honesty

• following truth wherever it leads, and regardless of conclusions

3:5.105. Is the love of truth and the will­ing­ness to go wher­ever it leads, de­sir­able? Then must man grow up in a world where er­ror is pres­ent and false­hood al­ways pos­si­ble.

• truth makes man free

52:5.4The be­stowal Son lives and dies for the spir­i­tual up­lift of the mor­tal races of a world. He es­tab­lishes the “new and liv­ing way”; his life is an in­car­na­tion of Par­a­dise truth in mor­tal flesh, that very truth—even the Spirit of Truth—in the knowl­edge of which men shall be free.

• early traders regarded it permissible to cheat strangers

69:4.3A fe­tish was used to stand guard over the de­posits of goods for silent barter. Such mar­ket places were se­cure against theft; noth­ing would be re­moved ex­cept by barter or pur­chase; with a fe­tish on guard the goods were al­ways safe. The early traders were scrupu­lously hon­est within their own tribes but re­garded it as all right to cheat dis­tant strangers. Even the early He­brews rec­og­nized a sep­a­rate code of ethics in their deal­ings with the gen­tiles.

• regarding property, h. originally rested on superstition

69:9.9Pri­vate prop­erty was thus orig­i­nally re­spected be­cause it was sup­posed to be charged with some part of the owner’s per­son­al­ity. Prop­erty hon­esty rested safely on this type of su­per­sti­tion; no po­lice were needed to guard per­sonal be­long­ings. There was no steal­ing within the group, though men did not hes­i­tate to ap­pro­pri­ate the goods of other tribes. Prop­erty re­la­tions did not end with death; early, per­sonal ef­fects were burned, then buried with the dead, and later, in­her­ited by the sur­viv­ing fam­ily or by the tribe.

• truth makes man free

101:6.102. Sal­va­tion from in­tel­lec­tual bond­age: man shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.

• following truth wherever it leads, and regardless of conclusions

103:7.5But logic can never suc­ceed in har­mo­niz­ing the find­ings of sci­ence and the in­sights of re­li­gion un­less both the sci­en­tific and the re­li­gious as­pects of a per­son­al­ity are truth dom­i­nated, sin­cerely de­sirous of fol­low­ing the truth wher­ever it may lead re­gard­less of the con­clu­sions which it may reach.

• base life on highest truth

110:3.71. Choos­ing to re­spond to di­vine lead­ing; sin­cerely bas­ing the hu­man life on the high­est con­scious­ness of truth, beauty, and good­ness, and then co-or­di­nat­ing these qual­i­ties of di­vin­ity through wis­dom, wor­ship, faith, and love.

• Jesus embraced truth regardless of apparent source

126:3.8While turn­ing all these prob­lems over in his mind, he found in the syn­a­gogue li­brary at Naz­a­reth, among the apoc­a­lyp­tic books which he had been study­ing, this man­u­script called “The Book of Enoch”; and though he was cer­tain that it had not been writ­ten by Enoch of old, it proved very in­trigu­ing to him, and he read and reread it many times. There was one pas­sage which par­tic­u­larly im­pressed him, a pas­sage in which this term “Son of Man” ap­peared. The writer of this so-called Book of Enoch went on to tell about this Son of Man, de­scrib­ing the work he would do on earth and ex­plain­ing that this Son of Man, be­fore com­ing down on this earth to bring sal­va­tion to man­kind, had walked through the courts of heav­enly glory with his Fa­ther, the Fa­ther of all; and that he had turned his back upon all this grandeur and glory to come down on earth to pro­claim sal­va­tion to needy mor­tals. As Je­sus would read these pas­sages (well un­der­stand­ing that much of the East­ern mys­ti­cism which had be­come ad­mixed with these teach­ings was er­ro­neous), he re­sponded in his heart and rec­og­nized in his mind that of all the Mes­sianic pre­dic­tions of the He­brew scrip­tures and of all the the­o­ries about the Jew­ish de­liv­erer, none was so near the truth as this story tucked away in this only par­tially ac­cred­ited Book of Enoch; and he then and there de­cided to adopt as his in­au­gu­ral ti­tle “the Son of Man.” And this he did when he sub­se­quently be­gan his pub­lic work. Je­sus had an unerring abil­ity for the rec­og­ni­tion of truth, and truth he never hes­i­tated to em­brace, no mat­ter from what source it ap­peared to em­anate.

• face facts of life

133:4.11To the run­away lad Je­sus said: “Re­mem­ber, there are two things you can­not run away from—God and your­self. Wher­ever you may go, you take with you your­self and the spirit of the heav­enly Fa­ther which lives within your heart. My son, stop try­ing to de­ceive your­self; set­tle down to the coura­geous prac­tice of fac­ing the facts of life; lay firm hold on the as­sur­ances of son­ship with God and the cer­tainty of eter­nal life, as I have in­structed you. From this day on pur­pose to be a real man, a man de­ter­mined to face life bravely and in­tel­li­gently.”

• truth makes man free

141:7.6Je­sus laid great em­pha­sis upon what he called the two truths of first im­port in the teach­ings of the king­dom, and they are: the at­tain­ment of sal­va­tion by faith, and faith alone, as­so­ci­ated with the rev­o­lu­tion­ary teach­ing of the at­tain­ment of hu­man lib­erty through the sin­cere rec­og­ni­tion of truth, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Je­sus was the truth made man­i­fest in the flesh, and he prom­ised to send his Spirit of Truth into the hearts of all his chil­dren af­ter his re­turn to the Fa­ther in heaven.

• truth makes man free

143:1.4“I have come into this world to do the will of my Fa­ther and to re­veal his lov­ing char­ac­ter to all man­kind. That, my breth­ren, is my mis­sion. And this one thing I will do, re­gard­less of the mis­un­der­stand­ing of my teach­ings by Jews or gen­tiles of this day or of an­other gen­er­a­tion. But you should not over­look the fact that even di­vine love has its se­vere dis­ci­plines. A fa­ther’s love for his son of­ten­times im­pels the fa­ther to re­strain the un­wise acts of his thought­less off­spring. The child does not al­ways com­pre­hend the wise and lov­ing mo­tives of the fa­ther’s re­strain­ing dis­ci­pline. But I de­clare to you that my Fa­ther in Par­a­dise does rule a uni­verse of uni­verses by the com­pelling power of his love. Love is the great­est of all spirit re­al­i­ties. Truth is a lib­er­at­ing rev­e­la­tion, but love is the su­preme re­la­tion­ship. And no mat­ter what blun­ders your fel­low men make in their world man­age­ment of to­day, in an age to come the gospel which I de­clare to you will rule this very world. The ul­ti­mate goal of hu­man prog­ress is the rev­er­ent rec­og­ni­tion of the fa­ther­hood of God and the lov­ing ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion of the broth­er­hood of man.

• truth must strike in heart with living roots

151:2.2Af­ter a mo­ment of si­lence, Pe­ter said: “Mas­ter, we have talked much con­cern­ing the para­ble, and this is the in­ter­pre­ta­tion I have de­cided upon: The sower is the gospel preacher; the seed is the word of God. The seed which fell by the way­side rep­re­sents those who do not un­der­stand the gospel teach­ing. The birds which snatched away the seed that fell upon the hard­ened ground rep­re­sent Sa­tan, or the evil one, who steals away that which has been sown in the hearts of these ig­no­rant ones. The seed which fell upon the rocky places, and which sprang up so sud­denly, rep­re­sents those su­per­fi­cial and un­think­ing per­sons who, when they hear the glad tid­ings, re­ceive the mes­sage with joy; but be­cause the truth has no real root in their deeper un­der­stand­ing, their de­vo­tion is short-lived in the face of tribu­la­tion and per­se­cu­tion. When trou­ble comes, these be­liev­ers stum­ble; they fall away when tempted. The seed which fell among thorns rep­re­sents those who hear the word will­ingly, but who al­low the cares of the world and the de­ceit­ful­ness of riches to choke the word of truth so that it be­comes un­fruit­ful. Now the seed which fell on good ground and sprang up to bear, some thirty, some sixty, and some a hun­dred­fold, rep­re­sents those who, when they have heard the truth, re­ceive it with vary­ing de­grees of ap­pre­ci­a­tion—ow­ing to their dif­fer­ing in­tel­lec­tual en­dow­ments—and hence man­i­fest these vary­ing de­grees of re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence.”

• truth makes man free

162:7.2“If my words abide in you and you are minded to do the will of my Fa­ther, then are you truly my dis­ci­ples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. I know how you will an­swer me: We are the chil­dren of Abra­ham, and we are in bond­age to none; how then shall we be made free? Even so, I do not speak of out­ward sub­jec­tion to an­other’s rule; I re­fer to the lib­er­ties of the soul. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, ev­ery­one who com­mits sin is the bond ser­vant of sin. And you know that the bond ser­vant is not likely to abide for­ever in the mas­ter’s house. You also know that the son does re­main in his fa­ther’s house. If, there­fore, the Son shall make you free, shall make you sons, you shall be free in­deed.

• truth must strike in heart with living roots

177:5.2This was the oc­ca­sion of Je­sus’ warn­ing his fol­low­ers to be­ware of the sup­port of the mul­ti­tude. He re­counted their ex­pe­ri­ences in Gal­i­lee when time and again great throngs of peo­ple en­thu­si­as­ti­cally fol­lowed them around and then just as ar­dently turned against them and re­turned to their for­mer ways of be­liev­ing and liv­ing. And then he said: “And so you must not al­low your­selves to be de­ceived by the great crowds who heard us in the tem­ple, and who seemed to be­lieve our teach­ings. These mul­ti­tudes lis­ten to the truth and be­lieve it su­per­fi­cially with their minds, but few of them per­mit the word of truth to strike down into the heart with liv­ing roots. Those who know the gospel only in the mind, and who have not ex­pe­ri­enced it in the heart, can­not be de­pended upon for sup­port when real trou­ble comes. When the rulers of the Jews reach an agree­ment to de­stroy the Son of Man, and when they strike with one ac­cord, you will see the mul­ti­tude ei­ther flee in dis­may or else stand by in silent amaze­ment while these mad­dened and blinded rulers lead the teach­ers of the gospel truth to their death. And then, when ad­ver­sity and per­se­cu­tion de­scend upon you, still oth­ers who you think love the truth will be scat­tered, and some will re­nounce the gospel and desert you. Some who have been very close to us have al­ready made up their minds to desert. You have rested to­day in prepa­ra­tion for those times which are now upon us. Watch, there­fore, and pray that on the mor­row you may be strength­ened for the days that are just ahead.”

• cf: mistake always to speak one’s mind

180:5.5The golden rule, when di­vested of the super­hu­man in­sight of the Spirit of Truth, be­comes noth­ing more than a rule of high eth­i­cal con­duct. The golden rule, when lit­er­ally in­ter­preted, may be­come the in­stru­ment of great of­fense to one’s fel­lows. With­out a spir­i­tual dis­cern­ment of the golden rule of wis­dom you might rea­son that, since you are de­sirous that all men speak the full and frank truth of their minds to you, you should there­fore fully and frankly speak the full thought of your mind to your fel­low be­ings. Such an un­spir­i­tual in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the golden rule might re­sult in un­told un­hap­pi­ness and no end of sor­row.

• cf: mistake always to speak one’s mind

181:2.21Then went the Mas­ter over to Na­than­iel. As Na­than­iel stood up, Je­sus bade him be seated and, sit­ting down by his side, said: “Na­than­iel, you have learned to live above prej­u­dice and to prac­tice in­creased tol­er­ance since you be­came my apos­tle. But there is much more for you to learn. You have been a bless­ing to your fel­lows in that they have al­ways been ad­mon­ished by your con­sis­tent sin­cer­ity. When I have gone, it may be that your frank­ness will in­ter­fere with your get­ting along well with your breth­ren, both old and new. You should learn that the ex­pres­sion of even a good thought must be mod­u­lated in ac­cor­dance with the in­tel­lec­tual sta­tus and spir­i­tual de­vel­op­ment of the hearer. Sin­cer­ity is most ser­vice­able in the work of the king­dom when it is wed­ded to dis­cre­tion.

• fruit of the spirit

193:2.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead be­cause you thereby know that you and your breth­ren shall also sur­vive mor­tal death. But such sur­vival is de­pen­dent on your hav­ing been pre­vi­ously born of the spirit of truth-seek­ing and God-find­ing. The bread of life and the wa­ter thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the king­dom. These great truths and these uni­verse facts are all re­lated to this gospel in that they are a part of the re­sult of be­liev­ing the good news and are em­braced in the sub­se­quent ex­pe­ri­ence of those who, by faith, be­come, in deed and in truth, the ev­er­last­ing sons of the eter­nal God. My Fa­ther sent me into the world to pro­claim this sal­va­tion of son­ship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this sal­va­tion of son­ship. Sal­va­tion is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will im­me­di­ately be­gin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in lov­ing ser­vice to their fel­low crea­tures. And the fruits of the di­vine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-know­ing mor­tals are: lov­ing ser­vice, un­selfish de­vo­tion, coura­geous loy­alty, sin­cere fair­ness, en­light­ened hon­esty, undy­ing hope, con­fid­ing trust, mer­ci­ful min­istry, un­fail­ing good­ness, for­giv­ing tol­er­ance, and en­dur­ing peace. If pro­fessed be­liev­ers bear not these fruits of the di­vine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are use­less branches on the liv­ing vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Fa­ther re­quires of the chil­dren of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, there­fore, you are not fruit­ful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your un­fruit­ful branches. In­creas­ingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you pro­gress heav­en­ward in the king­dom of God. You may en­ter the king­dom as a child, but the Fa­ther re­quires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spir­i­tual adult­hood. And when you go abroad to tell all na­tions the good news of this gospel, I will go be­fore you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”

• face facts of life

193:4.95. He did not like to face facts frankly; he was dis­hon­est in his at­ti­tude to­ward life sit­u­a­tions.

• truth makes man free

194:2.2The first mis­sion of this spirit is, of course, to fos­ter and per­son­al­ize truth, for it is the com­pre­hen­sion of truth that con­sti­tutes the high­est form of hu­man lib­erty. Next, it is the pur­pose of this spirit to de­stroy the be­liever’s feel­ing of or­phan­hood. Je­sus hav­ing been among men, all be­liev­ers would ex­pe­ri­ence a sense of lone­li­ness had not the Spirit of Truth come to dwell in men’s hearts.

• truth makes man free

194:3.5On the day of Pen­te­cost the re­li­gion of Je­sus broke all na­tional re­stric­tions and racial fet­ters. It is for­ever true, “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is lib­erty.” On this day the Spirit of Truth be­came the per­sonal gift from the Mas­ter to ev­ery mor­tal. This spirit was be­stowed for the pur­pose of qual­i­fy­ing be­liev­ers more ef­fec­tively to preach the gospel of the king­dom, but they mis­took the ex­pe­ri­ence of re­ceiv­ing the out­poured spirit for a part of the new gospel which they were un­con­sciously for­mu­lat­ing.