Conference yukon::christian_v7

    Excellent question.  I just came upon this very thing the other day at
    my Bible study.  Here is another example of lying to add to the list:
    
    Exodus 1:15-20 (KJV)
    And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name
    of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:
    And he said, when ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women,
    and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: 
    but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
    But the midwives feared god, and did not as the king of Egypt
    commanded them, but saved the men children alive.
    And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, why
    have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?
    And the midwives said unto pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not
    as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the
    midwives come in unto them.
    Therefore god dealt well with the midwives: and the people multiplied, 
    and waxed very mighty.
    
    Verse 21 says that "because the midwives feared God, He gave them
    families". (NRSV)
    
    Basically, they lied to protect the innocent because they feared God,
    not for any gain on their part.  And God blessed them, not because they
    lied, but because they feared Him.  And I firmly believe that
    "situation ethics" were not an issue here.
    
    So, is there an answer to this question?  I don't think lying is the
    same as "bearing false witness".  I think "bearing false witness"
    denotes harm to another of God's children.   Anyone else?
    
    God Bless,
    Janet

    I'm on my way out the door, but let me submit this for your evening
    consideration... I say that lying is the same as bearing false witness,
    with the following caveats: If your "lie" is temporary (i.e. you'll
    soon clarify it) in order to teach, make a joke, etc; if your "lie" is
    recognized as such by your audience (e.g. sarcasm, teasing, etc.). In
    these cases I don't think it's really lying but really a device used
    for some purpose.
    
    What is the motive? Is it to actually deceive someone and leave them in
    that state of deception? If so, then I think it's wrong. If instead
    your motive is to play a game, provide instruction, etc., where they
    initial "lie" is soon resolved, then I think it's fine.
    
    As for the cases cited so far (e.g. Rahab, Corrie 10 Boom), the
    detached clinical analyst in me calls them lies. Just because the Bible
    records something doesn't imply that it condones the action. Could not
    God have handled things if Rahab had told the truth?
    
    	BD�

>Could not God have handled things if Rahab had told the truth?

Would you lie to protect your children from harm?  Would this be "bearing 
false witness against thy neighbor?"

I'm a honest person.  I do not make a practice of lying.  But we can shave
off a few shades of gray here, can't we?

Is not telling the whole truth akin to lying?  Suppose you only gave
partial information that was *TRUE* but withheld information which 
colored the perceptions of some.  Is this not deceitful?  Is this not
bearing false (at least, incomplete) witness?

Should I tell you that I think your shoes are the ugliest pair of
shoes to have feet in them if you ask me my opinion on the shoes that
you have taken so much pride in?  Or should I say, "well, there not
what I would have chosen" instead of what I truthfully feel is an 
abridgment of all that is considered aesthetically pleasing?  

"How do you like the food I prepared and slaved all day to make
especially for you?  I really tried hard and think that I've really
outdone myself in making this dinner!"

God certainly could have handled things in Rahab told the truth. But then
she would not be commended because she would have exposed the spies.  Her 
life was spared and she was commended because the fear of the Lord led her
to believe that lying (intentional deceit) in this situation was the proper 
thing to do.

I think the question is a red herring because we all agree that God can do
whatever he wants.  What we know is that Rahab lied.  Lying may not be
condoned per se, but it certainly was a factor in her commendation, wouldn't
you say?

Lastly, I find the caveats interesting.  That's where you draw the line on
lying.  But it is lying, nonetheless, no?  If so, then where should all
people "draw the line?"  Is there a place where all people can say, 
this type of lying is okay, and this type is not okay?

Mark

I thought we already had a topic in here on this subject.

In any case, it is never wrong to lie to save an innocent person from someone
who wishes to do them harm.

Furthermore, it is never wrong to claim that you do not have information when
the person demanding the information is not entitled to it.

/john

BTW, the commandment is not

	"Thou shalt not bear false witness".

It is

	"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

The word "against" is important.

Now, there are other requirements that you be truthful, but those requirements
do not apply if the person seeking the information intends to use it for harm
or simply has no business knowing the information.

/john

    Thanks, John.  Your last reply hit exactly what I was 
    thinking.  that word 'against' speaks of motives and 
    intent.  Not that this makes generic lies acceptable, 
    but it is very worthy of the emphasis.
    
    We shouldn't forget about lies of omission (sp?), either.
    
    Still, can lying ever be good.  I can't personally think 
    of any instance I've encountered where lying was better 
    than the truth.  Mark Twain said the truth was easier 
    anyway.  Less you needed to remember.  ;-)
    
    Otto 
    
    

>I can't think of any instance I've encountered where lying was better
>than the truth.

You are hiding an innocent person from the Gestapo.

They knock on your door, and ask you if you know where this person is.

You say, "No."

/john

    I think .6 and .7 point up a basic difference between lying and
    "bearing false witness against your neighbour".
    
    Lying is not telling the truth intentionally, when you should be
    telling the truth - Jesus told us He is the truth, not the opposite.
    
    Bearing false witness refers to situations where your words can affect
    the application of justice.  As Christians we have to participate in
    bringing God's justice to bear in all situations, not only in the
    lawcourts, but in all areas of life.  The example of hiding someone 
    from the Gestapo is a case where ensuring God's justice is done should 
    be our motivation and the justification for our action.
    
    God bless,	      			Richard.

    
    What I meant when I can't think of any instance when I found it 
    better to lie, I meant that I had never personally encountered 
    such a situation.   God willing, I won't have to face the 
    Gestapo or equivalent.  
    
    However, these instances described, either Rahab or the Gestapo, 
    hold in common a conflict between secular laws and God's will.
    Are we absolved from the secular laws by disobeying them if we 
    are serving a higher purpose?  There are any number of Biblical 
    instances where people were martyred for their faith, so it would 
    appear we are not automatically absolved from temporal law.  This 
    kind of places a question before us.  At what point, either for 
    gain or to avoid pain, or even for convenience, do we forsake 
    God's purpose for another.
    
    Now, once again I've wandered from the topic of lying.  Is there 
    some measure short of lying which would also have served Corrie Ten 
    Boom or Rahab?  Is lying better than dying (where either may have 
    saved someone)?  Is lying then on an equal footing with killing as 
    another means of fighting the war (I think it's been discussed that 
    killing in a war does not necessarily violate 'Thou shalt not kill'.)
    
    Otto
    
    

� I thought we already had a topic in here on this subject.

Discussed earlier this year in note 478.

								Andrew

>� I thought we already had a topic in here on this subject.
>
>Discussed earlier this year in note 478.

.0> I've asked this before.  Maybe we have some new insight and new people.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As I recall, the issue was left without resolution.  I wanted a fresh
start since it was brought up in the previous note about God (623.*).

Move these if you feel so moved.

>    (I think it's been discussed that 
>    killing in a war does not necessarily violate 'Thou shalt not kill'.)

I understand this commandment to mean "You shall not murder."  Some consider
war murder, but again, there's a shade of gray.

I'm off to 478 for a refresher.

Note 478 is about "unavoidable sin."  Did you mean 478 of a previous conference?

I did find something interesting in 478:

================================================================================
Note 478.20                  Unavoidable Sin Events                     20 of 38
TOKNOW::METCALFE "Eschew Obfuscatory Monikers"       34 lines  20-MAY-1994 16:35
                      -< Gray is only a temporary state >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Disobedience turns gray to black, and gray never makes black less black.
>Disobedience (in every case) to God is sin, way back to the garden.
>Disobedience is rebellion towards God.  Disobedience will damn a soul.

To clarify this black and white and gray issue: there is sin and righteousness
and neutrality.  Neutrality is the state of an action or thing in isolation
of an attitude (leaning, disposition).  Alcohol has no inherent evil in
isolation of its abuse and misuse.  Sex has no inherent evil in isolation
of its abuse and misuse.  Definition of abuse and misuse comes from
the highest authority, in which case (and in this conference) that
authority is God (the same one in the Bible).

Obedience to definition is righteousness.  It is an attitude expressed properly
towards a neutral action or thing.

Disobedience to definition is sin.  It is an attitude expressed improperly
(rebellion) towards a neutral action or thing.

Because some actions and things are neutral in isolation of the attitude,
some would declare that performing these actions and using these things
are also neutral.  This is wrong.

We are made to take ANYTHING that is "gray" and make it "white" or "black."
That is to say, when we take the neutral act of sex and put it in the
proper context, it is no longer neutral (gray) but righteous (white). If
we abuse or misuse it, we turn from neutral (gray) to sin (black).

So, in reality, there is NO GRAY once it is touched (or acted on) by
any of us.  We either use or misuse, and it cannot remain gray.
So there is only righteousness or sin, folks.  Black and white.
Gray merely waits to be changed into black or white; you and I can
never exist in the gray.

Mark

Hi Mark, 

Although the original point James raised in 478 concerned unavoidable sin,
the examples seen were principally where the appropriateness of telling the
truth came in question.  You will find that there is considerable overlap
in the Biblical examples.  Hence the basis of what you were asking in .0
was also addessed there.  This is why I offered it as a cross reference.  I
deemed it inappropriate to move this string there as they have a somewhat
different emphasis, though much of the same ground is relevant. 

						God bless
							Andrew

>I understand this commandment to mean "You shall not murder."  Some consider
>war murder, but again, there's a shade of gray.

It's my understanding that the Hebrew word in the commandment prohibits the
"killing of a human being."

As a negative commandment (thou shalt not), it is overriden by specific
positive commandments ordering killing.

The negative commandment, as a basic moral law, remains in force for
Christians.  The positive commandments to kill have to be considered very
carefully in the light of Jesus's emphasis on reconciliation among brothers
being necessary for our own forgiveness.  (Forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us.)

/john

      re: .2
    
      I agree 100%.
    
      God works  with us where we are at.  Rahab's heart-motive was
      right, but her faith wasn't perfected.  So she lied and God
      winked at her ignorance.
    
      If faith was perfect, we would not lie and our Mighty God would
      still find a way...
    
                                                   Tony

(Late as usual, but:)

Mark, didn't "The Hiding Place" have an accounting of an instance when the
Gestapo did come and they determined not to lie?  If memory serves, Corrie
Ten Boom claimed to not having had to lie.

When discussing an interpretation of a specific commandment as applied to
a given instance that seems troublesome, I submit that the following is a
good point of reference:

(35)Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and
saying, (36)"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"

(37)Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  (38)This is the first
and great commandment.  

(39)And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

(40)On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

Lew

	Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.  Do not say
anything untrue about your neighbor, for the purpose of hurting or
destroying him or her.

	There are rare occasions (I believe) where it may become necessary
to deceive or mislead someone, in order to protect someone else from death.
This does not constitute a license to become an habitual liar.

	I don't see that there is necessarily any conflict between the two.
Telling a lie, when pressed, necessary to protect an innocent human life,
is not a sin at all, IMHO.  A repressive government might very likely view
such a lie as a crime, though, resulting in punishment, yet with God's
blessing.

In scanning the concordance entries for 'lies' and 'truth' (and there's far 
too many to make a list here practically useful - they need to be 
individually considered and understood), there is not a verse I could see 
that condones the circumstantial lie.  On the contrary; truth is upheld as 
a quality of God, and a basis of His glory.  It is an actual name given to 
how we live, if we are to reflect the LORD.  Lies, on the other hand, are 
an expression of the enemy and his ways. 

Perhaps 1 John 2:21 expresses it as well as any :

  "I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you 
   do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth."

There are many verse which express some aspect of this, even without 
leaving the little book of 1 John.

Our responsibility is to live according to our conscience, the silent witness
within, which should be a channel for the LORD to speak to us.  In 1 Timothy
1:5, Paul refers to his instructions : 
  "The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience 
   and a sincere faith.
In Acts 24:16, he expreses his aim as 
  "I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man."

In 1 Corinthians 8:7-13, he refers to the constraints acting upon people whose
consciences are weak, from the bad use in pre-conversion days. 

In 2 Corinthians 1:12, his reliance is upon the witness of his conscience.

The conscience is an individual, personal indicator.  

If you see sopmething as wrong, then for you, it is wrong because doing it
incurs guilt in your heart. At some later time, you may come to realise that
this was a law which does not actually touch the spiritual reality, an d you
then have freedom to do this without guilt - without dmamge to your coscience.

If you sincerely, before the LORD, believe something is right, then for you it
is right, until such time as He touches you heart to be aware of any warning 
otherwise.

You can see how this should work out.  We should be totally and transparently 
honest in this dishonest world.  We have no ultimate investment here; nothing 
is worth more than our salvation and eternal life.  There is nothing we can
wish for others greater than eternal life, and nothing which can compare with 
it.  Even physical life.

So to put oneself in the position of being caught out, shame-faced, for 
temporal benefit is not consistent with the our witness of our living reality, 
or of the priority of the gospel.

To imagine a circumstance where our understanding of practical realities
directly and violently conflicts with the finest detail of the ultimate living
gospel within us is unprofitable.  Luke 12:11 gives us an example of the type 
of situation, where we are instructed :
 "When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry 
  about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy
  Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say."
Our responsibility is not to plan, in man's wisdom, how to act where evil 
touches the truth, but to so know that LORD that if circumstances which are
unforseen by us arise, we wil be so used to hearing His voice that all we 
have to do is to echo His answer.

My life is not so precious that I would sin merely to cling to it for a few 
extra fleeting years, ultimately to come before the same gracious God Who bore 
every sin that I committed - before and after that sin...  I feel a tinge of 
sorrow for Hezekiah, in 2 Kings 20, who was so distressed at his terminal 
illness, and so overjoyed at the grant of an extra 15 years.  Yet the only 
event which is given much detail in those 15 years was the inappropriate 
showing off of the glory of Jerusalem to the Babylonians.  Were those extra 15 
years really worth that....?  Death is not the end.  It is the beginning of 
the greatest truth.

Obviously the value of ones own life doesn't compare to the threat of murder -
or (possibly worse) some mistreatment - of those who are dear to one.  But
even then, people have been called to maintain the family witness in the face
of such an attack, where the comparative allegiance to family, and to the LORD
is called in question.  And people have been convicted by realising the higher 
significance of one's integrity to the LORD.  The eternal future that Godless 
man lives to deny, yet cannot remove from the depths of his heart...

Obviously not every point of truth is so directly a conflict between
faithfulness to the LORD, and natural care of one's fellows.  But we do not
rely on human wisdom in such cases. 

The go-nogo situation need not be only in our words.  The Old Testament is
bursting with examples. 

In 1 Samuel 19, Saul is gunning for David (or would have been, if they'd 
been invented ;-).  David is cornered at Naioth, where he had taken refuge 
with the prophet Samuel - an example of taking the LORD as his refuge in time 
of distress.  When - inevitably - Saul finds out where he is, he sends along a 
posse to bring David back.  But...... BAM!!!! They're knocked out by the 
presence of the LORD, and end up prophesying too!  Same with the backup posse.
Then the third lot... Eventually, Saul gets fed up, and, presumably reckoning
that the only way to get a job done is to do it yourself, goes - the king IN
PERSON !!!!   .... and ends up himself in a 24-hour prophetic trance, while 
David made his getaway....

At least they fared better than Ahaziah's captains with thier 50's, in 2 Kings 
1.  The first two (102 people) were incinerated at a word, and Elijah only 
concede to go with the third, who came in humility and begged for his life...

I'm sure I mentioned the preservation through the furnace, of the 3 youths in
Daniel 3 recently too.

This *is* the same God we serve.  If our God can keep us through such 
*physical* dangers, surely He can guide us through moral, spiritual and 
emotional pitfalls too?  I sincerely believe that we are fast approaching days 
when this will not be theoretical, but everyday experience for many of us, and 
for this reason, it is imperative to keep our eyes on the LORD, and tune our 
ears to His personal word for us all of the time.


Our God can touch the ears of the wicked so that they cannot understand the 
truth He gives you to speak.

But first, you have to release it from your own hands, and yield it as His 
responsibility.

To return to the verbal hiatus, in 2 Kings 6:19, Elisha says something which 
obscurely looks as though it may be an untruth.  Especially in the A.V. ;-)

When Ben-Hadad finally realised that Elisha was the channel of God's 
revelation of his terrorist tactics against the king of Israel, he homed in on 
Elisha personally.  Poor sap.  He and his army had nary a hope.  They just 
didn't realise what - Who - they were pitting themselves against, or they'd 
have buried themselves first.  However, they actually got it easy - just a 
temporary removal of physical sight, to match their spiritual blindness...
Then Elisha went out to them and said :
 "This is not the road, and this is not the city.  Follow me, and I will lead 
  you to the man you are looking for"
(A.V. - "This is not the man, and this is not the city....."
Now you could argue that Elisha *was* the man they were looking for.  But 
their war was against Joram, king of Israel; not against Elisha.  If they 
really wanted to pursue the war against Elisha, the army was ready and
waiting to look after him... (2 Kings 6:17)...

I could go on and on, but I've already blown the reply size guidelines, and 
already tend to drift off topic, so I'll stop there.

							Andrew

Andrew,

Re. .19  Wish I'd said that.  Wish more could live it.

Lew

    Yes, I appreciate .19.  Still, I will stand by what I said in .18.