Lying? part 1

A Definition

I guess there was a conversation at church yesterday that I missed. It was about lying. Is there ever a good reason to lie? Obviously God commands us not to lie, but as the question always goes, what about Rahab? What if I am a secret squirrel in the CIA? What if I don't want to hurt someone's feelings?

This week, I want to take a look at lying. What does scripture say about it and what are the practical applications.

So let's define lying. Here are some different definitions of lying.

Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary

lie noun
1 a : an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive
b : an untrue or inaccurate statement that may or may not be believed true by the speaker
2 : something that misleads or deceives

lie verb
lied; lying
intransitive verb
1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression
transitive
verb
1 : to bring about by telling lies 〈lied his way out of trouble〉

New Bible Dictionary

LIE, LYING (Heb. šeqer, ‘falsehood’, ‘deception’; kāzāb,
‘lie’ or ‘deceptive thing’; Gk. pseudos and cognates). Essentially, a lie is a statement of what is known to be false with intent to deceive

Harper Dictonary

lying, the act of telling falsehoods as truth.

So lying is telling someone something that is not true or telling something with the idea of misleading them.

Tomorrow we will look at what the Bible says about lying.