I've heard that "faith" as used in the Bible could be better translated "faithfulness." I've also heard that "faith" is more a verb than it is a noun. The following verse supports that idea.



The "faith chapter" of Hebrews lists people of faith. And each time, their faith was demonstrated by their actions.

Thomas,


Exactly. She acted to the best of her knowledge. At that time she didn’t know lying was wrong. She believed God and believed He could save her, and acted out her faith in God sheltering the spies, although she had so little knowledge about Him and His ways. This shows the size of her faith.


I just mentioned Webster because we were discussing a phrase of Ellen White ("an intention to deceive is what constitutes falsehood"), although a study about the biblical word could be very interesting.


Daryl,


Paul emphasizes that man is not justified by the works of the law (that is, obeying the law in order to be saved), and James is emphasizing that man is justified by the works of faith, in the sense that, if you have faith, you will act it out, as Arnold said.

But do we know what she though and what she knew? As I think has been mentioned earlier in this thread, there arent that many cultures on earth where lying is not considered wrong. Especially lying to ones own people to protect the enemy. They had likely all heard of what Israel had been up to in the desert and what else the rumors brought with them, we can just guess about. Maybe this is better compared with Abraham bringing Isaac to the sacrafice altar than innocently doing something not knowing if it was right or wrong according to different sin criteria.

Continuing on with the deception aspect of this study, what about what Moses said to the Pharoah that wasn't necessarily the truth?

Did God instruct Moses to say this?

An interesting thing about this, which is simply the definition of lying, is that one can lie by telling the truth! That is, is it is one's intention to deceive, and one inadvertantly says something which is true, that's still a lie.

In other words, it's the intent which makes something a lie, not the veracity of what's said.

I often wondered about this:



Afterwards, Moses always told the Pharoah:



I originally questioned the first one in relation to the subsequent ones, which made me wonder whether the first one was a type of deception on the part of God, however, seeing that God never lies and deceives, I now accept them all as being the same.

I am thankful to the LORD for this discussion as this was always a wonder that I had in my mind.

Daryl:The above quoted text said in two places that a man is justified by works.

Arnold:I've heard that "faith" as used in the Bible could be better translated "faithfulness." I've also heard that "faith" is more a verb than it is a noun.

This is an excellent observation! There are times when Paul refers to the "faith of Jesus," and this is an excellent example of your point; that is, this is really dealing with the faithfulness of Jesus, which reveals the righteousness (or character) of God. As we believe Jesus' teachings, then we may become faithful as a representative of God, as Jesus was.

Daryl, I like your "Merry Christmas" banner. Very nice.

The remnant will keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. I see that as knowing God's requirements, and having the faithfulness to obey, as Jesus did. WDYT?

Every sin, every unrighteous action, every transgression of the law of God, tells with a thousandfold more force upon the actor than the sufferer. {TDG 350.1}