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Postmodernism Part 6: Conclusion (or Truth, Knowledge, Language and a Talking Donkey)

Conclusion: Truth, Knowledge, Language and a Talking Donkey
We have discussed the Biblical concept of Truth, of Knowledge, and of Language separately, but in reality, these three are integral to one another within the Scripture.  In order to illustrate this, I would like to talk about the story of Balaam. 
After Israel left Egypt under the leadership of Moses, they traveled in a nomadic fashion in a relatively small section of land between Egypt and Canaan.  Because of the dramatic way in which they left Egypt, and because of one or two military encounters they had during their travels, the Israelites were known and feared by the Canaanites.  One such group were the Moabites.
The Moabites had a problem.  They were certain that the Israelites were on their way, and that when they arrived, they would be an unstoppable force.  Certain of a military defeat, Balak, the king of Moab, decided to pursue a supernatural course to bring about the fall of Israel.
There was a well-known local prophet named Balaam who had gained a reputation for being able to successfully curse or bless individuals or groups.  His curses or blessings invariably stuck, making him 100% reliable.  Balak therefore decided that if Balaam were to be paid a sufficient amount of money, he would curse Israel, and they would then fall.
At this point, I must pause the narrative to comment.  Because of a mistaken worldview, Balak made a false assumption.  His mistake was a misinterpretation of cause and effect.  The fact of the matter was that Balaam was a prophet of God, meaning that God spoke through him.  Since God’s words are always true, when Balaam cursed or blessed someone, he was simply informing them of a curse or blessing that already existed and came directly from God.  In other words, Balaam did not have the power to bless or curse.  He was simply able to accurately tell people what God had already decided.  Balaam himself explicitly says this multiple times throughout the story.
So Balak sends generous gifts to Balaam, promising even more gifts if Balaam is able to successfully level a curse against Israel.
Since Balaam’s only ability was to speak that which God had already decided, he has a problem.  He can be a wealthy man if it just so happens that God has already cursed Israel.  But if this is not the case, his gift gives him no access whatever to the money.  So Balaam consults God and receives what, to him, was the worst possible news: not only does God strictly forbid him to go with to Balak, but He has actually blessed the king’s enemies.
Let’s pause again to examine Balaam’s incorrect assumptions.  Balaam has a gift which has been granted to only a handful of people over the years: the ability to talk directly to God and receive immediate verbal responses.  In terms of rarity and true value, this gift is possibly the most valuable thing to ever have existed such that it cannot be obtained for any amount of wealth.  However, Balaam esteems money and worldly wealth as more valuable than even his ability to talk to God.  We see that even though Balaam has received direct knowledge from God, his idea of truth is distorted by greed for wealth and the recognition of men.
Receiving the news that Balaam will not come, Balak does the only thing he can think to do, and tries to sweeten the pot by offering even more wealth than before.  Desperate to get his hands on the wealth, Balaam requests once more of God to let him go. 
Throughout the scriptures, we can find examples of people trying to negotiate with God.  This is problematic since, once God decides something, His decision is unalterable.  That said, God always allows people the option to disobey Him, but not without consequence.  This is exactly what happens in this case.  God tells Balaam to go, not because He changed His mind, but because Balaam has already decided to go, placing a premium on wealth rather than obedience to God.
As Balaam travels, God places an angel with a drawn sword in his path.  Balaam, a prophet of God, is blind to the danger.  Instead God intentionally grants spiritual sight to Balaam’s donkey.  The donkey swerves to avoid the angel several times, and Balaam flies off the handle, beating the donkey harshly.
At this point God gives the donkey the ability to speak.  Now, this is the only time we ever have a record of God giving speech to an animal.  Needless to say, this is a very unusual event, and it’s worth asking why God did this?
To answer this question, I must once more reiterate the position that Balaam held.  Not only did Balaam have the gift to verbally communicate with God, but the Spirit of God would come on him and he would actually speak the words of God to others.  It is impossible to overstate the honor that such a position held.
Balaam, however, was treating his position with contempt, by making himself mercenary.  By giving speech to the donkey, God was illustrating to Balaam that He, God, was free to choose anyone to speak for Him.  God made Balaam and his donkey equals in that moment.  There was nothing special about Balaam that made God select him for this gift any more than there was anything special about the donkey.
This is important for our larger lesson as well.  The ability to speak, to use language, is a part of God’s nature that he grants to man, because man was designed to reflect God’s nature.  And just like every other sacred gift that he gave us, we have corrupted and profaned language.  God can give language, and the understanding to use it, as he sees fit, just as he did by granting Balaam’s donkey a human level of understanding and speech.  He can also take it as He sees fit, just as he did to Nebuchadnezzar by reducing him to an animal level of understanding and no ability to speak.  Man’s worth does not come from within, as postmodernism would teach.  God’s nature is what makes man special, and when we fail to reflect His nature, we abandon our own worth.
At this point, God opens Balaam’s eyes and he, too, sees the angel with the sword.  Balaam repents of his sin, and is placed in the mortifying position of having to apologize to his donkey.  Most likely Balaam’s repentance had more to do with the giant angel standing over him with a drawn sword than it did with his realization of his true sin of undervaluing his position as prophet, because his later actions show that he still has a desire to somehow gain access to the wealth that Balak is offering. 
So Balaam goes to with Balak to the mountain top and instructs the king to offer sacrifices to God.  Now in the old testament, when sacrifices are offered, they are only offered for one of two reasons: repentance of sin, or as a way of subjecting yourself to the Creator by giving gifts to Him.  Both Balak and Balaam had sins aplenty to repent of, but there doesn’t appear to be any repentance implicit in these offerings.  Moreover, if they were subjecting themselves to God’s rule, they would accept what He had to say with humility.  Since they don’t do this either, it appears the sacrifices are a vain attempt to bribe God into giving them the answer they want. 
Once the sacrifices are given, Balaam opens his mouth, and prophecies for God.  The blessing that God pours out on His people in this prophecy is breathtakingly beautiful.  It almost seems like a love song of a Father for his children.
Now we know at this point that God’s words are true and unalterable.  Balak was in a privileged positions that very few earthly rulers ever get: hearing the direct Word of God.  If he had recognized his position of privilege, and really listened to what Balaam was saying, there was an answer to his problem which we will discuss shortly.
Balak, however, grasps neither the nature of God, nor the privilege of his position.  All he knows is that Balaam just blessed the people he ask him to curse, and that Balaam’s blessings are generally true.
In frustration, Balak tries several more times from various mountain tops, offering sacrifices and prompting Balaam to prophecy, and each time, he is granted the rare privilege of hearing God’s blessings on His chosen people.
Finally, with the knowledge that no curse will be forthcoming, Balaam makes a suggestion.  Realizing that:

1.)    The people of Israel dwell under God’s blessing

2.)    The Moabites are considered corrupt and wicked by God

Balaam realizes that that which is purified can be corrupted by that which is impure.  Now Balaam’s insight is absolutely true.  However, what he chooses to do with this insight reflects a corrupt use of this knowledge.  He suggests that Balak send some Moabite women among the Israelites to sleep with them, thus defiling themselves and bringing them under God’s judgment.
  This they do with relative success. 
Now let us consider an alternative option which probably never occurred to either Balaam or Balak.  Down in that valley lay the camp of a people which were under God’s blessing.  They had with them a book of law, given to them directly by God, which related how to live righteously in the presence of God.  In that book of law were specific instructions that gave foreigners living among them privileges almost equal to citizens.  Furthermore, there were explicit instructions in their law allowing Gentiles to convert to their faith and be welcomed among them as members.  And while it was true that that which was pure could be corrupted, it is also true that that which is corrupt could be purified. 
We know this, because a generation later this exact thing happens.  The harlot Rahab turns her back on her culture and people, asking to be inducted into the Hebrew people.  She, though formerly a Gentile and a harlot, is welcomed in and blessed  by God.  She marries a Hebrew and she is purified in the union rather than corrupting him.
Balak, Balaam, and the Moabites had the opportunity, given to them on a golden platter, to repent, avoid destruction, and seek out the true treasure of the knowledge of God.  Instead, they used the knowledge they received for their own corrupt purposes.
Hopefully you can see how this story illustrates the way that truth, knowledge, and speech all work together for the glory of God, and how Man abuses them to his own destruction.

Postmodernism Part 5: A Biblical View of Language

From the Superstitious worldview, Language and words were viewed as potentially magical and powerful.  The Modernist perspective had the concept of language as meaningful as the primary form of communication, and the Postmodernist perspective viewed language as a medium of art where it means different things to different people.  What does the Bible tell us about the concept of language?
John 1:1-5
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Genesis 1:3
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Genesis 2:19
“And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”
Genesis 11:6-8
“And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city”
. Exodus 20:7
“You shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His Name in vain.”
Psalm 119:11
“Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee.”

Several years ago, Bill Maher released a mocumentary entitled “Religulous” in which he interviewed various people of faith asking scoffing questions to belittle them and ridicule their beliefs.  One of the many questions he asked was “Do you believe that a snake talked?”
In point of fact, this is not a new criticism of the Genesis account.  But why is the idea that a snake could talk so laughable?  The simple answer is that we have never observed snakes to be capable of speech.  In fact, apart from a few cases of clever mimicry, no animals are capable of speech.  This begs the questions, why are people able to speak?
In fact, from Bill Maher’s perspective, where humans are simply evolved animals who have developed speech as part of adaption, it makes more sense to have a talking snake.  Any animal has the potential to evolve speech.  It is only from the Biblical perspective where God placed a clear separation between humans and animals that makes a talking snake so absurd. 
Bill is, in essence, borrowing from a Christian worldview in order to mock the Christian worldview.
The Bible starts almost immediately by showing us a God that uses language to create.  The apostle John refers to Christ as the Word that proceeds from God.  The third commandment instructs us to treat God’s name with the same reverence in our speech that the first commandment tells us to give to God himself in our worship, and the second commandment tells us to treat God’s image.
In fact, the scriptures give us every indication that language is actually part of God’s very nature.  This may seem strange at first, especially if you don’t have a particularly high view of language, but studied further, it makes sense.  Consider the following facts about language.
First, that language can communicate complex ideas with simplicity.  Take a look at Genesis 1:3.  “God said ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”  That sentence is one that any child could comprehend, but imagine the volumes of mathematical formulas that would be necessary to show the creation of light.  Take a moment to consider the immense truth that this tells us about God’s nature, that light was the first thing he created, that he spoke it out of darkness.
When God closed the cannon of Scripture he left us with 66 books, roughly 800,000 words, which can be collected together into about 1,000 pages.  This is paltry considering the volumes of work written ABOUT the Bible.  Clearly God was able to use a finite amount of space and text to communicate all He needed to give us in order to find salvation and revelation of His nature.
Secondly, language is intensely personal.  No one ever read a math book and felt as if a loving person were speaking to them.  But God gave us language as a way to communicate not just ideas but also our personalities to the hearer or reader.  If we have any doubt about the personal nature of language, we need only look at what the scriptures call the Word of God, that is, His Son. 
When God gave Moses the tablets of the Law, He opened the cannon of Scripture.  He did so by carving words into stone atop a flaming mountain that rumbled and struck fear into the hearts of those who beheld it.  When God gave us His Son, the fulfillment of the Law, He came as a person who physically touched us and healed us and washed our feet.  There is no more personal example of the Word than Jesus Christ.
Thirdly, we see that Man was given access to Language as a method of expressing his creativity righteously.  God spreads creation before Man and instructs him to name things.  Adam was then given the freedom to make new words, which God imbued with meaning.  This is a very exciting thing to learn from scripture, because unlike the laws of physics, the laws of language are plastic, allowing man to actually interact with God through lingual communication.
Finally, we see that the Scriptures as we presently possess them are the sole source of revelation that we are to rely on in order to inform our faith in and knowledge of God.  While God chose different methods to communicate to mankind in the past (and all of these methods involved the use of language) in the latter days it is the Scriptures, the written collection of prophecies, history, and eye witnesses to God’s work, that is our final source of instruction from God.
The Tower of Babel
If language is responsible for creation and, indeed, part of God’s nature, why are there so many languages, and why do languages change over time?
The Bible does us the courtesy of answering this question early.  As a result of man’s rebellion, languages were “confused,” at the Tower of Babel.  This is a very instructive story against both modernism and postmodernism. 
First of all, in direct disobedience to God, humanity decided to unify as a single culture, building a city and a tower as the center of their new culture.  They wanted to build this tower to the heavens from the ground up.  When God sees this, he says something very interesting: “now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”
In essence, with a single language, man could make the fatal mistake of beginning to change the meaning of words, destroying any truth behind language.  So what God did by confusing their languages was a preservative of truth.  How?  If Robinson Crusoe is trapped on an island with a native, Friday, and they don’t speak the same language, how do they communicate?  They will need to start labeling things with the words from their languages.  By finding commonalities, they can then communicate.  The act of translation forces words to refer to the higher truths that lie behind them.  Thus, by confusing language, God preserved its integrity.

Postmodernism Part 4: A Biblical Approach to Knowledge

From a Modernist perspective, to know something was to be convinced of something because of observable facts.  From the Postmodernist view, to know something was to feel something strongly.  What does the Bible say about the source and mechanism of knowledge?
Genesis 2:16, 17
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Genesis 3:4-7
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”
 I Kings 3:5-12
“In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon said…  O LORD my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.
 And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?
And the speech pleased the LORD, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment; Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.”
A minister sits on a subway observing a mother and her child.  The child is screaming and struggling to get away.  Finally, the mother places the child in her lap.  The child looks up in defiance at the mother, then slaps the mother in the face.
It occurs to the minister that humanity is just like this child.  As we build universities and governments and churches using politic and intellect and rhetoric to distance ourselves from and finally deny God, we are using exactly those tools and gifts that God gave us to defy Him.  In essence, we sit in God’s lap in order to slap Him in the face.
It should come as no surprise to us that the Bible teaches us that our capacity to know and understand things comes directly from God, and that using that knowledge at cross-purposes to God dissolves into non-productive foolishness.
Consider the first passage above which comes to us from Genesis.  Man and Woman were created to be caretakers to God’s creation.  As such, they were given sufficient knowledge and understanding to do their job.  Adam, we see, was even gifted with the creative capacity to observe and define the world around him by naming the animals.
What man was NOT given was the capacity to know right from wrong.  This area of morality was firmly God’s domain, and man was specifically forbidden from pursuing this knowledge.
This was a manifestation of God’s love and wisdom.  If man was responsible for his own moral choices, he would fall short of God’s standards.  This was not knowledge that was necessary to do the task for which he was created, and it could only be harmful to man.  So God took that burden off man’s shoulders.
Man chose, however, to seize this knowledge against God’s instructions.  We are told that, at the moment he did this, his eyes were opened and he knew things he had previously not known: specifically, that he was naked.
In the second story above, we read of Solomon who requested wisdom from God.  Since the reason Solomon requested this gift was to be a more effective ruler of God’s people, it pleased God to grant Solomon his wish.  Now, I need to stress that God gave Solomon wisdom for the purpose of governing the children of Israel.  Solomon, however, chose to USE this knowledge for self-glorification.  Since he did not use the knowledge for to purpose that God gave it, he ended his life in despair as we see chronicled in the book of Ecclesiastes.  No matter what task Solomon accomplished with his great wisdom, he found it meaningless because he was not using his gift correctly.
Finally, let’s examine the case of King Nebuchadnezzar as chronicled in the book of Daniel.  If you search the scriptures, you won’t find a single king who had more specific and direct revelation of the course of history than Nebuchadnezzar.  So much so, that critics of the scripture have a very difficult time explaining how the book of Daniel specifically predicted the rise of Alexander the Great, and resort to giving the book a late date of authorship or tell us it was edited later to include these predictions.
Despite having a Jewish Prophet of the Lord at his beck and call, and despite being given direct prophetic revelation from God, Nebuchadnezzar remained in willful ignorance, glorifying himself as an equal to God.
God’s final act of discipline to Nebuchadnezzar was to “Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him.”  In an instantaneous and miraculous act, God removed Nebuchadnezzar’s capacity for understanding and he was reduced to an animalistic nature.  When the disciplinary period was complete, we read Nebuchadnezzar’s own words regarding the matter:
“And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?”
So we can ascertain from these passages that a Biblical approach to knowledge could be said to be this: that God gives man the capacity to observe and understand the world around him in a way that animals cannot.  We are given the capacity to define our universe, and this was given us originally for the purpose of caring for God’s creation.  As a result of Adam’s willful disobedience, we also have the capacity for determining right from wrong and making moral judgments. 
However, we have the freedom to abuse this ability with the consequence that the inferences we make from our observation of the universe are errant, resulting in a distorted and incorrect worldview.  This is a state that the Bible addresses at some length, defining it as “foolishness.”
“Wisdom,” as defined biblically, could be said to be the correct usage of knowledge to the glory of God, while “Foolishness” is the incorrect application of knowledge such that it robs God of the glory due Him.

Postmodernism Part 3: A Biblical Approach to Truth

Postmodernism attacks three fundamental ideas: Truth, Knowledge, and Language.  Why those things in particular?  It must be because those things are important to a right understanding.  It is therefore worth our effort to investigate what the Bible has to say about those things.

A Biblical Approach to Truth

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth… And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”

“And he said to him, Why do you call me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.”

“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.  No man comes to the Father but by me.”

“To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.  Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.”
“You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.”
If Modernism’s definition of Truth is “That which adheres to reality,” then the Biblical definition of Truth is “That which adheres to, reflects, or reveals God’s nature.”
Now immediately we encounter a problem with this definition.  Because there are clearly things in the world around us which are in no way reflective of the purity, holiness and righteousness of God.  Are these things therefore illusions?  Let’s examine this.
God created the universe in general and man in particular to revel or reflect something in his nature.  We know this because God pronounced his creation to be “Very Good,” and Christ teaches us that the term “Good” can only be applied to God.  Therefore, on the seventh day, when God rested, nature must have been a perfect revelation or reflection of his nature. 
 God also specifically said that man and woman were created in his image so that, in a state of perfection man and woman are a specific revelation of God’s image.
Now here is a question for you: what was the first sin ever committed by a human being in the Bible?  If you answered “Disobeying God’s command and eating the forbidden fruit,” you are incorrect.  That was the second sin.  The first sin was believing the lie the serpent told over the word of God. 
We can all agree that Christ lived the perfect earthly life.  The primary characteristic that marked Christ’s life was obedience.  Christ was absolutely obedient to God’s will.  Christ obeyed when it wasn’t convenient, when he didn’t want to, and when it didn’t make sense.  Christ was fatally obedient.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command, they were not just believing a lie, they were belying God’s nature within them.  God consequently withdrew his nature from them, and all of creation was cursed as a consequence. 
Let me make this absolutely clear: this is what makes sin so abhorrent.  It is a corruption or perversion of God’s perfect nature.  It is Satan taking his spray-paints to the cathedral and writing obscenities all over what God had made Holy. 
Romans 1
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
   ¹⁹Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
   ²⁰For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
   ²¹Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
   ²²Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
   ²³And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
   ²⁴Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
   ²⁵Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
   ²⁶For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
   ²⁷And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
   ²⁸And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
   ²⁹Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
   ³⁰Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
   ³¹Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
   ³²Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

In the original Hebrew, there are several words for “sin” in the Bible, and each one has its own flavor.  Sin could mean straying from the path.  It could mean failing to hit the mark.  It could mean deliberately turning ones back on God.  As you can see, there are many ways to not live up to the image God placed on us.  But whenever we sin, we choose to believe and demonstrate a lie rather than to fulfill the purpose for which God made us.  When men deliberately believe a lie, God withdraws the truth from them and chaos rushes in to fill the void.
C.S. Lewis once said, “There are two type of men: those who say to God ‘Your will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Very well then, YOUR will be done.’”
The Bible tells us to draw near to God and He will draw near to us, but the opposite is also true: turn your back on God, and He will withdraw from you.  The atheist gets exactly what he asks for: a Godless existence.
God  and Lying
Exodus 1:15-20
And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive. And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive? And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. Therefore God dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, and waxed very mighty.
Joshua 2:1-6
And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there. And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to search out the country. And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine house: for they be come to search out all the country. And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were: And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof.

1 Kings 22:23

Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.

Ezekiel 14:9

And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 (King James Version)

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Each of these passages is a perfect illustration of a danger which directly relates to sin and godlessness, that is this: if God presents you with a truth, and you choose to disbelieve that truth, God will eventually bow to your disbelief with the consequence that truth itself is removed from you.  In the absence of truth, all that remains is a lie.  We see this principle of God “giving people over” to their sins throughout the Bible, but I feel it is best encapsulated in the statement that Paul made in Romans 1

However, before we explore this principle any further, let’s look at each one of those passages about God’s supposed lying or support of lying in context. 

The first two passages deal with situations in which a human deceived another human and God blessed their actions.  I will seek to prove that in both of these situations the person lying was not in violation of any commandment of God and the person being lied to had access to the Truth and willingly chose to reject it.

The first passage is from the Book of Exodus, and refers to the Pharaoh’s genocidal plan to wipe out God’s Chosen People by killing off the firstborn.  The midwives, who feared God and respected the Jews chose to disobey the King’s command and lie to him instead.  The second passage is from Joshua where the spies from Israel were harbored and hidden by Rahab who chose to lie in order to save their lives.

The ninth commandment is “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”  Many people generalize this to mean “Don’t lie.”  However, that’s not the wording or the intent of the command.  The command specifically involves being a witness in a courtroom and could be rephrased to mean “if you have proof of your neighbor’s guilt in a matter, you are responsible to do your part to see he is brought to justice.  If you are assured of your neighbor’s innocence, you are responsible to do your part to see that he is acquitted.”  In other words, this commandment is about seeing justice served.  Justice is part of God’s nature and is one of our primary civic responsibilities.  That is why when the prophet Micah sums up the ten commandments, he says “But to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

In the first two passages above, both the Midwives and Rahab are put in a position where an injustice was going to be done if they had been honest.  The authority figures in both instances were working at odds to God, and as we studied in the first section on Truth, anything outside of God’s nature, including injustice, is lies, chaos, and deception.  We are told not to cast pearls before swine, and in both of the instances mentioned, giving God’s enemies the truth would have done harm and worked counter to God’s command, because they were already living in deception.     

Second of all, the Pharaoh had had access to God’s truth.  God’s people had been living in his land for hundreds of years, and Joseph, a prophet of God, had once been installed as the second highest authority in the land.  Had any of the ruling class of Egypt wished, they had ready access to God’s truth, but they never took advantage of it. 

In the Story of Rahab, the Israelites had been wandering around in a little desert next door to Canaan for decades.  The stories of their miraculous deliverance from Egypt had spread throughout the land.  So much so, in fact, that Rahab herself came to a saving fear of Jehovah through the hearing of these stories.  If Rahab was capable of recognizing God’s Truth from these stories, anyone in Canaan could have done the same.  And as Rahab’s story tells us, there was ready room in the Mosaic Law to accept converts into the Jewish nation.  The Canaanites chose instead to reject the evident truth in front of them and work at odds to God’s Chosen people, and so they were brought to destruction.  In both instances, the lies they received were part of God’s righteous judgment upon them.

The third passage comes to us from the first book of Kings.  In this passage, King Ahab of Israel has made an arrangement with King Jehosophat of Judah to go into battle together against the troublesome Syrian army.  In case you aren’t terribly familiar with Old Testament history, there was a split in the leadership of Israel after the death of King Solomon.  The nation was split into Israel to the north, composed of ten of the twelve tribes, and Judah to the South, composed of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. 

Since the split occurred, Israel remained in constant rebellion against God, worshipping whatever pagan idols the neighboring countries were worshiping.  As bad as all the kings were, the worst of them was Ahab, who was militantly against God, and tried to wipe out all of his prophets and worshipers. 

Now Israel and Judah did not typically get along, however in this instance, the Syrians were such a powerful threat, that they decided to join forces.  This kind of action had previously been forbidden by the Lord, who did not want Judah to have anything to do with Israel.  In other words, Jehosophat should have known better.

As they are gathering to go up to battle, Jehosophat insists that they consult the prophets first.  This is consistent behavior recommended by the Law of Moses, so Jehosophat is at least paying some lip service to God.  Ahab parades in all of his yes-men prophets, who serve the idol Baal.  Each prophet says the same thing: go up and fight the Syrians.  You will be victorious.

Jehosophat quickly realizes that none of the prophets represent God, and so he asks Ahab if there is a prophet of the Lord available to consult.  Previously in the book, Ahab has made it his policy to kill all the prophets of the Lord he can find, but he is able to find one named Michaiah.  Ahab warns Jehosophat ahead of time that Micaiah never tells him what he wants to hear.  When they ask Michaiah, the prophet responds “Go ahead and fight the Syrians, you will be victorious.”  He must have said it sarcastically, because Ahab immediately recognizes that he is not being sincere with them, and threatens him if he doesn’t tell the truth.

At this point, Micaiah tells a very odd story about a bunch of spirits gathered together before God.  God asks which one of them would be willing to go and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all the prophets to convince Ahab to go up to battle so that he might be killed.  One of them steps forward and volunteers, hence the consistent prophesy of all the prophets of Baal.

One of the prophets slaps Micaiah, saying “Which way did the spirit go from my mouth to tell you this?”  Then Ahab has Micaiah locked up and tortured.   Then he goes up to battle and dies.

Let me pause at this point to mention that when we see prophecy occur in the Old Testament, it tends to occur in one of two ways: either the prophet is given a vision (such as occurred in the case of Micaiah) and then relates the vision in his own words, or the prophet is “filled with the Spirit” and speaks Gods words directly.  In this case, Micaiah knew from his vision that God wanted Ahab to go up to fight the Syrians and die.  This may explain why his initial response to the question was the same lie that the false prophets had told.  It is important to note that he was not speaking directly for God at the time, though.

The second passage comes to us from the fourteenth chapter of Ezekiel.  Historically, Israel was in captivity to the Babylonians at this time.  Some of Israel’s elders come to the prophet Ezekiel looking for some oracle from the Lord.  As they approach, God speaks to Ezekiel to tell him that these Hebrew men have adopted the worship of Babylon’s idols, and asks Ezekiel if such men deserve the truth of God.  Then God speaks audibly through Ezekiel to tell the elders that first they must destroy their idols and turn their hearts back to God.  Until they do, no prophet will speak to them.  If a prophet is somehow foolish enough  to try to prophesy to them, God will make certain that the words he speaks are NOT the truth of the Lord, and judge that prophet along with the idolaters. 

The final passage comes from Paul’s second epistle to the church at Thessalonica.  This epistle was written primarily because this church had begun to spread rumors that the end of time was near.  This was resulting in a great deal of distress among the church members.  Paul wrote this epistle to correct this error in thinking.  In this passage he is mentioning one of the signs that the end of time is near will be the revelation of “The Man of Sin.”  This is the person more well-known as the Antichrist.  What Paul explains to us in this passage is that the period of time between the resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Antichrist has been for the benefit of the entire world, that everyone should have a chance to hear and believe in the message of the gospel.  When the end of time finally DOES come, everyone will have had the opportunity to believe and repent; so that those who are still unbelieving at this time have willfully turned away from the truth.  We see this in verse ten where it states, “with all the deceit of unrighteousness in those who perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

The passage goes on to state that God will remove his truth from the world at this time, resulting in a strong delusion.

In each of these passages, we see the exact same principle. The people being "lied" to are in willful rebellion to God. Moreover, they were openly offered the truth and the opportunity to follow it, and they outright rejected it. In the first passage Ahab, a man who had been mercilessly killing prophets of God and had sought his council from false prophets worshiping idols was STILL given the truth, and rejected it.

In the second passage, the Jewish elders, who had the writings of Moses warning them away from idolatry were in rebellion, worshipping idols, and God told them outright that they would need to abandon their idolatry and come back to their worship of God before he would speak to them.

In the final passage, the people, having been exposed to the gospel for their entire lives, eagerly followed after the Antichrist, outright rejecting the truth they had been offered. So the truth was removed from them.
This just highlights the amazing constancy of the Bible. These passages are pulled from five separate texts with entirely different authors that were separated by hundreds of years of history, and each one illustrates the EXACT SAME principle.

God is a God of truth.  In John 18:37, Jesus says to Pilate, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is on the side of truth hears My voice.”

Solomon tells us that “²⁰Wisdom cries without; she utters her voice in the streets.
   
   ²¹She cries in the chief places of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city she utters her words, saying,
   
   ²²"How long, ye simple ones, will ye love to be simple, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
   
   ²³Turn you at my reproof: Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you; I will make known my words unto you.
   
   ²⁴"Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man heeded,
   
   ²⁵but ye have set at nought all my counsel and would have none of my reproof,
   
   ²⁶I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh,
   
   ²⁷when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
   
   ²⁸Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me,
   
   ²⁹because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD.
   
   ³⁰They would have none of my counsel, and they despised all my reproof:
   
   ³¹therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own ways, and be filled with their own devices.
   
   ³²For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them;
   
   ³³but whoso hearkens unto me shall dwell safely, and shall have quiet from fear of evil."

The truth God offers us is a privilege.  God will offer it freely, He will pursue us with it, but you can only reject it so often before the privilege of truth is removed.  If God tells us the truth, and warns us of the consequences of denying it, He is just.

Postmodernism Part 2: Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a relatively new system of thought in the West, but many of its aspects can be seen in the thousands of years of Hindu and Buddhist thought and philosophy in the East.  Briefly stated, Postmodernism is the belief that each individual creates and is responsible for their own reality separate from every other individual’s reality.

While this line of thought has been cultivated for millennia in the East, its introduction and subsequent popularity in the West was helped in large part by advances in Science.  As quantum physics became more and more recognized by the scientific community and then by the public, some of its ideas found their way into thought and philosophy.  For instance, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which states that while observing certain particles in motion, the observer changes the outcome by measuring it, is applied in popular philosophy by stating that a person can change their destiny by imagining the outcome.  In other words: think positive.  Einstein’s Law of Relativity, which specifically applies to mathematical calculations regarding the relationship of bodies in space, is applied to life by stating that “Everything is Relative.”  And the very debatable theory of Alternate Realities has been adopted into popular thought to state that my reality can differ from your reality.

Let’s look at how Postmodernists view Truth, Knowledge, and Language.

Postmodernists View of Truth

“Truth is relative” is the watchword of the Postmodernist.  The Postmodernist view is that each individual is living in their own little bubble universe which is constructed from their beliefs and ideas.  This has two effects.  First, it means that nothing I believe to be true should have any bearing on you.  I can completely respect and live with your views, even when they widely differ from my own, and can simultaneously dismiss any bearing that your views have on me. 

Secondly, it means that I can hold two beliefs that contradict one another, and I can live with the contradiction.  I can believe, for instance, that Hitler went to Hell for his actions, and at the same time I can believe that there is no Hell.  It’s not that the contradiction doesn’t occur to me, it is that it doesn’t matter because truth is whatever I choose to believe is true. 

Each person makes their own truths by their beliefs.

Postmodernists View of Knowledge

We live in the information age where facts are cheap.  Perhaps as a consequence of this, and as a consequence of their view on truth, Postmodernists have a very low view of knowledge.  Or, put another way, facts are divorced from knowledge. 

In the Modernist area, if I was in possession of what I believed to be a fact, I knew that thing.  In the Postmodern age, if I FEEL that something is true, I know that thing.  Knowing something is identical to feeling something.  Facts are largely inconsequential. 

In the Modernist era, sound argumentation was based on producing facts and then building a logical conclusion based on those facts.  In the Postmodern era so many facts are available, that the perception is that any fact you can produce to prove your point, I can produce a fact that seems to contradict yours.  This being the case, debates are based largely on who can form the most impassioned argument for their cause while demeaning their opponent’s cause.

Postmodernists View of Language

In the Modernist view, Language was used to encode and convey information.  In the Postmodernist view, Language is equated with Art: it may mean one thing to the artist and something different to the observer. 

In Modernism, a real attempt was made to preserve the integrity and accuracy of language against such threats as lingual drift and slang.  In Postmodernism, lingual drift and slang are celebrated and encouraged.

This is seen in the Postmodern practice of Literary Deconstruction.  What a Deconstructionist does is that they take something someone has written, they examine the history and background of the writer, and they try to determine, based on that person’s background, what the person was attempting to say.  They will then create their own meaning for the writing as it applies to them based on THEIR feelings.

This is like me telling you, “Sex is wrong outside of marriage.”  You take my meaning to be, “Sex is wrong outside of a committed, loving relationship,” and then you apply this to yourself to mean “Sex is the ultimate expression of Love.”

How Postmodernism disagrees with Christianity

Postmodernism has had a profound effect on society as it relates to Christianity.  First of all, it has made communication of the Gospel to be nearly impossible.  When I tell a person that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no man comes to the Father except through him; they can comfortably say that it is nice that that belief works for me, and go away entirely unaffected by what I have told them.  Or, if they do take my message to heart, they can comfortably adopt Christianity without changing any of their previous beliefs or lifestyle.  In so doing, they violate the First Commandment.  For the Christian, sin and unrighteous living become easy to justify based on what I want to define as righteous living.  If my practices don’t meet God’s standards, I simply re-interpret God’s standards to fit my lifestyle.

Finally, and probably most importantly, Christianity is seen as highly offensive to the Postmodern Culture because we make absolute claims to truth.  In an age where tolerance has come to mean “absolute acceptance of all beliefs and lifestyles to be equally valid” we draw lines in the sand, see things in terms of black and white, and still believe in “right” and “wrong.”  This has led to intellectual and political persecution against the Christian faith, and it is likely going to get worse.

Next, we will examine the proper Biblical worldview as it relates to Truth, Knowledge, and Language.