Successful Living > Foundations For Success > Ninth Commandment: Speak Truthfully

Foundations For Success

9th Commandment: Speak Truthfully

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." (John 14:6) As the God who is Truth, everything contrary to the truth is contrary to God. This helps us to understand why Solomon said God hated lying tongues and false witnesses who speak lies. (Proverbs 6:16-19) Such behavior so utterly misrepresents who God is, as well as who we are supposed to be as sons and daughters, that the scriptures constantly frame such behavior in the worst possible light.

Whereas St. Paul tells us that we are always to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:25), many of us probably spend more time speaking half-truths (lies).and not "in love"! When the boss asks us why the report wasn't ready and we give her a sob story about sick children who were not actually ill, we have lied. When a policeman pulls us over for speeding and we tell him that we are in a hurry to see our father before he dies (well, he will die one day, won't he?), we are lying. When we tell our buddies that we are making well up into the six-figure range and we are only in the five-figure range, we are lying. And the bad news about all of this is that God doesn't think it cute: He hates it.

Today, lying is all the rage. Advertisers tell us of their tests that "prove" the superiority of their product over that of their competition and they are quite often "stretching" the truth. Politicians make promises that they have no intention of fulfilling. Ministers tell their peers of the thousands who are being reached by their churches yet fail to note that they are including in this number all who drive by the church building and read the quaint little sayings on the bulletin board. Contractors purposefully deceive us about the cost of building our homes. We lie about our age, our weight and our cholesterol count. We even lie (perhaps mostly?) to ourselves.

Lying undermines the ability of others to trust us. When our words are taken lightly, the prospects for success in business or in relationships are impossible, at least over the long haul. On the other hand, those who adhere to the facts, to an honest explanation of pertinent details and to a proper representation of who-what-when-where, others things being equal, these are the people we want to be with, to work with, to share our lives with.

One particular form of lying that can destroy a nation is perjury: lying under oath.

(Deuteronomy 19:16-21) A nation's entire system of justice will crumble to pieces if we cannot trust courtroom testimony. Historically, this is why the penalties surrounding this form of lying have been so severe. In ancient Israel the penalty for perjury was the punishment that would have been dispensed had the perjurer been believed. In other words, if I lied under oath about witnessing a shopkeeper being robbed, I would have to make the same payments of restitution the accused would have made had my testimony been believed.

Another form of lying is slander. This takes place when someone seeks to destroy the reputation of another. Slander occurs when I lie about my competition's business practices. Slander occurs when a man talks about how his wife is always forgetting to balance the checkbook when in fact she forgot only one time! It is slander for a wife to tell the ladies in the neighborhood about how repressive her husband is, never allowing her to spend a dime, when the facts are otherwise. It is slander when we fabricate stories to trash the opponent of our favorite political candidate.

There are of course rare occasions when the telling the truth--relating all the facts--is not a correct tactic. When Rahab lied to protect the spies from Israel, she was honored by God for having done so. (Note that her name is in the Faith Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11.) In times of war, covert action is necessary. Certainly there are occasions when an individual or institution does not have the right to the requested information: hiding Jews in Germany during WW II, for example.

People who wish to please God, who desire a life full of success in every arena and in every endeavor will be people who are committed to the ground rule of telling truth. Whether it is life long relationships or long-term business deals those who have a reputation of honesty will always be ahead of the game.

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