MacArthur: Wouldn’t lie to hide Jews from Nazis

On his blog, my former college pastor, Rhett Smith, recalls why he stopped reading and listening to John MacArthur, the megachurch pastor of Grace Community Church in the San Fernando Valley:

I used to read and listen to MacArthur on the radio all through college, but I stopped one night in about 1996 or 1997 after he said something to the effect of not lying to officials if he was hiding Jews in his house. The underlying idea being, that God is sovereign and doesn’t need us to lie to accomplish His will, etc. Which brings about all sorts of thoughts, but here is just two: 1) I’m glad I’m not a Jew hiding in his house; 2) God is Sovereign but seems to use us and all sorts of methods to bring about his way (i.e. lying being one of them, Rahab for example).  Here is that question being asked by a person and answered by John.

Rhett recommends that anyone looking for good Christian theology on fighting against Hitler and protecting persecuted Jews read Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a refusenik Lutheran minister who died in a concentration camp.