April 15, 2025 -What is a Lie
- brooks16055
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
1 SAMUEL 20:1-21:15
PSALM 34
1 Samuel 20:6 If your father asks where I am, tell him I asked permission to go home to Bethlehem for an annual family sacrifice.
When I read this I had the passing thought that David was asking his friend to lie to his father and lying is a sin. But at the same time if David was right he would be protecting him. I thought that maybe the word for lie in Hebrew has a more complex meaning than our word lie. I wasn't going to pull out the verse or write on until I read the Psalm.
Psalm 34:13 Then keep your tongue from speaking evil
and your lips from telling lies!
This feels a lot stronger to me than don't say something that is not true. Like so many other things I think the lie is more about the heart than the act. If I am lying to protect someone as David had asked Jonathan to do it would be a lie from a heart of love but if he lied to get someone in trouble unfairly that would be from a heart of mal intent.
1 Samuel 20:8 As for you, show kindness to your servant, for you have brought him into a covenant with you before the Lord. If I am guilty, then kill me yourself! Why hand me over to your father?”
David and Jonathan were very dear friends and had promised to look out for one another in a vow before God. Saul knew that they were friends so he kept his plan a secret. David had proven himself faithful, honest and reliable to Jonathan and Saul had proven himself to be irrational, volatile and unpredictable. Jonathan was doing what he thought was best. Have you ever heard the moral dilemma question of is it right to lie to someone if it is protecting someone else. For example a criminal breaks into you house looking for your family member who you know very well (spouse, child, mother, sibling etc.) He has a gun and says he is going to kill them. You know where the family member is. Is it okay to lie to them about it? Or should you tell the truth and tell them where they are? I think the example of David and Jonathan gives us that answer. If your heart is to protect your family member who has proven himself to be reliable, from a volatile unstable and dangerous person then it is okay to tell the lie. Because the sin is not of the action but the heart.
What do you think?
I have and would lie to protect a loved one. It is a sin. No way around it. God forgives, if we truly repent. Another question then is, when we ask for forgiveness in this situation are we truly , because our hearts say we would do it again, if circumstances called for it. So we repent because of the offense to our Lord, but, is it true repentance, because our flesh quickly and easily justifies it.