MMW Creative Falsehood

Creative Falsehood

“One of my friends had their voicemail as -Hello, Huh? What? I can’t hear you, Oh never mind just leave a message after the beep.”

Truth be told the quote is not from one of my friends.  It is a work of fiction or at best an unattributed quote from someone else’s friend.  The point of using this quote is that we all use similar inaccuracies to avoid being caught in the act of falsehood.

There is a point at which we would prefer that people consider us “clever” by our use of subterfuge as a means to avoid being considered unreliable or a liar.  It is not something that we take pride in but well in a way that is “how the cookie crumbles”, and we justify it that it is how others justify their falsehoods.

Guile is what I have been talking about here. It is used by Jesus to describe Nathanael, the young man who was scrupulously honest. In His words Jesus attributed to Nathanael a man “in whom there was no guile.”   It was a description of a man who held honesty above all else.  I rather doubt that Nathanael would have even considered the use of flattery as a means to avoid a statement to avoid telling the unvarnished truth.

And Jesus holds this as a desirable description.  In John 1:47 the Master says to His followers that Nathanael was a man in whom there was no guile as they walked up toward him.  It was also a description that applies to the “innocent babes” who would not even dream of a lie.

So then what does this say to us and how we should relate to people around us and more significantly to our brothers and sisters in Christ?  To clarify these relationships, there are at least two groups that the question applies to.  first there are those we prefer to relate to those, fellow believers we call brothers and sisters, Then there are those we prefer to keep at arm’s length those who we have little in common with especially the Master.

For that matter how does Jesus expect us to relate to the ones He came to seek and save?  In the latter part of His ministry in one of His lessons on selflessness He spoke about the way that we deal with people “as if it was to Him.”  It seemed that His followers were expecting to deal differentially between His followers and those who we were seeking to save to which Jesus replied in so far as you did it unto one of these you did it unto Me.

How does this relate to our opening position?  Is it possible to cut corners with the truth and yet deal integrally with people with people regardless of their relationship to our Master?  I tend to think that the answer is in plain sight we must deal with all people as if we were all one in Christ for if we do our job Jesus may bring some into relationship with Him and us.