“Do not spread false reports.” (Exodus 23:1)

Too often, we think we have al the facts when we only have fragments. In our modern gotcha culture, with snippets of dramatic video and inflamed tweets, it’s easy to condemn people without hearing the full story. However, Scripture warns us not to “spread false reports”. We must do everything possible to confirm the truth before leveling accusations, making sure not to participate in lies. We should be cautious whenever a vigilante spirit takes hold whenever passions ignite and waves of judgment swell. We want to safeguard ourselves from “following the crowd in doing wrong.”

As believers in Jesus, may God help us not to spread falsehoods. may he provide what we need to exhibit wisdom and to make certain our words are actually true.

Daily Questions

1. Take a moment to recollect a time when someone was falsely accused. What was the damage?
2. How was the wrong made right?

Daily Thoughts

God, with things moving so fast these days, it’s often hard to know what’s real. help us to listen, pay attention, and speak only the truth, Your truth.

Exodus 23: 1-9

Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness.

Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit.

If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering of, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it tere; be sure you help them with it.

Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. Have nothin to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.

Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.

Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.

Bonus Information

God gave the Ten Commandments so His people could know how to love Him faithfully and wholeheartedly and love their neighbor as they’d love themselves. Moses then laid down various stipulations that if followed would enable the Israelites to love their neighbors. Because ‘the Lord is righteous, and he loves justice”, Moses commanded them to ‘follow justice and justice alone.” “To act justly and to love mercy” is mandated of God’s people. Love for neighbors means justice for everyone. Today’s passage, Exodus 23: 1-9, is an application of the ninth commandment, which ensured evenhanded, impartial justice for all: “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor”. False accusation, malicious testimony, slander, and withholding justice because of external pressure, favoritism, or bribery will contribute to the perversion of true justice and repudiation of neighborly love.