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Is it ok to put God to the test? Steve, add this one drseinfeld
YES
Judges SAB note:
(6:36-40) Gideon needs some signs to convince him that God isn't lying to him.

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Once again, drseinfeld's wild imagination gets the best of him. He succeeds again in falsely interpreting the biblical text...

Gideon was not concerned that God was "lying" to him... Gideon was unsure if what was being told to him was what God actually said. There is a big difference. Gideon had doubts from the very beginning regarding the validity of the messenger (the Angel of the Lord). The following quotation from earlier in the chapter details Gideon's first encounter with the Angel...

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And there came an angel of the LORD, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour. And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee? And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. And he said unto him, If now I have found grace in thy sight, then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me.

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This approach is similar to the actions of "doubting" Thomas. Gideon, like Thomas, had doubts in what was being claimed. The asking of a sign was a way of asking for verification. Gideon had good reasons for seeking verification. His life was at stake.

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So he puts down some wool on the ground and asks God to make it wet, while keeping the surrounding ground dry. And God does it, no sweat. But Gideon is still not sure he can trust God,

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No... Gideon is still not sure that the message is valid and that the message is truly from God. There is a difference.

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so he asks him to reverse the trick, and make the ground wet and the wool dry. "And God did so ..." Gideon must have been impressed by a God that could do such great things

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Wrong. The signs were not done to impress Gideon that God could do such things, but instead were done to convince Gideon that God had spoken to him and that Israel would be saved by Gideon's hand as God had said.


Did Gideon tempt or test the Lord God?

Answer: YES.

Was it wrong? Answer: NO

Why? see below

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NO
Dt.6:16
"Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God."

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As is so common with the skeptics, verses from the Bible are misquoted by the skeptics, changed, distorted, and quoted out of context. Which did drseinfeld do in this case? He misquoted, changed the verse, and therefore distorted the meaning. drseinfeld did not quote the verse as it is found in the Bible.

The actual quotation is below with my emphasis added...

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Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted [him] in Massah.

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No, drseinfeld, Deuteronomy 6:16 does not end prematurely with a period punctuation after the word "God" as you have erroneously quoted it... The all important phrase that you left out was "as ye tempted [him] in Massah."

Why is this important? Because there is a DISTINCTION between the way that Gideon tested God and the way that the Israelites tested God in Massah. The people at Massah had every reason NOT to doubt God, they had been miraculously delivered in mighty ways that had never been seen before nor since. God was with them day and night. His visible manifestation in the pillar of the cloud was with them continuously, yet they had been complaining to the God of the universe about lack of water and food. They murmured constantly and chided their leaders repeatedly. (sound familiar to recent events?) There was every reason to expect that God would meet their needs, yet they continued to complain. They tempted God by nearly stoning Moses to death, thereby forcing God to act, or else.

Gideon, on the other hand, did not display any such behavior. He tested God in order to determine the will of God. He did not test God to force Him to meet his needs.

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Mt.4:7, Lk.4:12
"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

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In regard to the passages in Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells Satan "thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God" because Satan's test or temptation was evil. Satan knew full well that Jesus could have easily proved Himself to him, but doing so was not the purpose or will of God... yet Satan tempted Him in order to try and force Him to do something against His will (tried to force Jesus to sin by bowing down to Satan).

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Acts 15:10
"Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?"

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The apostle Peter said the above in reference to the Judaizers who were trying to force the Gentiles to become Jews before they became Christians through the practice of circumcision. Peter had agreed with Paul's argument that requiring circumcision and other Jewish rituals in order to become Christians was wrong. To demand that such practices be done would be to tempt God by opposing the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the Gentile elect. In other words, they were in effect trying to force God to save outside of His grace. The very next verse reads: "But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." Salvation occurs by grace, not by works of circumcision, not by works of identification with ethnic or religious groups, and not by ANYTHING else!

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Re: Is it ok to put God to the test? Steve, add this one        Argy Lacedom
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No... Gideon is still not sure that the message is valid and that the message is truly from God. There is a difference.
Well why doesn't god answer me when I ask the for the same motives Gideon did?

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Keep asking with the same motives as Gideon and Thomas, and your prayers will be answered. All that the Father gives to the Son come to Him.

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Re: Is it ok to put God to the test? Steve, add this one drseinfeld
Jg.
6:22 And when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the LORD, Gideon said, Alas, O LORD God! for because I have seen an angel of the LORD face to face.
6:23 And the LORD said unto him, Peace be unto thee; fear not: thou shalt not die.

It seems to me at this point, Gideon should have believed.

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Yeah, one would think so... But Thomas had problems too, even though he had been with Jesus when all of those miracles had been performed... We have the luxury of looking retrospectively and saying that Thomas should have believed also... but Christians falter, Christians have doubts, and God honors the requests of such persons who need faith strengthened or need assistance in determining God's will. The motives of Gideon and Thomas were good. They were not tempting God by trying to force Him to go against His will or against established law. There is a big difference.

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The apostle Peter said the above in reference to the Judaizers who were trying to force the Gentiles to become Jews before they became Christians through the practice of circumcision. Peter had agreed with Paul's argument that requiring circumcision and other Jewish rituals in order to become Christians was wrong.

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Which brings up the question as to how Peter and Paul, who were both filled with the Holy Spirit, managed to disagree about this important topic to begin with.[/quote]

The Holy Spirit leads the elect into all truth... but such a process takes time. There are babes in Christ, children in Christ, and those who are mature believers... Every believer has both the Spirit and the old man (old nature) dwelling in that same person. The old nature is present until the day that we die. The old nature got the best of the apostle Peter in regard to the Judaizers. The Spirit caused Peter to see the error of his ways... Therefore, it should not be a surprise when it is discovered that patriarchs of the faith have been mistaken in the past... In fact, it comforts me to know that even the best in this life can make mistakes, and that God still loves us and helps us to see the truth. This is comforting to me because I also make mistakes...

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Re: Is it ok to put God to the test? Steve, add this one        OriginalMissJesus
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The Holy Spirit leads the elect into all truth... but such a process takes time. There are babes in Christ, children in Christ, and those who are mature believers... Every believer has both the Spirit and the old man (old nature) dwelling in that same person.


David, do you have scriptural support for this explanation as to why you believe that members of the elect don't necessarily share the same idea of "truth" at any given instant in time?

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The following passage is the TEV translation of Galations 2:11-14... my emphasis is added:

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11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him in public, because he was clearly wrong. 12 Before some men who had been sent by James arrived there, Peter had been eating with the Gentile brothers and sisters. But after these men arrived, he drew back and would not eat with the Gentiles, because he was afraid of those who were in favour of circumcising them. 13 The other Jewish brothers and sisters also started acting like cowards along with Peter; and even Barnabas was swept along by their cowardly action. 14 When I saw that they were not walking a straight path in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, You are a Jew, yet you have been living like a Gentile, not like a Jew. How, then, can you try to force Gentiles to live like Jews?

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The context of the above is the dispute that occurred early in the church regarding the Judaizers. Most all of the first Christians were Jewish converts. When Christianity began spreading to the Gentiles, there was much disagreement regarding what should happen to the Gentiles. Many of the early Christians wrongly assumed that the Gentiles should become Jews first before becoming Christians. The confusion was understandable. The Holy Spirit guided the early church in finding the solution to the dilema. Peter was part of the Judaizers. Even after the Holy Spirit had revealed to him the truth regarding this issue, he was still afraid or sympathetic to the Judaizers. The apostle Paul confronted Peter or "opposed" him in public!

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The more I think about it, the more this seems contradictory to something you said to me in another thread:

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You may think that it is possible to "interpret the Bible any way you want", but for those of the elect, it is IMPOSSIBLE to continually interpret the Bible in any way that is contrary to the teachings of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides the elect into all truth regarding His word. Such is a continual process. The elect of God are not at liberty to interpret the Bible according to their own selfish old-nature whims.

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Notice that I wrote "it is IMPOSSIBLE to continually interpret the Bible in any way that is contrary to the teachings of the Holy Spirit." There are often disagreements among Christians regarding interpretations of doctrine in the Bible... However, much of the differences are due to different maturation stages of each believer. Eventually, given enough time, Christians come to agreement on the differences in interpretation. This does not mean of course, that the oldest or maturest of Christians are in complete agreement... What it means is that, given enough time, all of them would eventually be in agreement.

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It seems that at any given time, if two people have contradictory interpretations of the Bible it's only possible for one of them to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Unless the Holy Spirit is intentionally misleading one of them.

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I don't look at the situation above as being one in which the Holy Spirit is intentionally misleading one of them. If two Christians have contradictory interpretations of the Bible, then either one of them is wrong, or both of them are wrong! There are many interpretations that Christians may have of the Bible that are NOT derived from the Holy Spirit. There are many things that are still left to mystery that have not been taught to Christians yet by the Holy Spirit.