[img]https://the-highway.com/Smileys/censored.gif[/img]. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. 2 The king of Jericho was told, “Look! Some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” 3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.” 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.

Did she break commandment number nine "You shall not bear false witness?"

God detests lying and reminds us from beginning to end of this. Yet, here Rahab is commended for what she did for her faith, and is included in our Lord's ancestry.
Matt. 1:5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse,

Heb. 11:31 By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

Consider the lies of Sarah:
Gen. 18:15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.”

and those of her husband: Gen. 20:1 Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, 2 and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelech king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her. 3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”

This does not excuse lying for convenience and it would be dangerous to consider lies of convenience as morally permissible. Are these examples of situational ethics?

If christians are to live as people of the Truth, particularly in an era when truth is seen as something that is highly subjective, the question of lying poses an interesting problem to consider. Thanks for the post.

The Chestnut Mare