Love Song

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

-T.S. Elliot

This is one of my favorite poems, and I return to it perennially to soak in it yet again. Recently, it has made me wonder about how much of my life I waste.

I do not mean how much time I waste, as in how much of the time I am doing something unproductive. I wonder how much life I waste by living life asleep. There is so much excellence all around me, all the time, and I am consistently bored of it all. There are astounding colors and tastes and new experiences and delightful people and invigorating challenges, and while I partake in many of them, I miss the glory in most of them.

And because of that I do also waste time. I make choices that are, honestly, boring. There is neither merit nor challenge or joy to them. A few minutes ago I refreshed my inbox, took apart a pen and put it back together, and they were worthless decisions. If I had taken joy in the wonder of mechanical pen, and taken it apart eagerly and wondered at the glory of God in making man to make something like this, then perhaps it would have been worthwhile.

But I didn't. I did it to have something to do. I didn't enjoy it particularly. I was killing time. And that's just it. I am destroying my time. It is worth so much, it has so much potential for excellence in so many ways, if I would only do any of the millions of spectacular things that God has made open to me... but I am content to do nothing in particular.

How long will I hide from challenge? How long will I delay the adventure? How long will I wonder if I dare taste the fruits of dealing with a problem or reconciling to a person? Why am I content with this paltry life when my God has poured upon me an abundant life? My window is open, it is warm outside, and raining, and that is glorious. Why don't I care?

And really, I'm afraid. But I don't really know what I'm afraid of. There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm like a little kid about to go on his first roller coaster ride. It is big and scary. And the world is big and scary, so big it frightens me to look over the edge and see the vastness of it. Dare I live a big life in a big world?

I want adventure and challenge and depth and richness and intimacy and excitement in my life, but so often, second my second, I walk slowly away from these things rather than towards them. Some voice tells me to be safe and protected and reasonable. This voice seems wise, but it is actually a foolish voice.

I've had enough of that. I want all the excellence of God that he himself has built into my life for me. I want to seek it and not run away. And more and more, I'm okay with not being safe. I'm becoming not afraid.

I want to be enraptured with my Father, wooed by the life he has given me. When will I fall in love with Him enough to accept all the gift he has given me? When will I see His glory in His gift? Father, help me! Pull me into your abundant life!

Is Lying a Sin? (Food for Thought)

When I was a new Christian, I was taught that lying was a sin like murder or adultery, and that it was one of the Ten Commandments. I have been reading the Bible, and like so many other things, what I was taught by the church as a new Christian seems to be contrary to what the Bible teaches. The ninth commandment says, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." I was told that this meant that it was a sin to lie. However, there are some issues with that.

"Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, "When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live." But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, "Why have you done this, and let the male children live?" The midwives said to Pharaoh, "Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them." So God dealt well with the midwives." -Exodus 1

Here the midwives lie to Pharaoh, and it seems that God approves, because He, "dealt well with the midwives."

It seems to me that if it wasn't a sin for midwives to lie to Pharaoh, then lying is not a sin. I have been taught that things that are sins are always wrong, there are not 'extenuating circumstances.' When we claim there are extenuating circumstances for our sin, we call that justifying ourselves. Surely lying, like anything else, can be done in sin, with sinful intention or the like, but can we say that it is inherently a sin? If it is, why does God approve the midwives?

Perhaps you might say that the midwives were lying to Pharaoh, who was a foreigner, in favor of the Israelites, who were their neighbors, and this makes the bearing false testimony okay. Consider this:

"And Joshua the son of Nun sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies, saying, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho." And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, "Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land." Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab, saying, "Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land." But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. And she said, "True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And when the gate was about to be closed at dark, the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them." But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof." -Joshua 2

In the New Testament, both James and Hebrews say that this act was righteous, even though Rahab lied to her own people to defend foreigners. In addition, the false testimony Rahab bore was definitely against her neighbors: Because Rahab protected the spies, everyone in the city of Jericho (except her family) was killed! Yet, the Bible seems to honor Rahab for lying, even though this lie seems to clearly break the 9th commandment.

Perhaps you will say that Rahab was a Gentile, and therefore not required to obey the 10 commandments (and I would agree.) But if we say this, how then can we say that Gentile Christians are under the 10 commandments? We cannot make a distinction between and Rahab by saying that Christians are 'regenerated' or a 'part of God's people' and that Rahab was not, because both James and Hebrews consider Rahab to be saved, so she must also be 'regenerated' or 'a part of God's people.'

So my immediate question for you is: Is lying a sin? If so, how do we know this from the Bible? What do we do with Rahab and the Hebrew midwives?

But this raises another interesting question: Are Gentile Christians (or unbelieving Gentiles) required to obey the 10 commandments? If not, why not? If so, are they required to obey the other parts of the Mosaic covenant? Why or why not?