Pearls, Pigs and Prostitutes

Absolutism is a symptom of a serious moral disease.
Thanks to the Pharisees, both ancient and modern, we tend to read the Bible with absolutist lenses. Our unconscious assumption is we must see all moral questions in terms of universal absolutes, as if truth could possibly exist as objective reality outside the Person of God. Truth is simply another name for God, and there is no truth unless it expresses His character. All truth is God’s Truth; all Truth is an expression of God’s revelation. There is no such thing as absolute truth as some abstract entity with an independent existence. The “it” is a living Person.
That saves us the blasphemy of trying to judge God according to some independent standard. None exists. We are accountable to Him personally, individually; He is in no wise accountable to us. He is God. We are creatures, a word derived from “creation” — we are created by the Creator. He judges us, and there is no appeal to any other standard, no higher court of imaginary, objective “absolute truth” against which we can measure Him. There is only the standard of revelation. Truth is defined as “whatever God says.”
It is not absolutism; it is living, dynamic, organic to life itself. If any human did this, we would call it arbitrary and capricious, because humans are fallen and incapable of self-consistency. But this is God, and His whims are consistent with His character, which is utterly unknowable except what He deems appropriate to reveal. It all demands a personal and active obeisance to God the Person, not some pile of static rules. The Sword of the Spirit is living and active.
People fuss over Rahab (in the Book of Joshua) lying to the soldiers about the Israeli spies on her roof. The narrative takes the obvious position this was okay. To suggest she sinned in that particular act is roughly equivalent to saying concealed carry is lying.
Consider: In the Ten Commandments, the Lord said something which is pretty closely confined, but is usually inflated by modern Pharisees. The words translate roughly as, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” The idea was promoting community welfare, not harming people unnecessarily. Now Jesus solved the problem of identifying who qualifies as “neighbor” by pointing out anyone who isn’t your enemy, but does you good, is your neighbor regardless of whether they are under the Covenant of Moses or Noah. There were plenty of times He did things which amounted to deceiving those who weren’t His neighbor. On the one hand, His being Son of God was altogether pertinent, but He spent the first thirty years of His life not announcing that, though He surely knew it. He hid the truth from most people right up to the end.
Jesus also mentioned the business of not throwing pearls of truth to pigs, nor feeding dogs (repulsive to Jews) the cold stale leftovers from a Passover meal. It had to be disposed of properly, which meant keeping it from dogs, at least. Both images are the same thing, depicting handling truth as an extension of God’s Person. It’s holy, precious and valuable. It was intended we give it to anyone who asks, but it would remain a mystery to those who didn’t want it. Jesus taught using parables with the intent, in part, of keeping His enemies from understanding what He thought of them and their ideas.
Did Jesus deceive His enemies? They were deceived already. He didn’t break off the bent reed nor quench the smoldering wick. Did you get that parable? Those soldiers in service to the ruler of Jericho were already deceived, because Rahab confessed the truth the whole city knew it was “game over.” By preparing to fight, they made themselves enemies of the Truth, enemies of the God of Israel. Instead of throwing pearls before swine, Rahab took care of her new neighbors. The soldiers of Jericho were not her neighbors any more, as Jesus defined it.
You may make the serious error of associating this with Situational Ethics. That broken modern philosophy still assumes an absolutist approach. It still assumes humans can determine what’s good without revelation. What Rahab did wasn’t a necessary lie in that sense, an ends justifying the means. She was acting on Truth, which was the impending victory of Joshua and the people of Israel over Jericho. That was proved when the walls collapsed without any human intervention.
If you hide the facts to cover your sins, it will not work out. Hiding the fact you have a pistol in your waistband (legally, of course) is pertinent only to your enemies. Keeping your plans from the enemy is simply good tactics. In the modern absolutist sense, that would be deception, a synonym for lying. In God’s Word, accurately and honestly advertising such things is stupid, asking for trouble, even to the point of flinging a challenge in God’s face. If you seek a word from God about things, whatever He says is right is right. Sometimes you send out the choir in the vanguard to face your enemies, and the enemy kills themselves. At other times, you wait until God drops hailstones on their heads. And at yet another time He simply tells you sneak around and surprise them. It’s failing to ask which gets you in trouble, because you assume you have it all worked out and don’t need God.
It’s time we understand Truth is an expression of God’s revelation, not something we are permitted to judge for ourselves.