Genesis 20:2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.

Maybe you’ve heard these words before “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

Odds are when you heard this asked of someone, it was in a court room scene in a movie where the witness is being required to confirm by oath that everything they are going to say is not just true, but WHOLLY true “the whole truth”.

In the verse quoted from Genesis 20 at the start, Abraham tells a “half truth”. Oh, it is “truth”… just it’s not the “whole” truth.

See, the context is that Abraham has a wife who’s name is Sarah. And she was his sister… that’s true!

… but she was also his wife! … pretty important detail to leave off don’t you think!?

Why did he leave that part off? And it wasn’t an accident or oversight … it was deliberate and tactical, designed to mislead and with devastating consequence… Abraham’s actions really hurt a lot of people here.

Twice in his life, Abraham mislead people about his relationship to Sarah, and that’s because he was fearful that because his wife was so beautiful, men would kill him to have her.

He reasoned and agreed with his wife that if they told other people only that she was his brother, people would likely treat him well for her sake… he’s fearful and being selfish.

But he’s rationalized it all out! Because, you know, technically speaking he wasn’t lying, what he was actually saying was truth!

But the thing is, what was truly important and far more consequential was what he didn’t say. And it is has been said that you can tell a lot more about a person by what they “don’t say” rather than by what they “do say”.

Just go to a church and see what the pastor doesn’t say, and that’ll tell you everything you need to know. Because half truths are abounding in these days.

And that’s because it requires courage to declare the whole truth, given how little price is put on it and how ill received it is these days.

And so Abraham deliberately misleads a man called Abimelech in this chapter with his half truth… but he was meant to do better!, because God calls him a prophet in this chapter.

It’s no coincidence that in this chapter is the very first time that the word “prophet” is mentioned in the Bible… a keyword in the Bible!

God always spoke through his prophets in the Old Testament… a prophet was simply a man who told people what God’s word said.

…But the thing is, God required of his prophets to tell everything “every whit” that he said, not just some of it… the WHOLE truth. Remember, details matter, because the devil as they say is in the detail… and he sure was in this one!

Tell people the whole truth!

When God called the boy Samuel to be his prophet in 1 Samuel 3, the very first test Samuel had, even as a child, was whether he’d tell Eli the high priest “all” of what God had said, even when he knew Eli wasn’t going to like it… but nevertheless the “whole” truth.

In much of today’s various versions of Christianity, yes, flat out lies are creating a lot of traffic that is so hard to navigate for people that are trying to seek truth amongst it… but also bucketloads of half truths, carefully selected truths and omissions are also incredibly hurting the cause of Christ too.

When you tell people half the truth, but not all the truth… that misleads people about who God is, how to get saved, and how to serve God.

As Paul said his final goodbye to the dear converts at Ephesus before boarding a ship for Jerusalem, he told them this in Acts 20:27 “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” … Because Paul never held back on any detail, he preached the whole truth, the whole gospel… and that lead to people who were wholly saved.

You will only ever create a mess as Abraham did here if you deal in half truths. Sure, you may not lie, but what are you leaving out? The Bible says for a reason that “it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”

We often talk about trusting God, but remember, God is trusting us also “According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.”

God is trusting us with the “whole truth”, may we faithfully and courageously own the whole truth regardless of consequence for the true good of ourselves and others in our life.

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