintilian who so rightly observed: A liar should have a good memory.  But when love replaces fear, we have no need to lie, no need to be ambiguous or to obfuscate the actuality.

Or do we still find ourselves fudging the facts—bearing false witness! —for some of the same reasons we always did? Are we in danger of being so “free” that we eschew the imperative of pure, unadulterated, transparent communication, considering it too legalistic to always speak the truth? Do we lie to ourselves and others saying it doesn’t matter, no big deal, little white lie…

Remember when Jesus said, let your yes be yes and your no be no, for anything else is of the evil one? I’ve always wondered about that. Simple, straightforward communication—with as few words as possible —may be a built-in safe guard against prevarication.

But why is it important at all? Perhaps simply because we are built for truth, and when we lie, we violate who we are—made in the image of God of whom it is said, he cannot lie because he is love. When we lie we hurt ourselves and diminish our common life together; trust is broken and we don’t know who or what to believe—making cynics of us all; confusion reigns when liars have to retract statements—nonchalantly apologizing when caught. The world wide web of deceit is degrading, demonic and—so beneath us.

For a longer article on this topic see my web site and under Articles, select Truth on the Throne

Before the Book and Beyond

Touring the Musical Instrument Museum the other day, I slipped off my earphones that had been piping in pulsing, primitive music of Africa, turned around to hear the next musical exhibit, only to be arrested by an enormous map of that continent labeled The Languages of Africa. I was riveted by what appeared—in tiny print all over the map—to be thousands of them. Subsequent research, called Google! revealed that there are perhaps two thousand tongues, branching out of four main language roots. What has that got to do with music? Well, everything as music is indeed the common language of the soul of all mankind. But the rogue thought that arrested me and filled my eyes with tears was this; surely it’s bigger than a book?

Those words came winging out of the stirring recesses of my mind as, over the last few years, I have wrestled with the place of the Bible in our common Christian life. I have grown increasingly uneasy with the worship of the written word over the living Word; over the monikers of so many of our buildings that are called “Bible Fellowship” for example, when our fellowship is not in a book but in a Person. The written word is where we each go to defend our positions, our creeds and our dogmas, and those are then the issues that define us, divide us, and diminish any who would disagree with our exalted exegeses.

We have all no doubt wondered from time to time why Jesus left so little definitive directions for the nascent church—no writings of his own. I think the secret lies in the power-filled pronouncements he made, and which are recorded, in John’s gospel chapter 14. He spoke of the union of his life with ours, that we are included in the Triune life, and that the Spirit whom he would send, would convince us of that awesome fact and would lead us into all truth pertaining to our relationship with God. He did not predict a day when a book would be written that would be the conclusive guidebook for living. 

The very first gathering of the church was a motley crew gathered in a room with only one set of instructions: don’t move until the Spirit comes! And those were the people who turned the world upside down; many died as martyrs—so convinced were they of the truth, so real was the Spirit, and so in love were they with their risen and ascended Lord. They had no New Testament for none had yet been written.

Is it sacrilegious to cast aspersions in this way on the place of the Bible in our lives? Well, we have Jesus saying something very similar to the skeptical Jews of his day: You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life (John 5:39, 40). A pretty spunky statement to throw at the doorkeepers of the law, the legalists, the sticklers for the jots and tittles who put unbearable burdens on the people so they could no longer find their way to God through the maze of man made rules.

They made the same mistake that their modern counterparts have made; they have taken what was meant to be merely the written account that reveals the reality, the shadow that depicts the substance, and posited pride of knowledge, and false security in a book over the indwelling, forever revealing Spirit with whom, in Christ, we are united.

Back to the map of Africa. What I heard was this: Do you really think that I am only relying on the dispensing of Bibles before I can communicate with all these millions of people? With all due deference and gratitude to Wycliffe and other translators, the answer must surely be NO! The Spirit who hovered over the waters and created a universe is not confined to a script of any kind, and neither are we. His Love soars through time and space unhindered and triumphant using all of his created cosmos to speak. And when words fail-- he uses music!

Check out one of my highly recommended web sites, that of Frank Viola at www.ptmin.org

Opening Post - Shelly's Letter to Her Family

Dear Children,


I just wanted to take the time to write you and tell you what has taken me my whole life to learn about God and who he is. I have been in the "church" my whole life and have been going to Bible studies for 15 years trying to learn who He is.

First I want to explain the Bible to you as simply as I can. The Bible is the written Word of God, it is not God. He put the words in people to write it. God didn't make man because he was lonely, as I have always been taught. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (Trinity) were always there from the beginning of time. He wanted to bring us into their circle of love and relationship.

So the Old Testament in a nutshell is talking about Christ's coming. It is a prophecy, which is a prediction of what is to come. When you read it, look for Christ; his thread runs all though the Bible even before he arrived on earth. Before Christ came, God gave man laws to live by like the Ten Commandments. He also had very strict guidelines about the Arc of the Covenant, which was built to hold the Ten Commandments. It symbolized God's covenant with his people. So man was under strict laws, which was called the Old Covenant.

So in the New Testament it starts with the Gospels, which are the 4 accounts of Jesus’ life, written by 4 different men. Christ came to fulfill the prophecy and die for our sins. So he preached to the people about whom God is, and performed miracles. His two greatest commands were to love God and love one another. The people became outraged since he said he was God so they handed him over to the authorities. When Pontius Pilate (the Roman Governor for the regions of Samaria and Judea) asked Jesus if He was a king, he said yes and that He came to testify to the truth. That is important to know as you go through this life, which can seem to pull you in different directions, that He is truth. So they crucified Him and He died, was buried and rose again on the third day. He met with the apostles after that and when he left they received the Holy Spirit when Christ went up into Heaven.

Paul wrote most of the New Testament —many years after Jesus’ life though he never knew Him on earth. Paul was a Jew who knew the Jewish Law of the Old Testament backwards and forwards. He was extremely intelligent and articulate. Paul thought he was doing the right thing under God's law by killing followers of Christ. One day God called on him out loud and blinded him for 3 days and Paul personally met Christ (just like we can) and his life was transformed. So in Paul's writings he explains if we accept Christ we get a new heart, a transplant. We have Christ's heart. So when we accept Christ, he lives in us. So we aren't followers of Christ—we have him living in us, and the Holy Spirit guiding us—never condemning us. Paul tells us that we are under the New Covenant; the Old Covenant has been banished. When Christ died on the cross for our sins, the law had been fulfilled and at that very time the curtain that separated the Holy from the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle was torn from ceiling to floor though it was as thick as a man’s hand. This meant that the old ways of getting to God were over. We are not under God's laws anymore. We also died, were buried, and rose and ascended with Christ when he died for we were in him when he went to the Cross. Christ died for all of our sins, past, present and future. The work is done. He did the work so we can enter into Heaven, and share in his life in the Trinity right now. We are under the New Covenant. We are called to Love. Love is always married to truth and they go hand in hand.

So this has been so huge to me to understand this and have you get it too. Christ lives in us. He wants to live out your life in you through you. He loves you so much and wants you to be authentically you. When we walk around knowing Christ lives in us and our heart is good we naturally live our lives in a loving way. If you thought you were bad and your heart was bad it would make you more prone to do bad things. Of course we will still fight against sinning, we have free will and we will always have choices. The devil is the king of this world. Satan is the only one God is against; God never fights us or is against us. He is always on our side and always there for us, never leaving us. By the way, Satan is defeated. I picture him with a big D on his chest, in a cage rattling it and spewing lies at us and trying to make us feel guilty (guilt comes from Satan) but always remember he is defeated! He can never hurt us! Don't believe his lies.

So my prayer is that you will know Him and have a real relationship with Him. The more you know Him the more you will know the truth. This is all life is about is love and relationships with Him and people. We are called to love. I wake up in the morning and just tell Him I trust— since He lives in me—that he will help me through my day to know to do the right thing and when I am off track the Holy Spirit will gently pull me back. It's not about following any laws it's about trusting Him. We really can experience Heaven on earth living this way.

Romans 8:1 says "Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."

We are free to live out this life in love. I pray you will read his life and get to know Him. I can't tell you how exciting and freeing is has been for me to get how much he loves me. Bask in His love.