“Hold Your Tongue”

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

I recently did a very strange thing; I lied to my family in order to go to a preacher's house with the rest of the congregation for an evening of fellowship and Bible study.  I felt that lying to my family (in this particular instance) was reasonable and acceptable because I was doing it to keep from hurting their feelings.  The situation, as I'm sure you can imagine, is much more complicated than I'm admitting now, but although my family is supportive of me learning about the Bible, they would (strongly) prefer I do so in my own denomination.  Was it a sin to lie to my parents in this capacity?

 

Sincerely,
Parental Pressure

Dear Parental Pressure,

The short answer is: yes.  It is a sin to lie to your parents.  Lying is always wrong (Col 3:9), and the heart of living by the Bible functions around the idea that our ethics are not dictated by the situation but by God’s unchanging word.  Lying is a creation of the devil (Jhn 8:44), and if we seek to worship God, we must do so in spirit and in truth (Jhn 4:24).

Having said that, we certainly can commiserate with you in the pressure that you have on you from outside sources.  Familial pressure is something that everyone faces from time to time.  Jesus made it clear that He would set families against each other (Lk 12:51-53).  If you follow the Bible, it will always set you at odds with certain people, even your own family.

God hates lying (Pr 6:16-17), but you don’t have to tell everyone everything about your life.  Even Jesus ignored his brothers’ request to know His comings and goings on occasion (Jhn 7:8-10).  Jesus never lied (Tit 1:2, Heb 4:15), but He did make it clear to His brothers that what He did or didn’t do was none of their business.

If you are lying to your parents to avoid telling them the truth about your devotion to Christ, then you need to make your stance clear (Matt 10:32), but if you are simply trying to study God’s Word to find the truth for yourself (and you believe the truth may very well exist outside of your family’s current religion) but simply don’t want artificial pressure on you while you do so… don’t feel obligated to tell your every move to others as you study to find the truth.

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