Looking through my blog backlog – am I coining a new phrase? – I noticed one I wrote several years ago about integrity. The essence of what I wrote then holds true today: Integrity is one of the most important tests of character, if not the most crucial of all.
Pardon the curious juxtaposition, but I would liken integrity and pregnancy in one way: Just as a woman can’t be a little bit pregnant, a person can’t have a little bit of integrity. It’s either there or it’s not. We can’t take a situation ethics approach to integrity, demonstrating it only when convenient and expedient.
But what is integrity, anyway? We could Google the word or consult a dictionary, but I came across a definition that’s spot-on. It was offered centuries ago by Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a leader of the first Sunday school movement in America and our nation’s first Bible society. Here’s what he said:
“By integrity I mean…veracity [devotion to the truth], fidelity to promises, and a strict coincidence between thoughts, words and actions.”
With a remarkable economy of words, Rush captured what integrity is – devotion to the truth, regardless of the cost; being faithful to keep promises made; and aligning what we think and say with what we do.
In His Sermon on the Mount, one of the many things Jesus Christ talked about was integrity. Exhorting His hearers – and each of us 2,000 years later – to place a high premium on being truthful and fulfilling commitments wholeheartedly, He put it in uncomplicated terms: “But let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes,’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’ Anything more than this is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37).
As I understand it, Jesus was basically saying, “If you’re not willing to keep a commitment, don’t make it in the first place. But if you make a vow or promise, fulfill it, even if a circumstances in which you made that commitment have changed.”
Whenever the subject of integrity comes to mind, one of the first groups many of us think of is politicians. We could cite many instances of men and women who have said one thing and then years later made an entirely different assertion or promise. Sometimes the lapse of time isn’t nearly that long; it might be just days or even hours, depending on the audience they’re addressing.
However, integrity applies to every area of life, to every segment of society. For instance, when a couple says, “I do,” after agreeing that their union is “for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live,” it’s as much about integrity as it is about love. Maybe that’s one reason those time-honored words are left out of many wedding ceremonies today.
Integrity is equally vital for effective parenting. We might admonish our children, “Do as I say, not as I do,” but kids can see through that. As Rush implied, if our actions don’t match our thoughts and words, what we say doesn’t mean much. We can tell a child “I love you” repeatedly, but for them love is often spelled “time.” If they don’t feel worthy of our time and attention, they might be right to question the depth of our love for them.
Having worked with business and professional people my entire career, I’ve had many occasions to observe what integrity looks like when it’s present – and how things look when it’s absent. Being a person of integrity can be costly. Doing what we said we’d do, when we said we’d do it, for the price we said we’d do it for, sounds good in theory. Putting it into practice, however, can be difficult when better opportunities come along or when the expense to us increases.
Reading the Scriptures, we find God amazingly intolerant of those that compromise their integrity. One example is Ananias and Sapphira, a married couple who paid dearly for their lack of integrity.
In the days of the early Church, highly motivated believers showed they were “all in” to the cause of Christ. Acts 4:32 says, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” Talk about commitment! Can you imagine pastors trying to persuade members of their congregations to do that?
Getting back to Ananias and Sapphira, they apparently got caught up in the excitement of the movement, deciding to do their part by selling a piece of property. Seems they got more for it than they expected, because it states, “With his wife’s full knowledge, [Ananias] kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet” (Acts 5:1-2).
God through His Spirit revealed to the apostle Peter that instead of donating the entire proceeds from their sale, Ananias and Sapphira withheld a portion. Maybe they figured they could use it for some new furniture or a vacation they had been considering.
The apostle confronted the couple one at a time. The issue wasn’t that they had determined to keep some of the money, but that they were untruthful about it. He declared, “After it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:4). Immediately, Ananias fell down dead, and when Sapphira arrived a few hours later, she did the same. They were big losers in the game of “Truth or Consequences.”
Does this illustration teach that God delights in zapping folks without integrity? No. But as Proverbs 10:9 teaches, “The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” Our sins, many of us have discovered, have a way of catching up with us.
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