REEDER: I kind of follow the John Murray Principles of Conduct and working my way
through the commandments. And so, what I think sometimes we look at in the text as a falsehood,
actually at times would not be a falsehood if we knew more about the text. For instance,
the midwives are always thrown out as that. Well, I think if you do a little bit more deep
dive into the text and you understand how many midwives there would be and who were the midwives,
etc., I think what they're saying is by the time, and I'm not saying that they aren't
finding the ways to clutter their calendar, that they didn't get there at the delivery point,
but there, in fact, they would deliver quicker than they could get there for various
reasons. And I think they are taking a valid point and making it, and so I think sometimes when we
claim that there is a falsehood there, I'm not sure that we understand the context wherein
we have to work our way through that issue. So, I would, at least, put that out as a beginning
point. So, if they come to me and say to me in World War II, "Do you have any Jews
in your house?" Well, I know what they're asking me. They're not saying all that they're asking me.
They're asking me, "Do you have any Jew in your house for me to kill?"
And the answer is "No, I don't have any Jew in the house for you to kill.
I may have some Jews in the house, but they're not here for you to kill."
And now, all of these guys are going to correct me.
NICHOLS: So, I think we can call this the principle of disclosure.
This is what we call an ethical dilemma when you have the commands that to follow one means
breaking the other. So, sometimes we think things are ethical dilemmas and they're not,
but there are cases of ethical dilemmas. And I think ethicists speak of a principle of
disclosure, and so you don't need to tell me your pin number even if I ask it nicely for your debit
card. I have no right to that information, and you are not obligated to disclose it.
And so, these soldiers or these officials who come to the door whether it was Rahab's door
or whether it was Nazi-occupied France or Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Wherever it was, they
don't have access, they don't have rightful access to the information they seek. And so, ethicists
speak of this as the principle of disclosure in terms of what you just articulated.
REEDER: Now, you all have had the wonderful example of the difference
between a pastor's answer and a president's answer right there.
PARSONS:
I've wrestled with this a great deal over the years and especially in speaking with
college students and young people, because the issue gets at so many different questions,
you know, what Steve has just discussed regarding what the questioner deserves.
And I've really wrestled with this, because I don't think it's as easy of a question because
we have numerous examples in Scripture and we can come up with all sorts of examples ourselves in
our own lives. What does someone deserve? And my answer has been essentially and this is very
difficult for some to grapple with, but my answer has essentially been it has never right or okay
to go against God's law, but I believe that in certain circumstances God will overlook
or God will permit when there is a greater good or protection of others in mind. It's a
very difficult answer, but I cannot say to anyone that it's okay to lie when you think it's okay.
God may judge that situation in your heart and your intention of what you did
is that you were wrong. And so, I think we want to be very careful,
especially in counseling young people that they can sort of play the situational ethical game
and sort of make up their own mind as to when it's right to do this or when it's wrong to do that.
I think this really plays out a great deal in what we see even in abortion,
because the reasoning that many people use is well, it's not going to be good for the child
for all these reasons, and so they build up this case in their minds for why it would be worse they
think for the child to come into the world, for all that the child might have to endure. And so,
it's better to do this, and so they play this game with these situational ethics and I don't think
we're ever able to say, it's okay. And the Bible doesn't give Rahab a pass to say she was faithful.