To Tell the Truth

 
 

Many of us reading this will remember the original version of the television game show, To Tell The Truth. It ran on CBS from 1956-1968 and was produced by the well-known Goodson-Todman team. People like John Cameron Swayze, Kitty Carlisle, Gene Rayburn, Tom Poston, Bud Collyer, and Gary Moore were a part of the show’s appeal. Johnny Carson was on the panel in 1956!

The plot of the game was that three people would come before a panel of four people and tell a story about their lives. Two were imposters, one was telling the truth. The panel’s job was to try and determine who was telling the truth. 

The show has had several remakes and, according to one source I read, has had at least one episode broadcast in seven consecutive decades. The Price is Right is the only other game show for which that is true. 

We are living in an age when, deep within our own hearts, we may be wishing that someone would simply “tell the truth.” The twenty-four hour news cycles bombast us with “breaking news” and “news alerts” about things we have no way of knowing what the real truth is. Depending on your political point of view, we often pre-determine that some news outlets lie, others tell the truth. But how do we know?

But it isn’t just the media. The Me Too movement has generated all sorts of indicators that over the years no one had the courage “to tell the truth.” Now that some have decided “to tell the truth” about things that happened to them, we are discovering that they themselves didn’t “tell the truth” about what they did to others.

What about the Penn State abuse issue and its cover up? Or the US Olympics gymnastics problems? Or the current Ohio State football issues? 

If all of those kinds of issues aren’t challenging enough – the news is frequently littered with stories of churches where pastors and other leaders simply did not “tell the truth” about what was going on behind the scenes.

One of the issues that makes “telling the truth” so important is that truth telling is a character issue more than a behavior issue. I often tell students that there is no “behavior” issue I won’t try and help them address appropriately. But, if you don’t “tell the truth” about the issue, that’s a character issue and is much harder to fix unless we repent and “tell the truth.” 

There is so much in our culture right now that is disturbing. I can’t help but think if we would follow Paul’s advice in Colossians 3:9, “Stop lying to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with is practices,” we could take a huge step in the right direction of “pursuing what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding.” (Romans 14:19)

To Tell the Truth – more than a game show title!