A Counterintuitive Danger

Believing a lie is a dangerous thing. 

Obviously.  

If you make decisions based off something completely untrue, of course it could be damaging to you and those around you. 

You know that. 

But there is something even more dangerous than an outright lie. 

And it’s surprising.  Sounds wrong when you hear it. 

 But more dangerous than an outright lie is a partial truth. 

Now that is counterintuitive.  Because an outright lie contains no truth and a partial truth contains some truth.  And it would stand to reason that something containing some truth would be better than something containing none.  But reason, in this case, is wrong. 

A partial truth is far more dangerous. 

A while back my son and I climbed Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina.  It was an incredible experience. The view was rewarding and spectacular.  But as we were climbing we saw a fairly large rock with a green ribbon tied around it.  It looked like all the other rocks we were climbing but for the ribbon. We didn’t know what it meant until I stepped on it and nearly sent it careening down the mountain.  The rock was very unstable. Had there not been a ribbon one of us could have been seriously hurt.  

A partial truth is like that rock but with no ribbon.  It looks steady and secure, but if you grab a hold of it and trust your weight to it, it’s falling down the mountain and maybe you with it. You would never trust putting your weight on a rock you knew was unstable.  But if an unstable rock looks like all the other rocks you are trusting, you might just start an accidental avalanche. 

Our culture right now is a partial truth factory.  Partial truths are everywhere—social media, ads, news networks, and pretty much anything on a screen.  What can we do?

This isn’t a new problem. Partial truths are as old as the human race.  Satan has been peddling in this type of lie since the very beginning.  “Did God really say…”. Our best weapon against half-truths is Truth.  This is one of the reasons God gave us His word.  He wanted us to have a source we could trust.  

I remember my youth pastor telling me about counterfeit money.  He said the people who can recognize counterfeit money are not experts in all the different ways that money can be counterfeited.  That would be exhausting and impossible. Trying to keep up with the new ways money is being counterfeited would be a job that never ended.  Instead—they study and are able to recognize authentic money. If you know what real money looks like down to the detail, you should be able to spot a fake no matter what kind of technique was used. 

So, this is an encouragement—study God’s word.  Now I know it won’t help you with all partial truths. The ad that promises if you buy the thing, you’ll lose 50lbs or the politicians speech that makes bold claims aren’t in the Bible.  But you will get better at recognizing the partial truths that really matter.  The world is whispering lots of things to us constantly—about what will make us happy and satisfied.  Almost all of it has some truth hiding a dangerous lie.  The Bible helps us tie a ribbon around those partial truths so our soul isn’t tricked into a spiritual avalanche.  

Read it.  Study it. Get to know the Truth.