The Ninth Commandment: Laying the Foundation for Honesty, Part 1

After witnessing a little child telling a lie to her parent, I was struck by how difficult a task it must be for Christian parents to counteract the influences of a world that thrives on lies.

One of the most daunting challenges people can face today is to separate truth from fiction—to decide who is lying and who is telling the truth.

The health of our nations and our families hinge on trust, and trust only flourishes when honesty prevails. It is imperative that adults and children alike purpose to tell the truth.

Acceptable lies?

Dr. Laura Schlessinger, in her book The Ten Commandments: The Significance of God’s Laws in Everyday Life, cites a New York Times article as a reference in her chapter concerning the Ninth Commandment.

She writes, “The report suggests that, as a society, we have moved very far away from the age when a ‘man’s word was his bond’ to a society in which ‘people are more accepting than ever before of exaggerations, falsifications, fabrications, misstatements, misrepresentations, gloss-overs, quibbles, concoctions, equivocations, shuffles, prevarications, trims and truth colored and varnished’” (1998, p. 268).

What a challenge!

This certainly does not bode well for Christian parents who want to instill in their children the values presented by the Ten Commandments and the Ninth Commandment in particular. As one person put it, “Parenting is hard, and we need God’s help!” A little help from other concerned parents can’t hurt either.

How to meet the challenge

How then can a parent begin to lay a foundation that values honesty and truth-telling in such an environment?

I decided to put this question to some parents and grandparents in hopes that they would share their wisdom, experiences and lessons learned. Below are some of their insightful responses:

• “Communicate your values to your children continually. … The top two rules could be stated as: maintain personal integrity (trust and obey [God]) and be an involved parent.”
• “My father instilled in me a conscience. He told me if I lied I would get in twice as much trouble. And the truth had a way of coming out.”
• “I think it is important to also teach children that omission of information can also be a lie. … Children also need to learn and be taught there are consequences for their actions, and to be responsible for those actions.”
• “In my experience as a mom, one of the most difficult things about teaching children not to lie is knowing what to do when you know they are lying to you, but you can’t prove it. There have been occasions when my girls have had conflicting stories, and one of them must be telling a lie, but I don’t know which one. … I usually default to reminding them that even though I may not know who is telling the lie, God does, and it’s His law that they are breaking.”
• “I think you start instilling in them to always tell the truth even from birth by always telling the truth yourself. Children learn by examples, and we are their greatest example to learn from.”
• “Excellent child-rearing always seems to relate back to the example of the parents: It is futile to instruct children to pursue behavior that the parents don’t or won’t model! Instead of having our children catch us telling lies, they need to ‘catch’ us telling the truth.”

Okay, but how?

Most parents will agree with these comments. The quandary they face is “how?” How do they instill honesty as a character trait, when it seems to have so little value or respect in the world at large?

In a future blog we will begin to explore this question, featuring more comments from those who are dedicated to providing a foundation of honesty for their families. 

Karen Meeker values the iron-sharpening-iron approach along with dedicated Bible study when facing the challenging times this present age presents. Thank you to all who shared your comments concerning this very important subject. More comments are welcome on our Facebook page.

For more about lying and honesty, see:

• Truthfulness: A Key Parenting Tool
• The Ninth Commandment: You Shall Not Bear False Witness
• Parents Make Mistakes