The Ninth Commandment is, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour”.  To bear false witness means to tell a lie by giving untrue evidence when one is a witness in a Court of Law.  The Catechism explains this Commandment further by saying, “To keep…my tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slandering”. (1)

Lying

St Peter

Lying means saying, writing or acting what is untrue in order to deceive.  It may be a direct lie told from fear.  An example was when St Peter was in the courtyard of the high priest’s palace on Good Friday morning after Jesus had been arrested.  One of the bystanders accused Peter of being a disciple of Jesus.  And Peter said, “I do not know the man!” (NRSV, Matthew 26:74).  So people lie today to avoid getting into trouble.

Ananias and Sapphira

Or the lie may be told from a love of money, or in order to be well-thought of.  In the very early days of the Church all the Christians in Jerusalem sold any property they had and put all their money into a common fund, so that everyone shared and shared alike.  Now a man called Ananias and his wife Sapphira had some land which they did not really want to sell at all, but it was difficult for them not to when all the rest were selling theirs.  They wanted to keep it themselves, and yet at the same time they wanted to be well-thought of for their generosity.  So they decided that they would sell it, keep back some of the money secretly for themselves, and hand over the rest to the Apostles as if it were the whole sum. 

It was Ananias who actually brought the money, but when Peter saw through the deception and accused him of having lied to God, Ananias collapsed and died on the spot.  About three hours later his wife, Sapphira, came in, and so Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price”.  And Sapphira said, “Yes, that was the price”.  Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test?  Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out” (NRSV, Acts 5:8-9).  And Sapphira collapsed and died there and then as her husband had done.

They lied, not because they were afraid of getting into trouble, but so that other people should have a good opinion of them and think them better than they really were.  So today people tell lies for the same reason by exaggerating or pretending to have done things that they have not done at all.  It is all very silly but it makes people careless of the truth and more likely to lie in other ways.

Joseph’s brothers

One can also lie by action, as in the Old Testament the brothers of Joseph did when they sold him as a slave to some merchants.  You remember how they took his coat, the coat of many colours, and soaked it in goat’s blood and took it to their father and said, ”This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not”.  And their father Jacob recognised it and said, “It is my son’s robe!  A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces” (NRSV, Genesis 37).  That was an acted lie.  So it would be an acted lie if someone put a stolen purse in someone else’s pocket so that the other person would be accused of the theft.

Lying to dying people

Some people tell lies to their relations when they are dying by pretending to them that they are going to get better. That is very wrong. Dying people have the right to know the truth so that they can get their affairs in order, say their goodbyes and, most importantly, prepare their souls and have the opportunity to repent of their sins before they die.

Right times to tell a lie

Sometimes, though not very often, it is right to tell a lie.  If a man came running up the road with a knife in his hand and asked you which way his next door neighbour had gone, you would of course tell him anything but the truth.  Sometimes we have to lie if we have been told something in confidence and someone else, who has no right to know and is just being nosey, asks us.  It is better then to say, “I don’t know”, rather than to break the confidence by telling the truth, for that would be worse.

Evil-speaking and slandering

The Catechism also teaches us to keep our tongue from “evil-speaking…and slandering”. (2) Evil-speaking means saying nasty things about other people.  Slandering means telling lies about other people in order to injure them.  One of the worst things about such lies is that it is very difficult to prove that they are lies or to stop them from spreading.  A lie can be told in 30 seconds, but it takes more than 30 seconds to prove it is a lie.

Half-truths

One of the worst forms of lie, and the most difficult to deal with, is the half-truth which is also called a half-lie.  It may be big or it may be little.  Tom comes home with a black eye.  “John hit me”, he tells his mother.  Perfectly true – as far as it goes.  He does not mention that he blacked John’s eye first.  So people lie by telling only that part of the truth that suits them and leaving all the rest out.  As it is half true, you cannot just say, “That is completely untrue”, and yet for all that it is not the truth.

The Christian’s rule

This is what our rule should be.  Tell the whole truth and speak kindly of others.  If we cannot speak kindly of others, it is better not to speak at all.  So we shall not go far wrong if we are both truthful and kind in all we say.

SUMMARY

1. Lying means saying, writing or acting what is untrue in order to deceive.

2. Evil-speaking means saying nasty things about other people.

3. To slander or bear false witness is to tell lies about people in order to injure them.

4. We should be both truthful and kind in all we say.

References

1. Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer.  A Catechism.  Available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/catechism.html   (Accessed 20 August 2010) (Internet).

2. Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer.  A Catechism.  Available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/catechism.html   (Accessed 20 August 2010) (Internet).