Why we lie

How comfortable are you with lying?

Exodus 20:16 “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” I always thought why it was never “Thou shalt not lie.” Many of the other commandments are straight forward like “Thou shalt not kill.” Or “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. So why not state plainly “Thou shalt not lie.” I think this is deliberate, and that there is a difference between lying and “bearing false witness.”

Many people say that “Honesty is the best policy.” While this may be true there are situations in which it is possible to be too honest. Brutal honesty can be very hurtful, it is often better to tell a small lie to avoid any trouble and benefit both parties. For example, when your prom date walks down the stairs, no matter what you actually think, you are going to compliment them. When you say “You look great!” you are technically lying, but in the process you are raising their self-esteem. This is why the commandment is not “Thou shalt not lie”, it is sometimes the better option to lie. I would take the small lie over brutal honesty any day. Like with anything, take this with a grain of salt. Continuous “white lies”, as they are called, can destroy your credibility and be a hindrance to serious relationships.

So what does “bearing false witness against thy neighbor” mean anyway? The key difference is the way the deceit is used. Bearing false witness means to plan or devise lies designed to hurt others. It is the intent to hurt others that sets it apart from simply lying. For instance, if I needed a 4.0 to get the scholarship I really wanted, I might be motivated to cheat and lie to get there. I might make a plan to break into a teacher’s laptop to change everyone’s grades. Give myself a perfect and give all the people I dislike 0’s. I then proceed to lie to the teacher when they ask me if I changed the grades. Most people with a decent set of morals wouldn’t lie and cheat in this way.

These two types of lies are the extremes, and of course there is a variety in between. Lies really do depend on the situation, it is hard to write a guidebook with a perfect balance of honest and beneficial lies. It also depends on personality. As I see it lies are just gateways to worse things. I’ve seen it in my oldest sister, I remember when she became a teenager that she began to lie more and more to my parents. It started with small things like practicing the piano. My parents would ask “Did you practice while I was gone?” and she would answer affirmatively. Well, I knew for a fact that she hadn’t, but I didn’t want to rat her out. In a sense I was helping her lie. Soon she began to lie about what time she was going to come home. Or where she was going, or who she was hanging out with. Of course she also kept everything from me, so it I don’t know exactly what went on. The one thing that I could notice is her relationship with my parents. Remember how I said that you begin to lose credibility, well that’s what happened. My parents couldn’t trust her, they couldn’t tell the difference between the truth and the lies anymore. Trust is hard to win back, and I just saw them growing further and further apart. I’m pretty sure she was thrilled to leave home and be free from the constant hovering of her parents.

After seeing this example, I knew that I didn’t want to have that kind of a relationship with my parents. I want to be trusted, I want people to be able to rely on me to follow through and get things done. That’s why I try my best to tell my parents exactly what is going on. Peer pressure, especially in high school, can be to rebel against your parents and “live a little”. I would encourage people to listen to their parents more, I’m not discouraging anyone from “living a little” or having fun, but at least listen to what you parents have to say. The last thing you want is a parent to say “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”