[CS-FSLUG] OT: bailout

[Ed Hurst]

Jonathan E. Brickman wrote:
> No, Ed, it is not comical -- it is essential.  Your words below are a 
> claim that God used Joseph to lead Egypt into evil.  God does not use 
> holy people to lead others into evil.  It is only unholy people, who 
> lead others into evil.

My brother, the Old Testament was a peculiar situation, loaded with 
examples of God's people doing things hard to comprehend as long as we 
view it from our modern Western viewpoint.

Jon was right, in that the issues is the definition of "evil." Concrete 
logic with precise and inflexible definitions is the best approach in 
computers and software, but cannot be applied to God's Word. The Hebrew 
culture itself rejects such a notion.

It goes back to what I wrote about Romans 13: Civil government has one 
standard (Covenant of Noah) and spiritual issues have another. What 
Joseph did was the best of a bad situation. The truly right answer would 
have been to reshape Egypt completely, but that's not what God had 
planned. Did not Joseph have liberty from God to engage in some of the 
pagan rituals of Egypt? What does the story of cup of divination hidden 
in Benjamin's sack tell you? Had Joseph not engaged in such ceremonial 
stuff, he would not have been able to hold the place of viceroy in 
Egypt. It would be evil for you and for me, but it was part of Joseph's 
calling.

The linear, concrete evaluations of Western logic, so necessary for 
computers and science, because it is the best way to understand things 
of this world, is not the best way to understand spiritual issues. The 
definition of evil is not something which can be delineated with such 
precision. Righteousness is defined as obeying God; evil is disobeying. 
While there are a collection of concrete concepts covering a broad array 
of issues in what it means to obey God, the issue remains Truth is 
indefinable in human terms, because Truth is a Person. That's the way 
the Bible phrases things.

-- 
Ed Hurst
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Associate Editor, Open for Business: http://ofb.biz/
Applied Bible - http://soulkiln.org/
Kiln of the Soul - http://soulkiln.blogspot.com/