Friends, When the world’s enthusiasm for lies exceeds it’s reliance on truth, well, just take a look around.  See the column below.  Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #859

May 2, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Satan’s Kiss

By Bob Walters

- “A liar hates the person they lie to” – my paraphrase, Proverbs 26:28

- “You belong to your father, the devil … he was a murderer from the beginning … there is no truth in him … he is a liar and the father of lies.” Jesus to the Pharisees, John 8:24

- “Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot” – after Judas receives bread from Jesus at the Last Supper, Luke 22:3, John 13:27, Judas leaves to betray Jesus

- “Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, ‘Greeting’s Rabbi!’ and kissed him.” – The traitor identifying Jesus for soldiers to arrest at Gethsemane. – Matthew 26:49

My faith mentor George Bebawi, a Hungarian Jew by birth whose family at the outset of World War II escaped to Cairo, Egypt, found Christ in his late teens, became a Coptic priest, earned a PhD in divinity at Cambridge University, England, knew the Bible in several languages, and possessed fascinating insights into Jesus-era Jewish culture.

“It has long been a Middle Eastern custom for men to kiss each other upon greeting,” George would explain. “The kiss says, ‘My lips will not lie to you.’”

The Bible has nothing good to say about liars, especially the liars who sabotage humanity, sabotage God, sabotage trust, and sabotage peace and peace of mind.  If I can put a compassionate spin on an important comment to someone I love, I’ll do it.  We all will.  We have to discern when a brutal truth will correct and focus, and when a gentle word will encourage and strengthen.  Our lips always should express Jesus’s life-giving, humble, Last Supper commandment to love God and others. And when required … to roar like a lion.

Satan is the original and lasting hater and liar, whose “truth” brings death to humans.  Satan’s goal is to dishonor God, and since he cannot hurt God, Satan lies to us, promotes lies between us, and watches us hate each other as we ignore, blame, or disparage God.  Does Satan “love” anything?  I think he loves our unloving confusion.

This is on my mind because, as you may have noticed, our current Western culture is besieged by and living in a season of robust lies, not just of the political or religious kind, but lies about humanity itself. 

We should not need to cite the Bible or invoke God to express, for example, the plainly human, sane truth that “men” and “women” are an inviolable biological dichotomy.  God and the Bible say as much, but common sense and even religiously-detached, honest science says the same thing.  Science doesn’t replace God; science reveals God.

Alas, so much of “science” has been subsumed by politics and political deceit, or by spurious “social science” that shouts “My truth!” but ignores reality.  Science postures as ideology, not investigation.  Journalism is clicks and narrative, not accuracy and objectivity.  Academia seeks indoctrination, not education. Government counters truth and freedom.

Bash the founding of America with Critical Race Theory, sure, but it is betrayal with a kiss.  Abortion is a health care choice!  But it is a kiss of death.  Mutilate our children and tragically, permanently confuse their sexual identity with a kiss of wokeness.  D-E-I is the kiss of disingenuousness.  Be an “Ally” for all self-centric toxicity and kiss with cancellation.

God is truth. We know God, we know truth, truth endures. God’s truth guides life, not death.  Truth is not “mine” or “yours;” truth is truth all the time. Yet, mass media constantly, enthusiastically, and threateningly pushes Judas “experts” on us … with a kiss of deception.

A kiss without love is a lie.  A kiss without God is a betrayal. A kiss without humanity pleases Satan.  If we are to be heirs of God’s Kingdom – the purpose and promise of Christ – we must reject the kiss of worldly Jezebels and embrace with firm voice and courage the life-sustaining truth that recognizes and rejects Satan’s kiss.

May Jesus’s truth be on our lips, His love in our hearts, and His courage in our souls.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) wonders … what if politicians spoke God’s truth?