Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

• Luke 4:3-4

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

• Matthew 4:4

“In the beginning, even before the start of his ministry, Jesus is tempted by the devil. The powers of evil, of falling away from God, approach him and try to bring him down at the very moment when he is assuming his role as Messiah (Luke 4:3-4). Luke reports that Jesus is famished, and then the devil confronts him: If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. If you have the power of God, then use it for yourself. Perform a miracle: turn the stone into bread, and you will be filled. Why, after all, do you have such power? If you are the Son of God, prove your power. Look, it’s not just you who are hungry; millions of people are hungry. And they have eyes only for someone who can give them something to eat. They are not capable of being enthusiastic for you-for God-if you don’t give them bread first. …In this voice of apparent intercessory love, Jesus recognizes the voice of the devil. It was an outrageous suggestion, and he rejects the devil: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’ (Matt. 4:4). Here that means basically: God deceives no one.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I Want to Live These Days with You (devotion for January 11, devotions compiled from his writings)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is saying that in one statement, preserved by the Apostle Matthew, Jesus accused the devil of being a deceiver and God of not deceiving in a simple statement.

We know that deception is sinful, and God cannot sin.

But why do we try to find some kind of middle, muddy ground so that we can deceive?

Why is it that we brag about being interviewed for a job and we never lied?  But we failed to mention our shortcomings.  But you say that if I mention my shortcomings, I will never get a job.  Besides the interviewer is not telling you the shortcomings of the job that he wants you to do.

I was interviewed many times after my last layoff that led to me retiring.  Two of those interviews were at my expense (travel expenses and in one occasion time off from a temporary job).  Both of those interviews were what is called “data mining.”  The potential employer had no interest in ever offering you the job, but he says to come in for an interview.  In the interview, they take an accomplishment that you stated in your resume and ask detailed questions about it.  They piggyback their questions by asking you to give details on some of your answers.  To an untrained ear, it sounds like having a conversation, but they are recording the conversation so they can give the details to the youngster they had already hired. This youngster is clueless about his/her upcoming job, but they will accept a starting salary less than I would want and with my knowledge, given freely in an interview, the youngster does not have to create something from nothing.

At the end of the first interview, they said that I was a very attractive candidate, but they had already offered another person the job.  If their new employee could reverse engineer what I had given them, a requirement of the interview to have all the materials to prove I could do the job, then they just got something for nothing.  In other circumstances something for nothing is called “theft.”  Here it was simple deceit.  My wife and I stayed at a hotel and drove the six hour round trip to be robbed of intellectual property.

In the second interview, I was working in Florida.  I flew back to Pennsylvania.  The flights were delayed so that my car reservation was invalid, arriving past midnight, thus the “Wrong day.”  I got no sleep and drove six hours to the interview.  I was being interviewed for a training manager position.  For nearly two hours, they asked me how to set up a quality safety management program.  No questions at all about improving the skills and knowledge of their employees.  I was losing over $1,000 in income during these three wasted days.  The rental car and airline ticket totaled over $1,000 in unreimbursed expenses, not counting the meals at airport prices.  I pulled a large suitcase out and opened it on the executive boardroom table.  I removed textbooks that I had written and supporting documentation.  I asked them whether they had already hired the new training manager.  The men in the room got red in the face and angry.  The sole woman reddened and looked at the floor.  I asked her specifically, and she nodded they had hired a young Penn State graduate with no experience, the person had accepted the offer, and they started work in three days time.  I gathered my texts and repacked my suitcase.  I managed to thank them for their time and to state that I had learned a lot in the interview.  One of the angry men asked what I had learned, and I said, “You do not really want to know.”  I nearly fell asleep driving back home, the six hour drive, but I swore to never interview for a job again.

My point is that both sides do not tell the entire truth, some rarely saying a word that is truthful.

And it puts the Christian who refuses to deceive at a disadvantage.

Deceiving does not necessarily mean telling a falsehood.  You do not have to lie.  You can bend the truth.  You can say you did something when a team you were on did something and you hardly contributed.  After a while the truth, the falsehood, and the half truth all get muddy together.  Without knowing who the other people being interviewed are, you could say with a straight face that you were the best person for the job.  But it is all deception.

But God will guide you to the right place at the right time.  It was during the time of these interviews that God was pointing me toward writing this blog.  And I am fulfilled, with the best boss ever.

And God does not deceive.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.