Category: lies

A Need For Honesty

Thursday’s Column: Carlnormous Comments

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Carl Pollard

 
How much do you trust a liar? A study was conducted by Psychology Today where they asked 1000 people how many lies they’ve told in the last 24 hours. The average answer was two lies, but 75 percent of men said they would lie if they were talking about their social status. 80 percent of women said they have lied about their weight.
 
The average person we come in contact with has no problem lying to us. Whether it’s at work, in school or to friends and family, the majority of people feel that it’s morally okay to lie.
 
Ephesians 4:25 says, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.”
 
“Therefore” is a grammatical tie to previous verses. Each time we read this word we should see it as a finger pointing up to the previous verses. Contextually Paul is saying, “Therefore, since we have put on the new self lay aside falsehood.”
 
If you’re a Christian reading this verse, you have put on the new self. So we are commanded to stop lying and be truthful in our interactions with others.
 
Paul commands us to tell the truth. This seems like a simple command, yet sadly we get caught up in telling lies. We want what’s easiest. Many are tempted to take what seems to be the easy way out.
But there is something to keep in mind the next time we are tempted to lie:
 
Our reputation is ruined by dishonesty. If people catch us lying, why would they believe us at all? The boy who cried wolf is a prime example of this very fact. We all know how this story goes, and the bottom line is we lose our credibility if we lie. When we are honest and choose to tell the truth, people will trust us, and God’s Word has a better chance of reaching the lost.
 
When it comes to our Christianity, we want people to trust us. When we lie we lose our credibility and our ability to proclaim the gospel is harmed. Telling the truth in every situation is an attribute we are to have in our new walk with Christ. Plus, nobody wants to be friends with a liar.

MIKEY, LIFE, AND POP ROCKS

Neal Pollard

Those of us who grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s remember the infamous Life cereal commercial featuring “Mikey,” the finicky little boy who liked the taste of that cereal.  Somewhere along the way, the story got out that Mikey—whose real-life name is John Gilchrist—ate Pop-Rocks candy, washed it down with a Coca-Cola, and had the resulting chemistry experiment explode in his stomach, killing him.  How many mother’s absolutely forbad their children eat Pop-Rocks and drink Coke thanks to this story?  It turns out to have been a hoax, urban legend, or whatever you’d like to call the fabrication.  Today, Gilchrist, who appeared in a total of 250 commercials, is sales director at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Who knows how these silly rumors get started?  It has been said, “There’s a sucker born every minute” (stated by banker David Hannum rather than P.T. Barnum, as is popularly thought, by the way; R.J. Brown, editor-in-chief, historybuff.com). The idea is that people are gullible and many are trusting to a fault.  Cynicism is its own problem, and gullibility can be amusing.

Too many, however, have bought into ideas that could not be more destructive.  Consider the following sentiments:

  • “One church is as good as another”
  • “It doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you’re sincere”
  • “God just wants you to be happy”
  • “Anything’s permissible between two consenting adults”
  • “Truth is whatever you think it is”
  • “If it feels good, do it”

Obviously, the list is rather long but these are illustrative of the point. How remarkable it is that such lies are nearly as old as the world itself.  The serpent lied to Eve, selling her on the belief that she would surely not die if she ate fruit forbidden by God (Gen. 3:4).  Jesus taught a group notorious for changing God’s Word, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).

Who are we listening to? Are they telling us the truth?  “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).