In Defense of Lying (Biblical Examples)

     I decided to lay out why I’m even discussing this topic in my last post. You can find that here if you like (https://valiantfortruth2016.blogspot.com/2024/10/in-defense-of-lying-intro.html). It’s not really necessary to understand for the purposes of this post but I thought it was a valid question regardless.

    Now for this post I want to discuss a common interpretation of the 9^th commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16). This is commonly applied in such a way that it might as well read “You shall never lie (or deceive anyone)” period. I find that no one really believes this and if they say they do, they’re lying (see the last post). But my serious objections about this overreaching standard came because it condemned what the bible did not. I tend to be opposed to any standard that condemns what the scripture commends.

    It wasn’t even my own observations that started me down this path: it was an argument about Rahab we had in Sunday School at our old church. Someone else there pointed out how Rahab’s actions were only commended in Hebrews 11:31 and it was because of her very act of lying to protect the spies that she is treated like a hero (see Joshua chapter 2). She bartered with the two spies, asking for her and her family’s protection as a reward for her kindness to them. Rahab was shrewd and cunning, siding with the men who served the God she feared rather than her own country, neighbors, and relatives. Rahab was a traitor. And Rahab was acting in faith. There was a long debate in that class about how God was commending her faith “in spite of it being mingled with sin” (because all lying is a sin), but I came away from it fully convinced that her lie was righteous and good.

    There were other counterpoints made. Someone spoke of a missionary who on smuggling a suitcase full of bibles past a checkpoint where they were considered contraband was asked “What’s in the suitcase?” The missionary responded “A whole lot of bibles!” He believed all lying was a sin and acted in accordance with it, the guard thought it was a joke, and he got through without being searched. It was a good story, but anecdotes don’t make the rules. But if anecdotes don’t make the rules, then couldn’t Rahab’s story still be a “faith inspite of her sin” type?

    Sure, except she’s not the only person who ever deceived someone in scripture. Jael is another woman of faith who drove a tent-peg through a king’s head (see Judges chapter 4). She did this after welcoming Sisera in, even offering him a drink and a safe place to rest. Jael deceived him and then in cold blood struck him dead while he slept. Here again, Jael is not condemned for deceiving him, rather her actions are praised in every detail in Judges 5:25-27, which even calls her “most blessed of women.” Here again is an act of faith that includes blatant deceit that is not only never condemned but ends up being praised.

    So maybe deceit is acceptable as an act of war against an enemy of God? Or maybe lying is only acceptable for women? We haven’t ruled that out yet, but no one would ever suggest it. They might suggest that women are better at lying. But I’m getting off topic: it is important to point out, however, because we tend to judge a text based on our presuppositions and then stop when we have a “good enough” explanation that our preconceived notions allow us to believe. Suggesting that it’s all right for women to lie and not men is silly and so is saying that women are better liars, but someone who already believes that might look at these two stories and stop there without any reason to question those beliefs.

    Anyway, deceit is acceptable as an act of war. Most people seem comfortable making this exception. It’s more than just protecting innocent life too: this is about setting traps for evildoers as well. We’ve come to accept police misdirection as a meme, but there’s a valid and good reason that the general public shouldn’t know all that law enforcement is up to or what exactly they know. Most Christians accept this exception (because no one believes that “all lying is sinful”). And they’d be willing to accept other lies that saved lives on a case-by-case basis that they get to be the judge of while still clinging to a the general standard of “all lying is a sin.”

    But those are not the only two righteous people in scripture who lied to bring about good. When Nathan the prophet confronted David about what he did to his faithful servant Uriah the Hittite, Nathan made up a story so that King David could judge himself (see 2^nd Samuel 12:1-15). He lied. There was no rich man who had stolen the only sheep of a poor man. The story was a complete fabrication. It was symbolic, yes. It was given by the very inspiration of God, yes. But it was a lie. It wasn’t completely true. And he told the king that story at the risk of his own life. David was a righteous man, yes, but he had just had another man killed to hide his sin. Things could have gone very differently: Nathan had to be shrewd.

    Nathan isn’t even the only wise man in the Old Testament who used a lie to get the response he desired. King Solomon deceived two women just to see how they would respond (1 Kings 3:16-28). He even put on a little show for them. “Bring me a sword,” he says, threatening to cut a baby in two. It was a lie. The king had no intention of putting the child to death. But clearly the mother didn’t know that: she pleaded with the king “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death!” And with an empty threat (ie a lie) he cut straight to the heart of the matter in a matter of moments.

    So wise people in scripture used lying to test the character of the people they were talking to. “But,” someone might caution, “Nathan, David, and Solomon all acted as Prophets at some point. Therefore they could speak with divine knowledge in a way we cannot.” Fair enough: God Himself deceives people (1^st Kings 22:22-23), and therefore I cannot condemn all forms of deception/lying, which is why I don’t. “That’s not what I meant,” says my opponent. “Even if deception were lawful for the Prophets at times, they have a supernatural knowledge and approval from God that you and I do not have.”

    So I have to be more righteous than God.

    I mean, that’s what all forms of legalism are: a standard more righteous than God Himself.

    “No: all those examples are only the Old Testament. Christians are commanded to love the truth and proclaim it.”

    Oh, right: I forgot the left half of the bible was worthless and a lesser form of God’s revealed truth at best. I also forgot that this whole string of thoughts started with the author of Hebrews praising Rahab for lying in faith.

    Strange, then, how Jesus Christ told parables in order to hide the truth (Matthew 13:10-16). I don’t believe there are any lies spoken by Jesus or his Apostles in the gospels, but the act of concealing a matter is a form of deception as well. He didn't exclusively proclaim the truth, instead he went out of his way to leave room for people to misunderstand him. Jesus didn’t correct the two false witnesses at his trial when they testified against him that he would “destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days” (Matthew 26:60-61). They had misunderstood him and got the message wrong, but did he correct them? No. It’s almost as if he said it knowing his words would be misunderstood. I mean, Jesus isn’t petty, but can you just imagine him going to those two witnesses after his resurrection and just being like “told ya so”? Maybe he wouldn’t because he also said “don’t cast your pearls before swine” (in other words, keep your valuable truths to yourself rather than giving them to those who would just trample them in the mud), but it’s fun to imagine.

    Paul also deliberately threw the Jewish high council into chaos by telling only part of the truth (Acts 23:6-10). Yeah it was about “the resurrection of the dead” that he was on trial for, but it was specifically about “Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.” Paul was no idiot: he left out the part that would have united the Jewish leaders against him and deliberately phrased it in a way that would see them divided. If he had told “the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” he would have been cooked.

    An honest person (pun intended) can’t get around the fact that righteous men and women have lied to do good. Apart from the biblical examples, we just know that it’s true. That’s what some form of manners are (see previous post linked at the top). It’s also what good people in Germany did during the holocaust to hide the Jews, or those who ran the underground railroad here in the states. I don’t want to just “overlook the lies” that brave men and women have told to protect innocent life throughout history: I want to celebrate those people and the lies they told to stand against the darkness and make a fool of their evil opponents that believed them.

    All that to say, I don’t think the bible condemns all forms of deception/lying. In fact, I believe it very much promotes lying to protect/save innocent/righteous lives and confuse/destroy/judge evil men and women in their wicked pursuits. And, on a more day to day basis, I think there’s sufficient evidence to stand on to say that bible promotes good manners in the form of keeping information concerning ourselves and others to ourselves on a need to know basis. I didn’t even begin to touch on the Proverbs concerning this, with “love covers a multitude of sins” being the foundation for hating the sin of gossip and slander, which can occur even when the accusations are true. That’s not really what this post is about though: I’m not intending to write a guide to when lying is/is not acceptable here.

    I’m only intending to make one simple point: the bible does not condemn all forms of deception. You can’t say that it does without condemning the righteous action of the examples above or the God that approved of their deception. I know I’ve said that the bible does not condemn all forms of deception a lot, but I need to emphasize it again. Because Christians like to make standards that are more righteous than God, and, quite frankly, I’m annoyed at myself for doing it for so long and not noticing.

    Now I do need to make one major qualification before ending this post. That qualification is this:

God is not man, that he should lie,

    or a son of man, that he should change his mind.

Has he said, and will he not do it?

    Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? -Numbers 23:19

     God may deceive, but he does not lie. So isn't this whole post a vain argument, since morality comes from God's character and God does not lie? The problem is, the above examples did use lying in a righteous way, so we have to account for that. There is no contradiction between lying as something human beings can do righteously and God always speaking the truth; if there were, the scriptures sited above would be in error. God doesn't lie, but it is not necessarily a sin for us to do so. How can that be? I'd be amiss if I didn't address this, so I'll have to do that in a future post.