Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!shadooby!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: murphy@mips.com (Mike Murphy) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: 1 Kings 13 Message-ID: Date: 19 Nov 89 19:44:46 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 36 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I agree with John Warren's explanation of I Kings 13; in fact when you read the actual Scripture as opposed to just the summary (because it gives more details), it seems somewhat obvious (at least to me) that both prophets were "true" in that they were able to receive "the word of the Lord". The reason I am responding is to question the moderator's response: >[If you are willing to postulate that God is testing Foo, he might have >given Bar the vision that Bar claimed. So it could be that eveyone is >telling the truth. In that case, Foo was indeed set up, by God. --clh] I suspect this was written without rereading I Kings 13, because vs. 18 specifically says "But he [Bar] lied to him." So Bar didn't really have a vision that Foo could eat with him, he was just lying in an attempt to convince him (his motivation is unclear from scripture, but perhaps he just wanted to spend time with someone who was obviously being used of God). Unfortunately, just because one is a prophet doesn't mean that one is free from sin. Foo's problem is that he was deceived, but that does not free him from responsibility. I thought John Warren's mention of the Fall was appropriate here, for Adam and Eve tried to avoid responsibility by claiming they were deceived so it was not there fault, but God apparently holds us responsible for being deceived (particularly when he has already told us something specific, as he did Foo, and yet we readily believe the nword of another without praying and testing the word). So the issue is not really about Foo being "set-up", but about Foo being used of God to speak to Jereboam yet not being fully obediant to what God was saying to him. Actually reminds me of myself: sometimes used of God and sometimes disobediant to what God wants me to do; thankfully God is more merciful to me than he was to Foo (but then I don't have the same responsibility as a prophet). [My thought was that the Foo was lying in the sense that he was passing on a lie. Indeed "he was lying to him" might even refer to the angel, at least in English. Maybe that reading is untenable, but nothing else in the passage suggests that Foo is anything other than an honest prophet. It looks like a test from God. --clh]