Is it ever right to lie?

The quick pietistic answer is, of course, no! The Ten Commandments forbid it. End of story.

But is biblical morality really that easy? If it were, what about all those stories in the Old Testament that make us a little squeemish. Rahab lies to the king of her Canaanite city so that the Israelite spies can escape. Is she stoned to death? Reprimanded by the Lord? Send to bed with no TV? Quite the opposite. Not only does she alone (with her family) escape the destruction of the city, but she becomes one of the ancestors of Israel’s Messiah.

And how about those spies sent into Canaan? A spy is someone who disguises himself to appear to be a native. Isn’t that a kind of lie? Why didn’t those guys have to make restitution to the poor Canaanites?

Now even your most fully-starched Sunday School teacher would admit that those must’ve been OK, little white lies that God overlooked. But let me muddy the carpet a bit.

Remember this story about Abraham, the Father of Faith?

From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. 2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” 4 Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? 5 Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” 6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. 7 Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you, and all who are yours.”

8 So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. 9 Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? And how have I sinned against you, that you have brought on me and my kingdom a great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done.” 10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, “What did you see, that you did this thing?” 11 Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. 12 Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father though not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. 13 And when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, He is my brother.’”

14 Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male servants and female servants, and gave them to Abraham, and returned Sarah his wife to him. 15 And Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases you.” 16 To Sarah he said, “Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver. It is a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all [1] who are with you, and before everyone you are vindicated.” 17 Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. 18 For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. [Genesis 20 ESV]

So what were we taught in Sunday School (if this “nasty” passage weren’t skipped altogether)? Abraham had a failure of character and didn’t trust God, right? But how does the Bible evaluate what happened? Is Abraham anywhere condemned or corrected for what he did? Is he punished? No. Who is corrected and punished? Abimilech. Whom did God ask to pray for Abimilech’s healing? Abraham. What’s wrong with this picture? What would your Sunday School teacher say?

Is it possible that we’ve had the picture all wrong, that this wasn’t meant to be a Sunday School morality play about Abraham failing to trust God? Could it be that what we actually have here is a godless pagan king whom God decides to catch in his own wickedness (the desire to seize another man’s wife) and who then has to humble himself to ask for prayer from a foreign sojourner?

The commandment is clear: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor (Exodus 20:16). But who is my neighbor? Didn’t Jesus show in the parable of the Good Samaritan that everyone is my neighbor? If so, then why wasn’t Abimelech Abraham’s neighbor? Why wasn’t the king of Jericho Rahab’s neighbor? Why weren’t the Canaanites Israel’s neigbor?

Perhaps, if I’m not totally off base here, these stories are there to enable us to apply the commandments with wisdom. Was it sinful for Christians in Europe to lie to Nazis about the Jews hidden in their homes? False pietism would say yes, and smile self-righteously as the Jews were led away to their deaths. Biblical wisdom would have an eye on Rahab and Abraham (and two fingers crossed behind its back ).

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 1st, 2005 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Christian Community, Theology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.