To be honest...

One of the things that makes the film 'The Invention of Lying' work is that many of us can identify with the number of little 'non' lies that we tell everyday - so much so that we can't imagine a life in which we only told the truth.

Yesterday, as we continued our series on the Sermon on the Mount we came to the section in Matthew 5:33-37 in which Jesus instructs his disciples that they should be the sort of people who are totally honest and trustworthy. The sort of person who doesn't need to say 'I absolutely promise to ...' or 'cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye' (or whatever the words are for that particular playground rhyme). Not even the sort of person who needs to sign a contract. Instead a disciple should be the sort of person who if they say 'yes' means 'yes'. Not 'maybe', not 'if I feel like it on the day'. The sort of person who if they say they will do something - you know they will do it. If they've said they'll be somewhere, they'll be there. The sort of person who does not lie.

Imagine the world of advertising where only the truth could be told!



In the service yesterday we got into groups and considered a list of eight lies - and then ranked them from the most serious to the least serious. You can find this list on our notice sheet for yesterday. One answer to this question is that they are all as serious as each other because a lie is a lie is a lie, and the disciple of Jesus should not have a part in telling lies. But it's interesting to see the mental gymnastics we go through to justify some lies but not others.

It is important not to lie because lies break down trust and relationships are built on trust. We saw in last week's passage just how important healthy relationships are.

Also a number of verses in the Bible tell us that truth comes from God whereas lies are from the devil. For example, John 14:6, John 8:44, and Hebrews 6:18.

But having said all that I still wonder if there are any (extreme) circumstances in which the right thing to do is to lie. And if so what criteria do we use to distinguish between a lie that is right and one which is not.

Answers on a post card please...

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The Truth is out there

We didn't really get time last Sunday morning to explore Philippians 4:8-9 as most of our time was looking at verses 4-7. But I wonder how you understand the instruction Paul gives in 8? 'Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things'.

Is this a challenge to separate from the world around so that we try to eliminate contact with anything that is not true, noble, right etc? Is it a call to only read Christian books, and only listen to Christian music, to attend Christian school, college, university...?

Or is it rather a recognition that the world is God's world. It was created by God, and initially it was good. Since then it has been spoiled, but surely there is still much that is good in the world. There is plenty that is good, and lovely and beautiful in the world. And one of the ways in which we develop this thankful attitude that Paul has been speaking about, is to allow ourselves to become more aware of what God is doing in the world around us - The Lord is near (4:5). And so whatever is true - whether it is a truth that you hear in a sermon, or someone standing up for truth and challenging injustice - whatever we encounter that is true, we can be thankful as we think about these things. Yes - I believe in absolute truth - Jesus claims to be the truth (John 14:6), but that doesn't mean that truth is confined to the four walls of the church. If we really believe that God is everywhere then we may well find things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy in some unusual places.