The Two-Hundred-Fifty-First (Honesty and Integrity)

As I have continued my daily reading to read through all scripture within a year, I’ve come to the section of Deuteronomy where Moses recounts all the commandments given to the Israelites.  As I read through, an underlying, not completely obvious, aspect of these commandments struck me.  In fact, when I thought about it more, it became clear that this aspect is all throughout scripture and is something that in this age we must focus on even more.

I’m sure you’ve noticed throughout your life that the world mostly operates in the realm of little to no honesty and integrity.  Unfortunately, you even find this amongst believers in some instances.  This is not completely unexpected, since after all, while we are called to be a set-apart, or holy, people, we did come out of a world we grew up learning how to live in.  

Sometimes it’s an attempt at self-preservation.  Sometimes it’s simply a justification.  Whatever causes it, a person feels as though they need to not be completely honest in certain situations.  Or perhaps it’s less a need and more of a lack of feeling obligated to have honesty and integrity to anyone, including themselves.  They just have the general sentiment that there’s no reason for them to have to be honest or have integrity in anything.  Essentially, they have an “I can do whatever I want,” attitude.

It helps, in some cases, to go through an example to illustrate this type of situation.  In this case, we’ll look at a more subtle occurrence of this, partly because the obvious occurrences are just that, obvious, and partly because in my experience I’ve found that the subtle occurrences are far more prevalent not only in society as a whole, but amongst believers as well.  It’s far more likely that you’ll find someone who picks and chooses when honesty or integrity is not required rather than someone who is at all times dishonest and lacking integrity, because generally those individuals have already developed a reputation and people know to steer clear of them.

So, what is this subtle occurrence?  It’s one in which a person, for whatever reason, feels as though in a particular scenario they are either allowed to, or has no choice but to, be dishonest or have no integrity.  It may be that something bad will happen to them if they tell the truth.  Perhaps they will get in trouble, or even get put in jail.  They start to act out of self-preservation, sometimes even convincing themselves that their lie is actually the truth.  Maybe they even blame their actions on someone else, justifying lying because “if it weren’t for that person, I wouldn’t have done what I did.”

How about an example on the side of integrity?  Someone sees something another person misplaced, and they say, “finders keepers.”  Or, someone involved in a legal argument knows another person was at the scene and witnessed what happened, but that individual doesn’t want to get involved, for whatever reason, so they say they were there but they didn’t see exactly what happened.  

By that last example, you can see that honesty and integrity are very closely linked, and you likely are already aware that there are passages in scripture talking specifically about those things.  However, you may not have already made the connection that these things are very spiritual in their nature.  Much like the fruit of the spirit, which we’ve looked at before, honesty and integrity start spiritually and their results are seen physically.  

You cannot look at a person outwardly and know for certain whether a person is honest and has integrity.  If you are around them enough however, you will begin to see if that’s the case since you will be able to connect things that happen in their life to how they talk about those things.  On the other hand, because honesty and integrity is spiritual, there is a way to spiritually discern a dishonest person and one lacking integrity.  

The purpose of this week’s study is not to get into that, but to focus on what scripture says about honesty and integrity.  There are the obvious passages, but there are also those that suggest an underlying requirement for those characteristics.  We’ll look at how they all work together to show that aspect of who we are required to be as believers.

The first thing to note is that there are three different parts to being honest and having integrity.  While sometimes they exist together in a given scenario, they are not always together.  The three parts are 1) being honest and having integrity with yourself, 2) being honest and having integrity with anyone else (aka your neighbors), and 3) being honest and having integrity with YHWH.  

The interesting thing is that being honest and having integrity with YHWH is the one part that exists in every scenario.  This is obvious to us as believers, but in the world, where people don’t even believe in YHWH, this concept is foreign.  As a result, they lack the feeling of being accountable to anyone but themselves or others, and as a result they come to determine that as long as society approves of what they do, they’re in the right.

At the beginning, I stated there was an underlying, not completely obvious, aspect of the commandments that struck me, and this is what I was referring to.  YHWH gave many commandments to Moses to give to His chosen people, and while a majority of them usually involved more than one person, there are quite a few that would only have been known by the individual as to whether or not they broke it, and therefore no one else would be witness to help hold them accountable (Deuteronomy 23: 7, 10, 12, 21, 24).

YHWH, despite His omniscience, required a person to hold themselves accountable for their sins and take the required commanded actions.  In other words, because He is all-knowing, He very well could have instituted a process whereby priests were supernaturally given knowledge of the sins of everyone and then were able to cover those sins accordingly.  However, He instituted a process where the onus is on an individual to admit they had sinned and then make the proper sacrifice, or take the proper actions, to cover those sins.

This not only requires honesty and integrity to YHWH, the one actually covering the sins spiritually, but also brings us to the second part of honesty and integrity: being honest and having integrity with yourself.  A person under the old covenant had to be honest to themselves and admit they had done wrong, and then have the integrity to bring forth their sacrifice to the priest for the wrong they committed.  This is no different today than it was back then, except the sacrifice and the priest is not required.  We can come directly to Yeshua, our High Priest.

In order for us to obtain mercy from YHWH, we have to confess our sins, not conceal them (Proverbs 28:13).  We have to be honest with ourselves and admit that we have sin (1 John 1:8).  What’s more, we cannot properly help others with the things they’re dealing with if we are not honest with ourselves and take action on the things we’re doing wrong (Matthew 7:5).

That alludes to the third and final part: being honest and having integrity with others.  Scripture abounds with examples of this, including the majority of the commandments, which involve more than one person in some way, shape or form.  A few less talked about examples include keeping promises to others (Numbers 30:2-15), having honest weights and measures (Leviticus 19:35-36), and speaking truthfully to your neighbor (Ephesians 4:5).  Notably, not doing that last one is clearly associated with a person’s “old self,” as in, who they were before they became a believer (Colossians 3:9).

Another notable item is that Peter literally quoted a Psalm when talking about receiving blessings and this Psalm talks about keeping your lips from deceitful speech and your tongue from evil (1 Peter 3:10-12, Psalm 34:12-16).  Not only does this show that the requirement to be honest and have integrity didn’t stop with the people of the Old Testament, it connects blessings to our honesty and integrity.  In fact, I firmly believe that unless we are completely honest and have complete integrity, we cannot fully receive blessings or come into the plans YHWH has for us, and I think scripture is very clear on this fact.

In the Psalm Peter quoted, honesty and integrity is associated with righteousness, and it states that YHWH is focused on the righteous and hears their cry.  Additionally, we already mentioned that these characteristics are required if we have any hope of receiving mercy from Him.  Even more than any of that though, honesty and integrity is a requirement in order for us to dwell with YHWH (Psalm 15).  This Psalm of David very clearly states that only those who walk with integrity and speak truth are able to dwell with Him.

If you haven’t read that Psalm, take a moment to do so.  While it covers integrity and honesty, it also adds some very specific aspects of how a person should live if they want to dwell with YHWH.  This includes things like not changing an oath, even if fulfilling it is costly to you, and not charging interest when lending money.  

Honesty and integrity is also something that the scriptures tell us have a real impact in our lives today.  It gives us ease and confidence (Proverbs 10:9), it guides us while lying destroys us (Proverbs 11:3), and it enables our children to be blessed (Proverbs 20:7).  It also enables us to give sound teaching that will cause shame in the opposition (Titus 2:7-8).  

As we close this week, we’ll take a moment to see that YHWH is there to help us with our honesty and integrity.  While it takes our initiative, that we should think about and focus on having honesty and integrity (Philippians 4:8), He will help us with it if we acknowledge Him in all that we do (Proverbs 3:6).  When you look at the scriptures as a whole, it’s clear that YHWH wants to have a close, personal relationship with us, and part of a relationship includes being honest and having integrity with each other, as well as helping each other if we struggle with that.  Obviously, YHWH doesn’t struggle with it, but He does want to help us when we struggle.

Take this week to give yourself a hard look in the mirror and identify areas or situations in your life where you have not been honest or have struggled to have integrity.  Repent, and ask for forgiveness for those things, asking Him to help you do better moving forward.  We cannot receive forgiveness and be purified without honesty (1 John 1:9), and we cannot worship YHWH without honesty (John 4:24), but most of all, because Yeshua is truth (John 14:6), we cannot be in Him and receive the blessings He promised unless we live with honesty and integrity.

Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!

-Rob and Sara Gene