Lies

Mistakes, jokes, fictional stories, parables, hyperbole, social conventions, and conjouring tricks are not lies. Deception is often part of sports or games and that’s fine. It’s not a sin to throw a dummy pass in rugby! Special effects in films or dramatic illusions in literature are fine even though you might say they intend to deceive.

In Luke 24:28 Jesus acted as if he were going further even though he knew the disciples would ask him to stay and he would. Jesus’ misdirection was a blessing that stirred up holy desire.

Euphemisms, exaggerations, half-truths, spin, stretched excuses, baseless flattery, posing, phoniness, telling looks and misleading silences can be effectively lies.

Some favourite lies include:

Little white lies
Lying about our age
“I was sick”
“I’m not here” – when the phone goes
“I’ve already done it”
“I have it right here”
“It’s in the post”
“I’ll call you”
“I was just about to call you”
“I’ve been meaning to call you”
“It would be great to see you. You must come round sometime. We must do lunch”
“It’ll only take 2 minutes”
“Congratulations! You’ve won a prize in our £1 million draw!”
“I’m fine, yeah, great. How are you?”

We can bear false witness by our actions as well as by our words.