Concerning the last post.

Many of the recent translations miss the point of Proverbs 25:23. They usually go something like this "As a north wind brings rain, so a sly tongue brings angry looks." Not only does "sly" miss the point, but also the comparison is off. The comparison is this "As the north wind is to rain, so the backbiting tongue is to anger."

But in Palestine the north wind did never bring rain. Rain never came from the north. The north wind drove away the rain. So then, we must say that backbiting drives away anger, which is stupid, or we must say anger drives away backbiting. It is the only thing that makes sense.

The translators have fits with this passage because of the word "north." I think that some were so afraid of the word anger--the idea that it is godly to be angry with backbiting--that they turned the Scripture upside down. Shall I say they were false witnesses? No, I dasn't say that, should I? Could a milk-toast view of Christianity have influenced this translation? hmmmm.

But, on the other hand [don't you love it] it is possible to get a valid interpretation from the NIV. The lying tongue spread anger everywhere, pits brother against brother, husband against wife, etc. But the value of the traditional KJV is that it directs the anger where it belongs--against the slanderer, so that his slander comes back against him, even though he or she wants people to get mad at each other. It is the backbiter who is the culprit, not all the ones who are backbitten. There is where the anger should go: against the devil-tongued one.

Pr 25:23 "The north wind driveth away rain: so doth an angry countenance a backbiting tongue."

Does the Lord really mean that it is not only OK but a positive good to get angry with those who destroy other's reputations by backbiting? Surely not. We must be patient, forgiving, kind, charitable, while our neighbor's reputations go up in flames--or so the message is in many churches. How long has it been since anyone in your church was disciplined by the elders for this unspeakable crime against God, the very sin of the devil himself against the church?

"Angry" means to "abhor," "indignation." In the form used here it means to "show anger" or "indignation." You are not only to be angry, but you are to show it. Your love for your neighbor's reputation requires it, and your love for the sinner requires it.

"Countenance" means the presence or person. It is translated often "before" as in Ex. 20:3 in the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." The slanderer ought to be ashamed and fearful of uttering a slander in our presence. What we think about defamation of ministers, elders, Christians, and people in general ought to be abundantly clear. If we lose friends because of it, so be it. We must not aid and abet the devil's work.

"backbiting" literally means "secret." It is what is said in secret. The slanderer speaks in secret and then lies about saying it. Those who aid and abet the slanderer cover for their lies, lying to cover lies and cover sins. It is the sin of the "whisperer" in Romans 1:29, one of the sins that shows the soul abandoned of God and given over to wickedness and reprobation of mind.

"Tongue" means "tongue." The slanderer speaks abominable things about those he hates and wishes to destory, but then denies that he said them.

Those who cover for slanderers are as bad as those who slander. Solomon showed us the way of righteousness. It is such a shame that there are so few who will bear faithful witness, but will cover for the evil. This evil will continue in our churches until Christians get mad about it.

Peeping Tom and Peeping Tammy

It was late at night and I was listening through the earphones to some cop show on the TV and cleaning up files on my computer when the words broke through to my consciousness and caused me to take a quick look at the tv.

"But how do I know what you really think, if I don’t get you drunk," one cop was saying to his partner."

It was like bells went off in my head, and I understood a passage of Scripture that I had not understood before.

"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!"

I got it. It is the sin of Ham, the second son of Noah, who mocked his father’s nakedness when he was drunk in the tent after the Flood. He despised his father, told his brothers, and got the curse of Noah upon his son Canaan, the curse that was fulfilled when Joshua exterminated the Canaanites after the Exodus.

Because of sin, man needs a cover for his nakedness--not just his physical, but his mental and psychological nakedness. The sin was the invasion of privacy and the exposure of loved ones to ridicule and shame.

Love covers sins, but hatred exposes them.

When I was in college there were incidents of peeping through the windows of the ladies dormitories and eventually the "Peeping Tom" was found out and expelled. The girls felt violated and shamed, and rightly so, for a "peeper" is a shameful human being.

It is especially shameful when family members are "peepers" and tell family secrets to shame their brothers or sisters or parents. Rev. Mike McGee, one of the RCUS ministers, effectively spoke on this subject at Heidelberg Camp last summer.

It never happened in my family when I was a kid. My sisters would tease me unmercifully sometimes over my foolishness, but never before outsiders. It was only between me and them. We called it loyalty, and it was a shameful betrayal to expose our faults even to cousins or other relatives.

I noticed something in the later years of my school teaching, however. Children and young people would very often regale their friends in school with stories about the foolish things their parents or their siblings did. I was always uncomfortable about it and thought it shameful, but I didn’t really understand why until the other night. I thought it disloyal, but it is more than that. It is a violation of the Fifth Commandment.

In a larger sense it is a violation of the commandment for us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Backbiting, tale-bearing, rumor-mongering, and such are the very work of the devil who is the accuser of the brethren and would leave us exposed and naked before our enemies.

It is especially vicious when the object of the Peeping Tom or Peeping Tammy’s hatred is a gospel minister. They strip him naked before his congregation and if successful in their campaign of hatred render him ineffectual in his work and ministry. It is even worse when ministers are guilty of it. Ministers have been expelled from their pulpits for visual pornography but have done far more damage by speaking or listening to the pornography that is even worse.


It is a sort of auditory pornography and those who practice it get a depraved thrill out of exposing their neighbors and those who listen receive a like thrill. But it is the thrill of devils. Only mean and vicious people can approve and defend it.

There are wives who shame their husbands, and husbands who shame their wives, children who shame their parents, and parents who shame their children. Those who have secret malice toward their neighbor get a sort of guilty pornographic thrill from hearing dirt about them.

It will not be stopped among the people of God until the church sees it for the wicked and shameful filth that it is, and the church courts deal with it severely in horror.

Just as visual pornography debases and corrupts a people, so does auditory pornography. Those who practice it not only strip bare the objects of their hatred, but they will also seek to strip bare anyone who reproves them or stands in the way of their depraved desires. But this is a world of darkness and secret, for peepers do not operate in the daytime but skulk the neighborhood in the dark. If caught they deny and excuse. So auditory pornographers skulk through the darkness through the streets, plying their filthy art.

Psalm 15
1. Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
2. He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
3. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor,nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor.

Heidelberg Catechism:
Q112: What does the ninth Commandment require?
A112: That I bear false witness against no one, twist no one's words, be no backbiter or slanderer, join in condemning no one unheard and rashly; but that on pain of God's heavy wrath I avoid all lying and deceit as the very works of the devil; and that in matters of judgment and justice and in all other affairs I love, speak honestly and confess the truth; also, insofar as I can, defend and promote my neighbor's good name. [emphasis mine]

Lying Ain't Peanuts! Especially about People or to Judicatories.

The following is from the Christian Education Report presented to Synod in 2002 and 2003. It was not adopted except the first page in 2003. The whole report may be found at
Christian Education Report

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his
neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin
not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to
the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor,
working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to
give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out
of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it
may minister grace unto the hearers.

If we are to be a part of the heavenly conversation, we must first quit our lying.
We must not lie about God (false doctrine); we must not lie about ourselves
(hypocrisy and guile); we must not lie about each other (slander and falsehood).

Members of each other. This is true because we are members of the same body.
Christ has no disassociated body parts. To use a physical analogy, the animal
body cannot function unless the nervous system is whole and uncorrupted. Drugs
and alcohol, and certain diseases, disrupt the nervous system and the body
becomes uncontrollable.

In order for the body to work properly, it must be connected to the head and all of
the parts must be connected to each other. Words of love and truth cement our
connection to each other; lies disrupt the connection. The words of the Gospel in
Scripture connect us to Jesus Christ and the words of the Scriptures teach us to
love one another, forbear one another, and forgive one another in Jesus Christ.

Grieve Not the Holy Spirit. Because we have been baptized into Christ, it is
the Holy Spirit who works faith and love in the children of God, and seals us unto
the day of redemption. Evil communications grieve Him:

And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the
day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. --Ephesians 4:30-32

Instead of grieving the Holy Spirit, we are called to confess with our mouth the
Lord Jesus and to believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead.
We are called to confess Him before men, to confess our sins, and no longer
deceive ourselves by walking in the lies of self-righteousness and self-
justification. We are to trust in Christ for forgiveness of sins and so be restored to
fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.

Without the Triune God, how lonely is the life of man! The modern man has no
speaking God, no fellowship and communion with God. The only voice that
modern man hears is the Babel of his own wilderness.

God has provided all things for His church. It is through His promises that we
escape the corruption that is in the world through lust [II Pet. 1:4]. It is also
through the promises that we have fellowship with Him and with one another [I
John 1]. This fellowship begins in the church, for without the church there is no
fellowship with God and no living fellowship with one another. Without the
church we are lost in a communion of death, dancing the dance of death, speaking
the words of death, working the works of death. The stench of death is about all
we do.

Only in Christ, in the living body of Christ, do we find life, and peace, and
service. The church is a living temple made of living stones. His communion is
the communion of life because He endured death for us and rose up from the dead
to bring us life forevermore. Shall we be wiser than God? God has ordained the
means for us to have fellowship with Him: we do not seek some other way, for
our Shepherd comes by the door of the sheep and those who climb up some other
way are thieves and robbers. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord" [Isaiah 55:7] As
long as a person clings in pride to his own opinions and his own stubborn ways,
there is no hope for fellowship with God, who resists the proud, but give grace to
the humble. The proud talk only to themselves, for God does not hear them.

I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon
them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did
not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I
delighted not. Hear the word of the LORD, ye that tremble at his
word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name's
sake, said, Let the LORD be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy,
and they shall be ashamed. Isaiah 66:4,5

The Lord hears those who take His word seriously and tremble.

Speaking the Truth in Love (Ephesians 4:5)
Paul expands on this idea from Ephesians 5:19 to the end of the epistle. Verses
19,20 give the outline.

Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks
always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of
God.

We are to speak to one another, and to speak to God in thanksgiving and praise,
echoing Psalm 50, cited above. The Christian life is a joyful conversation with
God and with each other. Involved in this conversation is the necessity of joyful
submission one to another in the fear of God, who has called us out of darkness
into the glorious light of His Son. (I Peter 2:9) In terms of this submission, the
apostle speaks of the relationship between husbands and wives, parents and
children, owners and labor. He ends by speaking of our conflict with the evil
conversation of the world, which can only be overcome by the armor of the Spirit:

Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able
to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand
therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the
breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 Above all, taking the shield of
faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the
wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and
supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all
perseverance and supplication for all saints. --Ephesians 6:13-18

The armor of God is not for protection against bombs and guns and clubs. God
has fashioned those carnal weapons and they cannot do more than His word and
wisdom permits. As we read in Isaiah 54:

Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and
that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the
waster to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall
prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment
thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD,
and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

Jesus put it this way, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth from the mouth of God." (Matt. 4:4) It is not that man should not live
by bread alone, but that man does not live by bread alone. Apart from the decree
and wisdom of God man cannot so much as move. We have no independent
existence, for in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:29). We
cannot even raise our fist in defiance of Him without using the strength, the mind,
the self-consciousness that He gives us. In our sin we turn His gifts against Him,
and it is only His patience and long-suffering that holds back the punishment that
we deserve.