Lying in a good cause

[steve]

putting on clothes is privacy
cross-dressing in order to fool someone is deception

it might depend on how much lipstick you are wearing, cecil

stuffing the bra or loincloth would also be deception

 

[FollowingHim]

has anyone considered that samson had put himself in a place where he did not belong?
lying would never have come up if he had avoided falling in love with a heathen.

Then his father and his mother said unto him, [Is there] never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.

i suppose that it is hard to raise a child that is anointed by YHWH from the womb and not have him turn out self-centered.

You missed the very next verse Steve:

His father and mother did not know that this was from the Lord, for he was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

In this particular case, it was God who made Samson fall in love with a heathen, purely in order to pick a fight with them. So it was not because he was self-centred, but because it was actually the right thing to do under unusual circumstances.

Of course WE might learn to avoid such situations, as it is unlikely that God will be trying to use any of us to start a war...

 

[steve]

thankyou samuel,

i entirely missed that.
so i am wondering now if he just should have given away the secret to his strength the first time and got the whole thing going?

 

[FollowingHim]

Steve, you're getting his women mixed up, he had quite a few (Judges 13-16). This passage relates to his first marriage, which is when he burnt down all the crops of the Philistines using foxes tied to torches (he was so loving and caring to animals...), and killed a thousand men with a jawbone. His lying occurred during his relationship with Delilah, which came later. There's an interesting incident with a prostitute in between. He was a fascinating character, seemed quite attracted to heathen women, God used a few of them to stir up fights between him and the Philistines.

It's really strange reading about him visiting a prostitute, and sleeping with Delilah with no record of them being married. God's chosen judge visiting a prostitute? We can't conclude from this that it's ok to visit prostitutes, the rest of the Bible contradicts that. It just means that Samson did.

Just as Samson's lying does not mean lying is ok (thanks Mark for the references confirming that very conclusively), Samson's sexual exploits do not mean we are free to do the same.

 

[CecilW]

putting on clothes is privacy
cross-dressing in order to fool someone is deception

Eloquent, Steve.

And regardless of how much lipstick I wear, or how I stuff my bra, the beard tends to give me away! :lol:

Yet, "not telling all you know" is only an argument for silence.

Noising it around that you're going down to Jesse's house to perform a routine sacrifice, no big deal, *yawn*, when your true purpose, the one YHWH gave you originally as the reason for going, is to anoint the next king of Israel long before the first one has kicked the royal bucket? Overt protective deception.

 

[steve]

samuel,
yep, so much for not reading the whole thing
and yes, the whole thing is pretty wierd. but then if your purpose driven life is to anger the oppressing nation, you ain't gonna be normal.

cecil,
yes, it was deception. but he did in fact do the sacrifice that he told saul he was going to do. he just kept silent about his real purpose.
since it was something that the Almighty specifically told him to do for His purposes, i do not see it as being a useful example for my life.

 

[CecilW]

Steve: Fair nuff.

Misdirection, deception ... I don't like them either. But it provides an answer to those who feel that the "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord" and "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor" and related passages prohibit anything but straightforward truthful answers to those who a) truly have no right to know, and b)are likely to use information obtained to do you or others harm.

Apparently, there is a diofference in God's mind, and thus in reality, between this sort of deception / misdirection and bearing false witness against thy neighbor.

(Plus, it's just FUN to get y'all going! :lol: )

 

[steve]

my understanding is that the bearing false witness thang was about being a witness in court, supporting one neighbor against another. remember, most things required 2 or 3 witnesses and sometimes a friend would "volunteer" to have seen something when he thought his buddy had a just cause but was short on witnesses.

on another note, my guess is that penn state is just a wee bit sorry that it hid some truth

 

[maddog2]

Sir Winston Churchill had this to say about lies,
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."


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