Have you ever experienced a moment that you understood had cosmic importance for you?
For me, one of those was the night in the 1970s when I met the Dutch Resistance fighter and heroine of Christianity, Corrie Ten Boom. At that time, I was a newlywed in my 20s, she was in her eighties, the very picture of a feisty grandmother. She spoke before a packed coliseum in Albuquerque, and I was one of the last ones in a long line to greet her and mumble a few awkward words for how she had changed my life when I read her book, The Hiding Place.
Nothing outwardly remarkable happened when she shook my hand, but I was aware that I was bridging generations by that action.
I wanted to be courageous like her. I wanted to write books.
She’d lived – and triumphed by her faith – in a Nazi prison camp. Her crime? Hiding Jews from the Nazis. She’d never set out to be an author, just a survivor. The stories emerged from her courage.
Shortly after that Corrie experienced a series of strokes and passed away at the age of 91. I never forgot her. But with that memory came a series of questions.
Corrie and her family were able to keep Jews alive in a secret compartment in their Dutch home by lying to the officials who came to search.
I often struggled with this concept. When is it acceptable to God to lie?
In my book, The Red Cord of Hope, I told the story of Rahab in the Old Testament. The New Testament calls her “righteous” because she welcomed, hid, and sent off Israelite spies “in a different direction” (James 2, also Hebrews 11).
Different direction than what?
. . .Than what she told her government’s officials who came to search.
In other words, Rahab is commended, in the only two passages in the New Testament that mention her, for telling a lie.
Now, the Bible is quite plain in its condemnation of bearing false witness and dishonesty in any form. However, we can learn an important principle from this and one other clear Biblical example of lying, both of which cases are commended by God.
The other instance is found in Exodus chapter 1, when the king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah that when they attended Israelite women in labor, they should kill all the newborn males and let the females live.
Not only did these midwives preserve the newborns’ lives, they lied outright to the very King of Egypt, saying that the babies were born before they even got to the houses. And God rewarded those midwives for their lies!
From my book:
From the example of Rahab and that of the midwives we can see that there are indeed circumstances when God would honor a believer telling a lie. But those circumstances are very, very narrow. They would have to include the following three elements that are common to both stories:
1) disobeying a command that counters the will of God, given by an unrighteous authority;
2) a life-or-death situation;
3) and the willingness of the person telling the lie to put her own life on the line if discovered.
It is this last point for which we should most honor Rahab, I believe. Not only did she show kindness to the spies, she put herself in immediate personal danger. Given the climate of near-panic that had gripped the city, there can be little doubt that she would have been killed without a second thought if it had come to light that she had become a traitor to her own people.
It is at this point, too, that another issue should be at least briefly addressed: that of the role of patriotism in the life of a Christian. Though American citizens and those of other democracies should be grateful to God for life in countries where they can practice religious freedom, each believer must be willing to distinguish clearly between obedience to earthly authorities as commanded in Scripture, and obedience to God when those authorities command something which God forbids.
What do you think? Are there other instances you know, of people who might have similarly been considered righteous by God, for lying?
Yours and His,
Latayne
PS. Are you interested in an in-depth look at the life of Rahab, told in lively and inspiring prose? Unfortunately, my book The Red Cord of Hope is out of print, but if you subscribe to my Substack page either as a monthly or yearly paid subscriber between now and June 1, I will send you free of charge a PDF of the book. So don’t delay!
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Latayne, Am I able to get the PDF for The Red Cord of Hope?
I have often wondered how God saw the two biblical examples of the life saving lies told by those courageous people. And I’ve wondered often about the scandalous actions of Samuel!
He lied several times about the source of his power… the hair.
Thanks.