“That’s Still Sin” Week #5: ALL Lies
Welcome to “That’s Still Sin” Week on the blog. This week’s posts are meant to take five issues that are called sinful in the Bible, but that rarely get discussed as such anymore.
—————————
Revelation 21:8 has been, through a silly song, reduced to teach that “liars go to hell.” Of course, that little song leaves of a myriad of other sins that will cause one to suffer eternal punishment.
But the reason I am including lying as the final post in “That’s Still Sin” week is the little word “all” in Revelation 21:8. Here is the verse in its entirety:
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. (ESV)
That little word “all” makes a big difference, doesn’t it? It should cause each of us to be very careful about the way we view lying.
You see, a lie is defined as an untruth told with the intent to deceive. The definition has nothing to do with the size of the deception.
…and that’s where we often get in trouble.
- “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
- “It wasn’t as big of a lie as that one that she told!”
- “I didn’t think that part was really important.”
- “It was just one answer on the test. It’s not like I claimed every answer as my own.”
- “I’m fine.”
Ouch.
We live in a world of comparative sin. If it’s not as big as another lie, then we are told it doesn’t really count as a lie. The old phrase, “little white lie” has gone out of style, but many of us still think that we can tell those little “fib-lets” and be okay.
Remember that God sees sin as sin, and lying is wrong…
…ALL lies are wrong.
QUESTION: Why do we often think that some lies aren’t that big of a deal?
————————-
Photo credit: Kathleen Conklin on creative commons
To receive our blog posts via rss, click here. To subscribe via email, click here.
3 Comments
Iain
Santa? Tooth fairy? And more….aren’t they lies we tell our children?
Adam Faughn
I knew someone would ask this, especially since we are getting to that time of year.
I do not think this is lying for two reasons.
1. If Santa and other characters are lying, then all fiction literature needs to be destroyed. Also, we would need to stop playing many games with our children (“Uh, oh, daddy’s a big monster!”). This is part of a child’s imagination and true development. It is not meant to deceive the child.
2. We do not tell our children things that are untrue. With our children, we simply tell them that Santa Claus (just to use that example) is someone who loves them very much and who brings gifts.
I know many families who do not teach Santa or Easter bunny or others, and that is fine. But as long as it is not done to deceive the child and is done in a way that simply expresses the imagination of a child, I think it is simply a part of development.
Iain
I just think that you need to be careful what you put out there, you are rationalising that you are not lying when telling a child about tooth fairies or santa & his elves; you state that “fiction literature” would need to be destroyed if we cannot tell our children about santa etc. but the difference is that we tend not to present santa as “fiction literature” and let our children read it for themselves. In fact, santa is very often tacked onto the christmas story as a vital part of it & that bothers me. I wonder how many children have found the merging of the two things (i.e. gospel + fiction) confusing in later/teen years & depart the faith as a result. It may be that this is also part of the reason why many people in the world (even many in Christendom?) cannot see the truth for all the myths we seem to have attached. Your original stance about deception is valid, but be careful or you may find that you box yourself into a corner when trying to maintain credibility about telling the truth. Atheists/agnostics are always seeking a chink in our armour & if they can make us seem less credible then their job is done.