During an Old Testament lecture, our class came head on with the difficult passage of how Rahab (a woman honored in the Hall of Faith) hid spies in her home, and led their pursuers on a wild goose chase. The lecturer asked us, “Is it right for Rahab to lie to their enemies or not?”
One of my classmates pointed out that it seems fine to lie in order to protect the good guys. And he made a brilliant observation that even Christians leave the lights on when they are not at home to give potential thieves a (false) impression that it is occupied. Isn’t that deception?
I must admit that I was utterly stumped. Intuitively, I knew it was the right thing to do.
Furthermore, the Old Testament narrative did not condemn or condone Rahab’s act.
But as my lecturer was quick to caution, “Isn’t that situational ethics? That something wrong can be right depending on the situation.” He wants to stress that telling lies is absolutely wrong. Could God not have saved the spies through other means had Rahab told the truth about the spies hiding inside? His position implies that deception is always wrong.
Does it mean that we must also put up truthful signboard saying, “Nobody’s home”?
Hopefully not! Yesterday, R.C. Sproul came to the rescue in his book “Pleasing God”. We can never justify sins on the basis of bare “situation”.
But the underlying principle is that we must tell the truth when truth is due. This implies that truth is not always due.
For example, Corrie ten Boom and her sister heroically hid Jews in their home, providing them refuge from the Nazis. One day, armed soldiers interrogated them, “Did you hide any Jewish refugees here?”
They looked at each other and playfully said, “Yes.” Then the girls broke into a fit of laughter, which the soldiers treated as a silly joke.
The murderous Nazis are not morally entitled to the truth. The girls had a moral right to deceive the wicked. Consequently, their action saved the lives of many Jews.
It is not pleasing to God if we tell the truth to people who do not deserve it. We are not required to tell robbers where our valuables are hid in the house. Soldiers are not required to tell their captors where their comrades’ position is.
That said, parents concerned to know our whereabouts, the shareholder in need of facts and figures or the spouse curious about the extra expenses ARE certainly entitled to know the truth. In that case, we must not lie when truth is due.
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