Rahab: Her Fib and Her Faith

Does the story of Rahab’s lie provide a biblical basis for situation ethics? Must Christians always tell the truth? Or is it sometimes right to lie?

Years ago Joseph Fletcher wrote a book called “Situation Ethics: The New Morality” ((Westminster Press, 1966). Fletcher died in 1991, but his “new morality” is still embraced by many Christians today. Fletcher proposed that it was sometimes right to break the moral law of God to accomplish a higher purpose. If someone comes to your door with a gun intending to kill your wife and kids, you should rightly lie about their location to protect them, placing the sanctity of truth below the higher value, the sanctity of life.

Following Fletcher’s thinking some Christians have appealed to the story of Rahab in defense of a righteous lie. After hiding the two spies under stalks of flax on her roof, Rahab told the king’s men that the Israelites had left the city and she did not know where they went (Josh. 2:5). Rahab knowingly lied. Does her lying provide us with biblical justification for lying? This question never fails to generate lively discussion in the seminary classroom!   Continue at J. Carl Laney

Is it Ever OK to Lie?

Is it ever not a sin to lie? Or—to let the double negative cancel itself out and get  right to the chase—does God ever put you in a position where sinning is the right thing to do?

 

This question is as bothersome as it is perennial. It invariably comes attached to this hypothetical: say you lived in Nazi Germany, and you have Jews hiding in your living room, and the SS guards knock on your door and ask if you are hiding Jews. What do you do? Do you lie?

Let me give you my conclusion, and then try and walk you there with me. First: GOD HATES LYING. So yes, it is always a sin to lie, and no, it is never ok to lie. Proverbs 12:12-13 explains why:  

“No disaster overcomes the righteous, but the wicked are full of misery.  Lying lips are detestable to Yahweh, but faithful people are His delight.”

Lying lips are one of the seven things that God finds detestable (Proverbs 6:16). Christians are called to let their yes be yes, and lying violates that basic principle (James 5:12). Meanwhile, God is a God of truth (John 14:7), while the devil is the father of lies (John 8:38). Lies are an affront to providence, as they imply that the world would be better if God simply would have worked it out more to our liking. Thus every lie is an attack against the sovereignty of God, and essentially places you in opposition to that which is true. Instead of lying, speak the truth (Col 3:9, Eph 4:22, 24).

It really is that simple.    Continue at Jesse Johnson

Rahab the Prostitute: Trophy of Grace

Rahab was a pagan Canaanite woman who slept with way too many men. We might imagine her being a chain-smoker with an ankle tattoo that said “YRCH” (the moon-deity that Jericho was probably named after). At this point some want to make the Bible a little more pious than it is (reduce it from “R” to “PG”). For example, Matthew Henry said Rahab used to be a prostitute but by the time the spies came she was a dainty Proverbs 31 woman because she worked so hard making the flax roof. I love Matthew Henry, but that’s just bad. A better perspective, I think, is that of Francis Schaeffer in Joshua and the Flow of Biblical History. Read it all HERE