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Bible Dictionaries
Guile
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Guile is the usual translation of δόλος (Lat. dolus), which, meant first ‘a bait for fish’ (Od. xii. 259), and then, in the abstract, ‘wile,’ ‘craft,’ ‘deceit.’ Guile is traced to the workings of that ‘abandoned mind’ which is itself the punishment, natural and in a sense automatic, of those who reject God (Romans 1:29). The guile which characterized Jacob the Jew as well as Ulysses the Greek was indeed often admired as a national trait by which duller races could be outwitted. But it is one of the unmistakable marks of a Christian convert that he puts away all guile, and, like a new-born babe, desires the milk that is without guile (ἅδολον γάλα, 1 Peter 2:2). Henceforth be refrains his lips that they speak no guile (1 Peter 3:10). People who are themselves guileful find it difficult to believe that anybody can be disinterested, and St. Paul the Apostle (like many a modern missionary) was often supposed to be cunningly seeking some personal ends. ‘Being crafty, I caught them with guile’ (2 Corinthians 12:16), is a sentence in which he catches up some wiseacre’s criticism of his actions, and gives it a new turn. His own conscience was clear; his ‘guile’ as a soul-winner was not only innocent but praiseworthy. His exhortation (παράκλησις, evangelical preaching’) was not of error nor (in any bad sense) in guile (1 Thessalonians 2:3); ho was neither deceived nor deceiver, neither fool nor knave. But he had not infrequently encountered men of the latter type. Bar-Jesus the Magian, who tried to undermine his influence at the court of Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:8), was actuated by a mad jealousy, realizing as he did that the position which he had skilfully won was fast becoming insecure. Driven to his wits’ end, and seeing that exposure was imminent, he felt the ground shaking beneath his feet. His punishment had a Dantesque appropriateness. ‘Full of all guile,’ he was yet made a spectacle of pitiful impotence; ‘there fell on him a, mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand’ Acts 13:10-11).
James Strahan.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Guile'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/g/guile.html. 1906-1918.
