Part 9 of the 10 commandments
9th commandment, Exodus 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Fibbing is bearing a false witness, but bearing a false witness against your neighbor has so much more to do with your heart and obedience to God than just a fib. Fibbing doesn’t include the part about ‘against your neighbor’. That talks about how it affects your relationships with your neighbors. Remember how I pointed out that the first five commandments affect our relationship with God (vertical) and the last 5 had to do with relationships with fellow man? (Horizontal)
Interestingly enough, vertical and horizontal lines form the shape of a cross. (God knew what He was doing from the beginning)
Bearing false witness against your neighbors (gossip, slandering, murmuring) has more to do with your heart than lying about how big the bass was that you caught. I am not justifying basic lying. Everyone hates lying. Even God! Love the sinner, hate the sin. I want to be a source of God’s joy though, don’t you?
Proverbs 12:22 The Lord hates lying lips, but those who speak the truth are His joy.
The Jewish leaders committed this sin in the grandest of fashions. Remember the woman ‘caught’ in adultery? Well, it’s hard to commit adultery alone. Where was the boyfriend? Jesus was writing in the dirt. Lots of theories and ideas about what He was writing. But maybe He was just writing ‘Where is the boyfriend?’ or just the 9th commandment ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor’.
John 8:9 They which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
Older people are wiser. They’re the first ones to recognize their error. Young guys take a while.
Everyone in the world knows it’s bad to lie. Even the Indians, whom I worked with, who never heard about Jesus or the Bible. They knew that lying wasn’t cool. In fact, Indians are totally honest. To the point of being annoying. Although lying is a sin, and everyone knows that, from the church goer to the drunken bum, it’s not breaking the 9th commandment.
The 9th commandment is more like ‘Thou shalt not gossip’. Most gossip that I hear is not true. There may be elements of truth but always exaggerated by the time it gets to me. To repeat a lie is to lie. The church is full of gossip, even today. Prayer ‘requests’ are a form of gossip sometimes. Do you know that the origin of the word ‘slander’ has to do with Satan?
Gossip is defined as casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.
Murmuring is also gossip. It is said that murmuring is gossip in a low voice. If a murmurer comes to you at work, stay away from him. If a murmurer comes to you at church, run! God hates murmuring because it’s gossip.
Gossip or murmuring, depending on the volume, is unfitting of a truly born again Christian. Romans 1:29 and 2 Corinthians 12:20 both condemn it as the result of a depraved mind. 1 Timothy 5:13 and 2 Thessalonians 3:11 both condemn “busybodies” who “speak about things not proper to mention.” Don’t do it. Don’t listen to it. It doesn’t come from a good place. Do you want to be a joy to the Lord? Guard your tongue. How do you guard your tongue? By guarding your heart.
Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do (and say) flows from it.