Should A Church Be Good At Spotting Liars?

Mike Leake 3 Comments

Tim Challies linked to an article a few days ago from Forbes.  The article is a summary/book review of Spy the Lie, a book from former CIA officers that teach the reader how to detect deception. 

As I read through this very helpful article I began thinking about how helpful such a book would be for a pastor or other church leaders.  Isn’t it true that “love believes all things”?  Isn’t it the Christian posture to hope and believe in people?  Is it really helpful to try to spot liars?  Or is it somehow sub-Christian?

I’m left wanting to ask “would Jesus buy a book on spotting liars” and then I realize that he wouldn’t need one because he knew what was in the heart of man.  So, what did that information do for him? 

What Did Jesus Do?

Consider the woman at the well.  Imagine that she was in your office and requesting a little help, maybe for some living water or something.  You tell her to have her husband come by with her and you guys can all have a chat.  She says, “I have no husband”.  Which, oddly enough, is one of the tells Spy the Lie.

If we aren’t good at spotting lies (even little white and uncomfortable lies) what we would do is simply proceed in helping the lady.  That’s all well and good and it’s great to be generous as a church.  But sometimes there are deeper issues that need to be addressed before true healing and help can actually take place. 

Furthermore, for every buck you spend on this lady that is one dollar that you cannot use to help somebody that is not feeding you full of bull.  I’ve had the painful experience of helping a woman out that was obviously scamming us.  She drained our benevolence account.  Then another lady called about an hour later with a legitimate need.  We were no longer positioned to provide assistance.  Had I been more thorough and better at detecting lies then we would have still had the resources. 

Jesus as we see in John 4 is able to see through the woman’s deceptive answer.  He plows right through ever facade that she puts up and gets to the deeper need in her life.  The story ends with her astonished that he was able to utterly expose her masquerade and that he must indeed be a prophet—maybe even the Christ. 

Should a church be good in spotting liars? 

If that means being tight-fisted and unbelieving and not having hope then no, it may be better to just be gullible and ignorant of people’s lies.  But if it means that seeing through lies may actually be the means to truly helping people, then by all means get a book like this and learn how to spot lies.  The very mask that the single mother in your office does not want you to uncover may be the very thing that is required for her substantial healing.

The goal of this post isn’t to get you to buy a book—but if you do think that a book on detecting lies may be helpful I think Spy the Lie looks helpful.

Today in Blogworld 8.18.12

Mike Leake

Church Facilities: Holiness and Hospitality

This is really interesting to me because we too are continuously thinking through how we can be a community resource.  I think it’s cool that churches are beginning to think of their buildings/space in less possessive terms.

6 Reasons Why Mormons Are Beating Evangelicals in Church Growth

Mormons are growing.  According to many studies the evangelical church isn’t.  David French gives six reasons why that is the case.

Page Names Advisory Team on Calvinism

This is huge news in the SBC.  Dave Miller seems to like the formed committee.  Tim Brister isn’t as excited.  I’m still thinking and waiting to see what comes from it.

The Baptist Catechism w/Commentary from John Piper

I really want to begin taking my children through this.  I’d love to see this in print instead of PDF.  I know it sounds silly but I think I’d be more apt to keep it handy if it came in some sort of spiral binding or something.  Here’s a thought…print it out, buy a binder, make it into a “book”. 

This looks like something my friend Mike would build for his kids.

Friday is For Feeding Your E-Reader 8.17.12

Mike Leake

This might be the last Friday edition of Feed Your Reader.  Some of these deals only last for a day or so and then they are gone.  I think you might be losing some deals.  Be sure to follow me on Twitter @mikeleake so that you can get daily deals.

I remember watching Jim Kelly play for the Bills.  I also remember cheering against him.  After hearing the story of he and his wife Jill, count me a fan.  Without a Word chronicles the story of Jim and Jill Kelly and their terminally ill and severely disabled son, Hunter.

only $2.99

The testimony of Joni Eareckson Tada is a phenomenal story of the gospel’s power.  You can get her biography, Joni

only $3.99

For some reason I want to buy this book.  I have no idea about it’s contents so if you buy it and it’s horrible don’t blame me.  But something about it is intriguing.  The author of The Toaster Project builds a toaster from scratch and chronicles his 9 month journey. 

Try it for $2.99

I haven’t read this one either but I’m intrigued by English History and so I may give this one a shot.  The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown.

only .99

This is a book of “little-known historical trivia that will enlighten and delight”.  Sounds like my cup of tea.  The Pocket Guide to Brilliance by Bart King

for $1.99

One of the books that I love to read to Isaiah and Hannah is The Jesus Storybook Bible.  Starting on August 28th, and if I pre-order it, I can do that on my iPad for

only $3.99

The Benefit of Spiritual Gifts Testing

Mike Leake

For the last two days I’ve noted a potential pitfall to spiritual gifts testing.  (See here and here).  Though I think there are dangers to spiritual gifts testing I do believe they can be beneficial.  As I mentioned yesterday, our church does a 3 in 1 profile that considers personality as well as spiritual gifts.  Such tools can be helpful to the body in these ways:

  • If a foot thinks it is a hand you’ve got problems.  Though I’d rather have two hands and a confused foot that thinks its a hand over zero hands, I’d much rather have hands and feet do what they were created to do.  Gifts testing can help hands realize that they are not feet.
  • Empowering the timid.  Sometimes a person is convinced that they are of little use to the church.  Knowing that God has especially gifted them for service might empower them.  (Though I wouldn’t rely on that alone—there are gospel issues here that also need to be explored). 
  • A chance to glorify God in his diversity.  Usually arms think of the world through the perspective of an arm.  Spiritual gifts testing and discussions afterwards can help arms (and other body parts) glory in the diversity and wisdom of God.
  • A chance to realize who you are not and to rejoice in those that are.  For a guy like me that really stinks at organization it can be really wonderful to realize that some people actually thrive on such things. 
  • It provides an opportunity for cruciform love.  The “more excellent way” is to use the gifts that the Lord has given us to love and serve the body.  Knowing what that looks like gives you an opportunity to at times “lay down” your gifts for the sake of love.  And other times to fully use your gifts for the sake of love. 

For these benefits to really see fruition they will need to be cultivated in a culture:

  • where discipleship happens
  • where humble service is cultivated
  • where it is realized that these gifts test are not flawless, not a one time thing, and not defining (in other words—people change)
  • where they are not used as an excuse to not do the things that you are not gifted in.

Conclusion:

The main point of this has been to say that whenever I look at the places in Scripture where spiritual gifts are discussed it is not primarily concerned with an attempt to figure out your giftedness or to help you figure out where to serve.  Spiritual gifts tests are helpful not necessarily to decide what ministry to be involved in but to help you will do the ministry that we’re all called to do.