--There’s an implied backdrop to the 9th Commandment which really has four components.
--Humans need God
--Humans need community
--Community needs shared standards
--Community needs reliable communication.
--God is really here declaring the absolute necessity and centrality of trustworthy communication for His community to work.
--And so it becomes vital to the very notion of having a community of people devoted to God’s standards that they would only tell the truth about each other’s adherence or violation of those standards. If I cannot trust my neighbor’s testimony about others, I certainly can’t trust his testimony about me to others, and the communication which undergirds community has been destroyed along with the ability to know whether the standards that define us really are or are not being honored.
--We tend to think of perjury as a violation of some individual’s rights (life, liberty, and or property), and it certainly is. But even more fundamental than this is the violation of the very nature of us having a society and having a system of justice to define and punish the violations against that community.
--Lying about another person’s violation of the standards (and in court, especially) is a denial of the very legitimacy of the society and its institutions.
--A person who commits perjury, then, is really declaring himself an enemy of the community and of the God who forms the standards of it.
--It’s an assault on the integrity of the society as incarnated in its institutions.
--Thus, perjury is really a form of treason. And of course, God is reinforcing the obvious notion that honesty in speech is a core component of His own character.
--Humans need God
--Humans need community
--Community needs shared standards
--Community needs reliable communication.
--God is really here declaring the absolute necessity and centrality of trustworthy communication for His community to work.
--And so it becomes vital to the very notion of having a community of people devoted to God’s standards that they would only tell the truth about each other’s adherence or violation of those standards. If I cannot trust my neighbor’s testimony about others, I certainly can’t trust his testimony about me to others, and the communication which undergirds community has been destroyed along with the ability to know whether the standards that define us really are or are not being honored.
--We tend to think of perjury as a violation of some individual’s rights (life, liberty, and or property), and it certainly is. But even more fundamental than this is the violation of the very nature of us having a society and having a system of justice to define and punish the violations against that community.
--Lying about another person’s violation of the standards (and in court, especially) is a denial of the very legitimacy of the society and its institutions.
--A person who commits perjury, then, is really declaring himself an enemy of the community and of the God who forms the standards of it.
--It’s an assault on the integrity of the society as incarnated in its institutions.
--Thus, perjury is really a form of treason. And of course, God is reinforcing the obvious notion that honesty in speech is a core component of His own character.
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