Author: Real Christianity development

We have looked at what it is to be without guile or to be guileless. What then is the sin of guile and how does it differ from shrewdness, which is a good quality? To be shrewd does not require a person to be cunning, devious, crafty or …

Another good example of a guileless person who had no pretentiousness and was open to the truth was the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus meets her in John chapter four. She was not a Jew and she had a lot of sin in her …

To proud, hard-hearted people such as them, Jesus choose not to go into detail or to give full answers. He would often say things to the crowds standing alongside so as to rebut or condemn the things said by His critics and enemies. But at …

Look now at this lengthy passage from John’s gospel where Jesus has a detailed conversation with another man called Nicodemus. He too was very transparent and honest, as Nathanael was. Note the sincere, almost child-like, questions which Nicodemus asks Jesus. He does so despite the fact …

One of my heroes in the Bible, whom I would most wish to be like, is Nathanael. We rarely hear of him. But he was singled out by Jesus who especially commented on Nathanael’s lack of guile. Evidently, Jesus considered that absence of guile to be …

We don’t often think in terms of a Christian hating anything. But there are actually some things that we have a duty to hate. One of those is falsehood. Most of us are far too laid back and casual about this. We might say that we …

The love of the truth is a technical phrase used in the Bible. It refers to having a heart-attitude which values and pursues the truth for its own sake, not just because we want to avoid getting into trouble for lying. In the verse below, apostle Paul …

For an honest person, one of the most shameful and humiliating things imaginable would be to be caught out in telling a lie. Even the thought of doing that and being found out and exposed makes me squirm. But that is not how habitual liars …

Once a person begins to lie, they will do it again in bigger ways, and with increasing frequency. Then lying gets easier, in the following ways: a) Our conscience is slowly turned down in volume, until it is eventually switched off completely. This is how …

I have been a police officer, and then I was a solicitor and businessman for many years after that. If I had to say in one word what is the greatest single cause of difficulty within the workplace, I would say it is dishonesty. I …