Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: falsehood

  • Psalm 119:86 – Valid

    Psalm 119:86 – Valid

    All your commands are valid,
    Yet they persecute me with falsehood.
    Help me!

    In most translations you will find a word like “truth” describing the commands. I think that “truth” with reference to a command can understood as validity. The commands are fitting, appropriate, and right. I could also change the term in the second line from “falsehood” to “invalidity.”

    How does one persecute with falsehood?

    Yesterday, discussing verse 85, I discussed made up or misapplied rules. Those ideas could apply here. I suspect the psalmist is talking about the use of rumors, careless and inaccurate reports, and vague accusations. I think people have used these things as long as there have been people. Currently we use the term “disinformation” to talk about stories that are intentionally false in order to pursue some goal of the writer.

    But a more common form of falsehood that harms is careless inaccuracy. I see this regularly on social media. People post or repost rumors and those rumors grow and morph as time goes on. It is nearly impossible to root them out, because they fit with someone’s view of the universe. They are used to run down other people or groups.

    There are various excuses for the use of falsehood, such as not having time to check, or just posting/repeating to see what people think. But the bottom line is that people’s reputations are harmed and it becomes harder and harder to communicate. We wind up living in fantasy worlds made up of the falsehoods we have absorbed.

    It’s easy to deceive ourselves that this is a strictly modern phenomenon, brought about by the presence of the internet. But these sorts of things have been passed on for millennia. The internet and social media have just made them more convenient. Their nature hasn’t changed.

    Any time we repeat or post things that are false, we bear false witness against our neighbors. You may be thinking I’m primarily talking about the political landscape, and I am concerned. Fact-oriented exchanges of ideas are of great value. But I’m also greatly concerned with what we do to one another in our churches and in our local communities.

    Paul was concerned enough about this to list “gossips” and/or “scandalmongers” in his various famous sin lists. I’m looking at Romans 1;29-30 right now.

    But there are verses about this closer to home, i..e. in Psalms and Proverbs. For example:

    “Gossip is sharp as a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” (Proverbs 12:18)

    “A scoundrel takes up evil gossip; it is like a scorching fire on his lips.” (Proverbs 16:27)

    Or the complaint in Psams; “Those who sit by the town gate gossip about me; I am the theme of drunken songs.” (Psalms 69:12)

    A good strategy would be to fight falsehood with truth, fight the invalid with valid. Don’t believe and don’t repeat anything you can’t be certain is true and useful.

    What can you not repeat today to help make the world a more “valid” place?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)

  • Psalm 119:69 – Smeared

    Psalm 119:69 – Smeared

    The insolent smear me with falsehood,
    but with my whole heart I keep your precepts.

    Meditation on God’s word in all its various forms is useful when you feel that others are smearing you with lies. That is the most direct lesson to learn from this verse.

    But there is a benefit to meditating on the verse and then writing what has come to me–I can talk about a variety of things. And what my mind turned to was how one can be insolent (arrogant is also a possible translation) and smear people.

    You see, we tend to read scripture as one of the good people. This verse is written from the perspective of someone wronged, but steadily sticking to the right path himself. But how often are we in that sort of a “pure” position.

    I’m thinking especially of our behavior in the church community, but this sort of problem can occur when we speak about people in our families, our communities, and even of celebrities. We tend to delight in gossip. We tend to repeat it.

    Any time you pass on negative information you’ve heard about a person to someone who doesn’t need to know it, you are harming that person. Now in the secular world, we consider “truth” to be an adequate excuse for the most part. If it’s true, we think repetition is justified.

    But in the church community, gossip is listed as a sin. And unless you’re following an appropriate path to reconciliation, or engaging in a loving effort to help someone, repetition is hurtful. Matthew 18:15-20 provides a procedure that starts with talking to the person who has offended first, and ends with talking to the whole church. All too often, the entire church has heard before any effort is made to talk directly to the person concerned.

    When we do this, we’re part of the first half of this verse, not part of the second. We need sometimes to read these verses in reverse.

    Now I’m going to add something. Gossip is not a major temptation of mine. This is not a claim to righteousness of my own. It’s just that the ultimate bad guy knows what to tempt me with. What I’m tempted to do is to listen politely, not comment, and then leave.

    But let me suggest to myself and to all of you that listening to gossip in a polite way can itself be smearing someone’s character. You encourage the gossiper. You pollute your own mind with bad things about that other person. You may unconsciously poison your own relationship.

    You can’t stop all lies. There are too many of them. But whenever you can, you need to explicitly say no. When someone says, “Have you heard about what ____ did?” You need to say, ‘No, and I don’t want to.”

    What hurtful speech my you cut off today?

    (Featured image generated by Jetpack AI.)