Christian Bible Lesson 122: Be Honest

Bible Verses

“For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man.” – 2 Corinthians 8:21

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” – 2 Timothy 2:15

“Therefore, putting away lying, “let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor” for we are members of one another.” Ephesians 4-25

“If anyone among you thinks he religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one religion is useless.” – James 1-26

Christian Bible Lesson Overview

All Christians agree that it is critical to follow the Ten Commandments even when it is challenging.  The ninth commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”, is challenging for many people.  As with the other commandments, there are many practical reasons to obey the ninth commandment.  Frequently when people do not tell the truth it is to avoid facing other challenges such as explaining one of their actions or disclosing a secret that will hurt someone.  

However, frequently after time passes and the truth is revealed, the consequences become much more painful than if the truth had been revealed from the beginning. 

Often it takes significant strength to take ownership of a situation and tell the truth from the beginning. However, the pain resulting from the consequences of lying and those lies being revealed later are dramatically more painful.

It is important to accept the consequences of your behavior and not try to hide your actions from others by lying.  In the long term, your life will be much better.

Christian Bible Lesson for Today

Bill owned a business that provided accounting software for businesses.  A new customer paid Bill an implementation fee to set up the software for the new customer’s business and they paid a monthly fee for the use of the software and technical support when the software had errors.  Bill had new customers sign a contract that defined the functions of the software and identified what errors the support services covered.

There were times when the year-end accounting totals did not balance with the sum of the transactions.  Bill knew there was a challenge with the way his system posted the transactions to the general ledger, but the errors only happened during specific circumstances. 

There were a few occasions when Bill told his client that the client made an error when creating the transactions and he would post correcting transactions to balance the totals.  This process worked at first, because the error did not occur very often, and the clients who experienced the error were not accountants so they accepted the explanation. 

Then after Bill had been in business for four years, a new client experienced the error.  When bill gave him the explanation for the error, the client informed Bill that the client was an accountant and verified that the system miscalculated the Balance Sheet Totals.

The new client met several of the other clients at a user group meeting.  The new client explained the error to the other clients.  Within a month, twelve clients approached Bill about the situation with the errors on the Balance Sheet.  Some of them demanded an upgrade of the software, while others demanded the money they spent be returned. 

Bill was devested.  He realized that he should have spent the time to study the situation the first time it occurred and fix the software.   He should never have misled his clients.  Now he will lose his business because the cost of losing so many clients and fixing the situation for the clients that remained was much more than he earns. 

Bill talked with his brother about the situation.  His brother told Bill that Bill had a bad habit of not making the effort to always express the truth and take responsibility for the consequences of the situation. 

Bill realized his brother was right and that he must be truthful about everything regardless of the immediate consequences because the cost later was devasting in this case.  Bill lost his business, but he did learn an important lesson.

Christian Bible Lesson Summary

It may seem that misleading others with information that is not truthful is the easy way to face a situation.  However, many times the consequences later are devasting.  It is critical to establish the habit of being truthful regardless of the immediate consequences because the long-term results could be devastating.