Were someone to approach you...
Illustration
Were someone to approach you, saying, "I hear that you are no longer a thief," you would be taken aback (assuming you have never been a thief and are not now a thief). The statement is true in its suggestion that you are not presently a thief, but it is completely false in its suggestion that you were once a thief. If you were never a thief, however, you could not "stop" being a thief since you have always been honest. But the statement at least suggests a "reform" of some sort that you have never had to go through, and that casts a shadow on your character that should not be there. How confusing!
If there is anything worse than a lie, it is a half-truth, for half-truths require "sorting through," separating the truth from the lie. But in so doing it seems to put you unnecessarily on the "defensive" because there is a kernel of truth within the lie that you must defend while rejecting the part of the assertion that is, itself, a lie. That is what makes half-truths so very hard to deal with.
It is such a half-truth that is at the heart of the controversy that lies at the center of today's lesson. The people with whom Paul and Barnabas are in dispute are not rejecting the truth that Jesus died for the sins of the world, but they are insisting, nevertheless, that before one could become a full-fledged, confessing, bona fide, accepted Christian that person had to live by Jewish laws as well as believing in Jesus. It was very difficult and confusing to sort through since it had that kernel of truth to defend in it while it had a completely false assertion connected with it.
If there is anything worse than a lie, it is a half-truth, for half-truths require "sorting through," separating the truth from the lie. But in so doing it seems to put you unnecessarily on the "defensive" because there is a kernel of truth within the lie that you must defend while rejecting the part of the assertion that is, itself, a lie. That is what makes half-truths so very hard to deal with.
It is such a half-truth that is at the heart of the controversy that lies at the center of today's lesson. The people with whom Paul and Barnabas are in dispute are not rejecting the truth that Jesus died for the sins of the world, but they are insisting, nevertheless, that before one could become a full-fledged, confessing, bona fide, accepted Christian that person had to live by Jewish laws as well as believing in Jesus. It was very difficult and confusing to sort through since it had that kernel of truth to defend in it while it had a completely false assertion connected with it.
