Pastorlia: Lying about God

I read this yesterday.

Paul is not tolerant when people he loves are being told lies about God, because he knows that such lies will reduce their lives, impair the vitality of their spirits, imprison them in old guilts, and cripple them with anxieties and fears... That is Paul's position: a lie about God becomes a lie about life, and he will not have it. Nothing counts more in the way we live than what we believe about God. A failure to get it right in our minds becomes a failure to get it right in our lives. A wrong idea of God translates into sloppiness and cowardice, fearful minds end sickly emotions.

One of the wickedest things one person can do to others is to lie to them about God... It is wicked to tell a person that God is an angry tyrant, [because the person who believes it will] defensively avoid him if he can. It is wicked to tell a person that God is a senile grandfather, [because the person who believes it will] live carelessly and trivially with no sense of transcendent purpose… It is wicked to tell a person a lie about God because, if we come to believe the wrong things about God, we will think wrong things about ourselves, and we will live meanly or badly. Telling a person a lie about God distorts reality, perverts life and damages all the processes of living.

Eugene H. Peterson 

quoted by Tim Keller

This is why I think careful, biblical-rooted thinking about God is really important.