Why Did Jesus Lie?

koolpoi

Posts: 4,475

In John 7:8-10 Jesus tells His followers to go to a feast without Him but then goes secretly.Why lie?Did He expect to be betrayed?Does this indicate a disloyal element in the movement?

jlb32168

Posts: 10,503

There could be any number of reasons why Christ sent the Apostles on first and decided to wait and go up by himself. St. John Chrysostom says:

“And I think by saying, ‘All of you go up ,’ He meant, ‘Don’t think that I compel you to stay with Me against your will,’ and this addition of, ‘My time is not yet fully come,’ is the expression of one declaring that miracles must be worked and sermons spoken, so that greater multitudes might believe, and the disciples be made more steadfast by seeing the boldness and the sufferings of their Master.”

His conclusion sounds as reasonable as anybody’s to me.

Victim of this, victim of that, your mama’s too thin and your daddy’s too fat, get over it! - the Eagles

Iwantamotto

Posts: 6,255

Well, I looked up John 7, and it starts off by saying that He wanted to avoid the dinner party because people were out to kill Him (some martyr!). Jesus wanted to die for you -- but only when He could pencil it in His schedule! Or after dinner. Maybe next week. He heard there's this great play opening up down the street, you know. Can't miss that, of course.

Knock and the door shall open. It's not my fault if you don't like the decor.

jonny42

Posts: 6,213

May 7, 2012 -- 7:53AM, koolpoi wrote:
In John 7:8-10 Jesus tells His followers to go to a feast without Him but then goes secretly.Why lie?Did He expect to be betrayed?Does this indicate a disloyal element in the movement?

1) He didn't lie. He didn't say he wasn't going, but that he wouldn't be going with them.

2) As to why he went secretly, the text doesn't say. Halfway through the Feast he speaks publicly. It's likely that he went there secretly to hear what people were saying about him.

koolpoi

Posts: 4,475

May 7, 2012 -- 9:39AM, jonny42 wrote:

May 7, 2012 -- 7:53AM, koolpoi wrote:
In John 7:8-10 Jesus tells His followers to go to a feast without Him but then goes secretly.Why lie?Did He expect to be betrayed?Does this indicate a disloyal element in the movement?

1) He didn't lie. He didn't say he wasn't going, but that he wouldn't be going with them.

2) As to why he went secretly, the text doesn't say. Halfway through the Feast he speaks publicly. It's likely that he went there secretly to hear what people were saying about him.

As to point 1,Jesus seems to have suggested that He was going.Maybe this comes across differently in different translations but His intent seems to have been to make His followers believe that He was not going.It certainly does not come across as forthright honesty.Why act that way unless He suspected traitors in the movement?

Ed.W

Posts: 9,126

May 7, 2012 -- 9:50PM, koolpoi wrote:

As to point 1,Jesus seems to have suggested that He was going.Maybe this comes across differently in different translations but His intent seems to have been to make His followers believe that He was not going.It certainly does not come across as forthright honesty.Why act that way unless He suspected traitors in the movement?

You think they may have tried to do violence to him along the way, like throw him off a cliff?

Discretion is the better part of valor.

stardustpilgrim

Posts: 5,139

May 7, 2012 -- 7:53AM, koolpoi wrote:
In John 7:8-10 Jesus tells His followers to go to a feast without Him but then goes secretly.Why lie?Did He expect to be betrayed?Does this indicate a disloyal element in the movement?

Jesus didn't lie here. We are told elsewhere by Jesus that he does only what his Father shows him to do. It's obvious to me (now, after a lot of [previous] thought on these verses) that the Father hadn't told Jesus to go to the feast. So Jesus said, you guys go, I'm not going. It was only after the disciples left that the Father told Jesus to go to the feast. No lie.

sdp

The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.
The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton

A map is not the territory. Alfred Korzybski

When supposedly skeptical atheists and scientists pick on monotheistic religion in books, speeches and debates, they are simply beating up a court jester in a clown crown. They think that by clobbering the clown of religion, they have overthrown the kingdom of transphysical reality, but such arguments cannot sway anyone established in the integrated, co-creative state, which is the serious reality underlying the circus of religion.
Jed McKenna's Theory of Everything: The Enlightened Perspective, 57%

Ed.W

Posts: 9,126

May 7, 2012 -- 11:11PM, stardustpilgrim wrote:

May 7, 2012 -- 7:53AM, koolpoi wrote:
In John 7:8-10 Jesus tells His followers to go to a feast without Him but then goes secretly.Why lie?Did He expect to be betrayed?Does this indicate a disloyal element in the movement?

Jesus didn't lie here. We are told elsewhere by Jesus that he does only what his Father shows him to do. It's obvious to me (now, after a lot of [previous] thought on these verses) that the Father hadn't told Jesus to go to the feast. So Jesus said, you guys go, I'm not going. It was only after the disciples left that the Father told Jesus to go to the feast. No lie.

sdp

I think Jesus was just tired of the lousy bunch and didn't care to travel with them. It would have given a blessing so to speak to some people that just didn't get it. Jesus wasn't going to give them the notoriety of "Jesus travelled with our group" when they clearly didn't believe in him.

It's a fairly rich story if you unpack it.

Discretion is the better part of valor.

koolpoi

Posts: 4,475

May 7, 2012 -- 9:54PM, Ed.W wrote:

May 7, 2012 -- 9:50PM, koolpoi wrote:

As to point 1,Jesus seems to have suggested that He was going.Maybe this comes across differently in different translations but His intent seems to have been to make His followers believe that He was not going.It certainly does not come across as forthright honesty.Why act that way unless He suspected traitors in the movement?

You think they may have tried to do violence to him along the way, like throw him off a cliff?

Possible but IMO it seems more likely that someone might have told someone else leading to some trouble for Jesus at the feast.There were those who considered Him a heretic or worse.

koolpoi

Posts: 4,475

May 7, 2012 -- 11:11PM, stardustpilgrim wrote:

May 7, 2012 -- 7:53AM, koolpoi wrote:
In John 7:8-10 Jesus tells His followers to go to a feast without Him but then goes secretly.Why lie?Did He expect to be betrayed?Does this indicate a disloyal element in the movement?

Jesus didn't lie here. We are told elsewhere by Jesus that he does only what his Father shows him to do. It's obvious to me (now, after a lot of [previous] thought on these verses) that the Father hadn't told Jesus to go to the feast. So Jesus said, you guys go, I'm not going. It was only after the disciples left that the Father told Jesus to go to the feast. No lie.

sdp

It would have been easy enough to have said that the Father spoke to Jesus after the latter said He wouldn't go.As written, the text seems to have Jesus lying.Considering the implications of Jesus deceiving his followers,it would have made sense to have been clear on this....unless of course the writer of this passage found nothing wrong with Jesus lying.

Beliefnet On Facebook

What's Hot