• Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Can you identify the "dogs" or "swine"?

HankD

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
"Does this dress make me look fat?" asked your wife.
You replied, wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove, ...
Indeed. "white lies are OK"?

Actually I am the fat one (well overweight), my wife is slim. :)
 

atpollard

Well-Known Member
Indeed. "white lies are OK"?
If you think that is what innocent as a dove entails, then I guess that is YOUR answer.
My point was that any answer a husband gives to that question will be given with the "innocence" of one who is motivated by LOVE and the "wisdom" of one who sees that it must not be answered CARELESSLY.

Thus any answer to the question is your requested example of "harmless as Doves but wise as serpents".
 

HankD

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
If you think that is what innocent as a dove entails, then I guess that is YOUR answer.
My point was that any answer a husband gives to that question will be given with the "innocence" of one who is motivated by LOVE and the "wisdom" of one who sees that it must not be answered CARELESSLY.

Thus any answer to the question is your requested example of "harmless as Doves but wise as serpents".
OK.
 

atpollard

Well-Known Member

Mat 7:6 KJV Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Can you, or anyone to your knowledge, identify the "dogs" or the "swine" in your midst?

Context, context, context ...

[Matthew 7:1-6 NIV]
1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
6 "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

The question that I wanted to ask when I read the OP is ... What is "that which is holy"?

Mat 7:1-5 is a paragraph on correcting the flaws (sins) in others while you had not dealt with the same flaws (sin) in yourself. If Mat 7:6 is viewed as the culmination of that same thought rather than a separate, stand alone paragraph of only one sentence, then "that which is holy" would be right correction of the speck in your neighbor's eye after you had removed the plank from your own eye so that you can now see clearly (Mat 7:5).

Suddenly, Mat 7:6 seems like very good advice to me. The "dogs" and "swine (pigs)" strike me as those outside the Body of Christ [whether within the walls of the church building or outside]. The advice then becomes to not waste time and effort cleaning up the external sin of someone who still needs regeneration. Preaching temperance to drunks is a wasted effort, drunks do not need morality, they need salvation. Salvation is not found in preaching morality, salvation is found in sharing the Gospel because only the Jesus of the Gospel can fix what is truly broken in a sinner.

Only after a sinner is regenerated by the Word, are they a saint with a speck in their eye willing and able to receive correction.

So the real question being asked in the OP is ... can you identify the difference between someone who needs to hear the Gospel and be saved and someone who is saved and needs correction of the sin still remaining in their life?

For me, the answer is ... sometimes.




 

Covenanter

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Wasn't there a rabbi who revealed sometime after his death that he believed Jesus is/was the Messiah?

I don't think it was the Lubavitcher...

I think he said the Messiah's name would be Jesus - based on Zec. 3 & 6, but of course he wasn't speaking of our LORD & Saviour, Jesus Christ.
 
Top