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Articles
Testiphony
I heard an interesting word the other day, "testiphony." It is a combination of two words: testimony and phony. Testimony means give evidence of, to be a witness. And the word phony means a fake, sham, pretender, bogus, pseudo, counterfeit, pretender. The point that was being made, when we claim to give evidence of God working in our lives, but then we live in an ungodly way when we are away from the brethren, or we put up a front of being devoted to God, or we play the part of being a dedicated saint. Instead of giving testimony or evidence of God working in our lives we in truth give evidence of testiphony. Paul said that our behavior will reflect good, or will reflect bad, in our profession of our faith in God. "Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior." Tit.2:9-10. So Paul says we adorn or beautify, enhance, metaphorically to embellish with honour when we live as we ought to. But look at the flip side, "That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." When we live in way that is not in harmony with God's will, we cause his name and word to be blasphemed. The subtle nature of this play acting is that we can become self deceived about ourselves. We think that our lives is a testimony to God working in our lives, but in reality we are giving "testiphony" that allows God and his doctrine to blasphemed. Let us live true dedicated lives and we can give testimony and evidence of God working in and through us in the present evil age.
