We’ve all fallen to the oldest trick in the book, but we need to know the oldest truth in the book. Knowing the difference between ministry and manipulation.

I watched them do it. They said a few words, suggested some options, smiled in a certain way, and waited. It wasn’t long before they had what they wanted. They had laid out the bait, and the person had grabbed it.

I then wondered how many times people had fallen to this subtle and sly manipulation. They were such an expert at it. Their success, their control was based on their ability to get others to do what they wanted them to do.

What’s it like to find out you’ve been manipulated?

To have someone use all sorts of little tricks and techniques to further their own cause.

The oldest trick in the book

You may have heard of the little phrase ‘The oldest trick in the book.’ It refers to a way of tricking someone that is still effective, although it has been used a lot before.

You’ll see it everywhere.

Those advertisements for the cosmetics that will ‘turn back the clock and remove the wrinkles.’ ‘You’ll feel like your 25 again’.

The advertisement promoting a particular tool that you will be able to build a house just like all the other guys, the successful ones!

Give your money to this Church building project, and God will bless you with abundance and prosperity (whatever that might mean to you).

Come to Jesus, and all your problems will disappear. (Jesus never said that, by the way)

And actually, the oldest trick is truly the oldest trick in the book, the Bible.

The oldest trick in the Bible.

I’m going to suggest that the oldest trick, that sly manipulation, was one that came from a snake.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

That word ‘crafty’ is about being creative.

I know someone who can take pieces of driftwood, flax, twine, twigs, and cane and craft them into a basket. Crafty can be good. It’s creative. It’s twisting, bending, and making something out of the raw materials on offer.

Crafty can also be bad. Twisting the truth, manipulating and bending a few words for them to seem something different to their original intention.

“Did God really say” is such a sly little question.

It’s a hook to open up doubt about whether God is holding out on something good.

It’s the oldest trick in the book to raise a doubt, to suggest a lack, to whisper ‘you might be missing out.’ It’s a comparison, and you’re the one that’s lacking.

I think of the prodigal son leaving the father, thinking he knew better about where life could be found, and then his brother whining that he had missed out on something.

The oldest truth in the book

There is a truth that is deeper and better than the trick, and it’s so profoundly good that we are not aware of it.

Jesus, in the story of the loving father, speaks the truth to the trick.

‘You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours’ Luke 15:31

That was the awareness that we had as humanity before believing the trickery of the serpent, the satan, the accuser. There was closeness and fulfillment.

Satan tried it on with Jesus too ‘You can have it all – if you bow down to me.’

Jesus already had it all and knew it.

Ministry or Manipulation

When I was a child, in the church denomination I grew up in, the pastor was called ‘minister.’ Other churches had priests, pastors, and vicars. We had a Minister. They were to minister to the needs of the church.

Yet so often, then and now, I find many ministers are often manipulative in their ministry.

This, of course, is done with good intentions, but I wonder if what we do as ministers (and I include myself here) is more about manipulation than true selfless ministry. Reaching a goal rather than sharing a grace.

We have a goal, so we will manipulate a response.

‘Come to Christ, or you’ll burn in hell.’

‘The Bible says … so you need to …’

The songs