Preface

I am writing a short series on a Christian commitment to honesty and transparency. If you haven’t already, before reading this essay, I encourage you to check out part 1.

Scripture’s Warning: The Deception Playbook

In the previous post, I mentioned the dark reality that God’s people are susceptible to temptation to hide the truth, utter white lies, engage in deception, and even intentionally twist the truth into its opposite—all for the sake of self-preservation, self-glorification, and maintaining of status, power, and wealth.

I am becoming increasingly more concerned that if we spin everything to protect or glorify ourselves, we will completely lose our grip on reality; everything will become “my truth vs. your truth” and the real truth will be lost, and inevitably when the truth is lost, there is no right or wrong anymore—everyone does right in their own eyes. In this post, we will look at how and why deceivers hide and bend the truth for their own gain; there are many examples in Scripture.

Let’s look at some deception passages in the Bible.

Scene 1: Deception in the Garden

Gen. 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Gen. 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, ³ but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

Gen. 3:4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. ⁵ “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

This is a familiar passage, and we all know that the serpent was trying to trick Eve and Adam, but let’s look more closely at the deception playbook. It begins with confrontation, here, close contact with the first humans (when God wasn’t “nearby”). The serpent starts, not with an accusation, but a question, a distorting question that sows the seed of doubt in Eve’s mind about God’s commandments and intentions. She is quick to correct: there is one tree that is forbidden. Then, the serpent makes a direct contradictory statement, challenging God’s authority and truthfulness. Finally, the serpent critiques God true motives, insinuating that God was manipulating the humans and didn’t want them to be “like God” (3:4). Deceivers love to point the finger at other people.

Scene 2: Ahab Trying to Convince Jehoshaphat to Go to War Against Aram

According to 1 Kings 22, Ahab, king of Israel, sought a partnership with Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, to go to war against Aram for the territory of Ramoth Gilead. Jehoshaphat was open, but wanted to “seek the counsel of the LORD” (1 Kings 22:5). While sometimes kings did this to truly discern whether the LORD willed it so, all too often kings simply wanted a prophetic word that they would win the victory, whether it was morally right or not. They were, more or less, seeking insight through divination. They wanted a crystal ball, not the instruction of the LORD Almighty.

Ahab knew just what to do—he would bring his puppet army of prophets to reassure Jehoshaphat—400 HUNDRED FALSE PROPHETS! (22:6). They all said the same thing, just what Ahab wanted: “Go…for the Lord will give [Ramoth Gilead] into the king’s hand” (22:6b).

But Jehoshaphat was rightly suspicious, he saw through the ploy. He asked, “Is there no longer a prophet of the LORD here whom we can inquire of?” (22:7). Put another way: is there no one who is willing to tell the truth?

Ahab knew he was caught out—and he knew who would tell the truth: Micaiah, son of Imlah. But Ahab also knew Micaiah would tell the truth and he might not like it. So, Ahab sent a messenger to Micaiah to apply pressure on him to toe the line of the other false prophets. Micaiah held his ground: “As surely as the LORD lives, I can tell him only what the LORD tells me” (v.14).

When Micaiah appeared before Ahab and Jehoshaphat, and when he was asked by Ahab whether they should go to war, Micaiah replied: “Attack and be victorious, for the LORD will give it into the king’s hand.” (22:15).

Perhaps surprisingly, Micaiah said just what Ahab wanted, but Ahab was suspicious—what if Micaiah was lying just to send Ahab into a losing war and be killed? With exasperation Ahab said, “How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” (16). This is dripping with irony because Ahab paid off hundreds of false prophets who would lie for him, but here before him was a true prophet and now Ahab was genuinely curious about the truth. Ahab must have heard a hint of sarcasm in Micaiah’s voice. When Ahab pressed him for the real truth, Micaiah gave it to him straight: “I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd…” (22:17). Ahab immediately knew this spelled doom for him, and he exclaimed, “Didn’t I tell you [Jehoshaphat] that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?!” (v18). Ahab sent Micaiah to prison and Ahab went to war with Aram anyway.

We see clearly in this story Ahab’s desperate and conniving attempt to persuade Jehoshaphat to ally with him. He first tries a simple sense of justice: “Don’t you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us?” (v1). Then, he hires hundreds of false prophets to pretend to speak for YHWH—seeming “authorities” who are supposed to tell the truth. When someone does confront the deceiver—in this case Micaiah is the voice of truth—Ahab tries to discredit him and then eventually silences him.

The deceiver wants to create an island around themselves and only include the one(s) they want to deceive—everyone else is pushed away either physically or in another way.

Scenes 3 and 4: Jesus and Stephen on Trial

We know from the Gospels that many Jewish leaders, especially Jerusalem elites, were intent upon getting rid of the pesky Nazarene no matter what. One of the Sanhedrin’s tactics was to bring forward evidence of impiety at Jesus’ trial. When they found no damning evidence, they decided to make up their own: they encouraged false witnesses to testify. Two false witnesses claimed that Jesus wanted to destroy the temple (Matt 26:60). This was a partial truth, because Jesus did pronounce the impending destruction of the temple, though he never threatened it himself. Deception is often most powerful in subtlety, like the serpent’s tactic. And those subtleties matter more when the stakes are as high as they are here.

The Book of Acts offers a parallel with the false witnesses against Jesus and another set of false witnesses against Stephen when he was brought to trial at the Sanhedrin (Acts 6:12-14). And, again, they twisted the truth and claimed Stephen too threatened the temple (Acts 6:14).

The deceiver wants the victim to see a certain person or thing as a threat to the victim’s well-being. There is trust-building in this and again the deceiver can create an island around themselves and include the victim.

The Deception Playbook: How Deceivers Manipulate and Groom Victims

We will only become wise to the playbook and tactics of deceivers when we understand how and why they do what they do. Having looked at these case studies in Scripture, he is a basic breakdown.

• Distortion: The deceiver distorts reality and bends the truth, sometimes only slightly, which makes the victim question their understanding of the situation.

• Discrediting: The deceiver calls into question given or assumed authorities that the victim trusts

• Tribalism: The deceiver engages in dangerously hostile tribal thinking, “us v. them.”

• Exclusivity: The deceiver subtly finds out what the victim wants and finds ways to convince them that they can give it to them.

• Ally-Grooming: The deceiver tries to convince the victim that they are a trustworthy friend or ally and that their interests are aligned.

These are warning signs. Jesus tells his disciples that they will be sent out like sheep among wolves—wolves are treated here as powerful deceivers. The wise must be innocent as doves, but shrewd as snakes (Matt 10:16). Disciples must learn to detect deception and have the courage to confront it.

In the next post, we will talk about specific ways we can prevent being taken in by deception tactics and techniques.