Like the others, the Ninth Word is about Jesus, the true and faithful Witness. He speaks the truth during his life, arousing his enemies’ murderous rage. He speaks the truth to skeptical Pilate. As Witness, he summons us as witnesses who answer truthfully about the hope within us, the living Hope that is Jesus himself. He calls us to speak truth no matter what the cost, to love truth more than life. With the Ninth Word, Jesus calls us to martyrdom.124

p 111 Martyrs aren’t losers. Martyrdom is indefeasible. Martyrs speak world-shattering truth on the way to their world-shattering, world-renewing deaths. The Ninth Word is the Creator’s command. He is Lord of our tongues. It is also a promise, the Lord’s pledge to truthful witnesses: at the last judgment if not before, the truth will out and truthful witnesses will be vindicated.

In himself. Let him pretend what he will, he hath slight thoughts of sin; at least, of sins of daily infirmity. The root of an unmortified course is the digestion of sin without bitterness in the heart. When a man hath confirmed his imagination to such an apprehension of grace and mercy as to be able, without bitterness, to swallow and digest daily sins, that man is at the very brink of turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Neither is there a greater evidence of a false and rotten heart in the world than to drive such a trade. To use the blood of Christ, which is given to cleanse us, 1 John 1:7, Tit. 2:14; the exaltation of Christ, which is to give us repentance, Acts 5:31; the doctrine of grace, which teaches us to deny all ungodliness, Tit. 2:11, 12, to countenance sin, is a rebellion that in the issue will break the bones.

The Ninth Word is a fitting word for our mediated age. We’re spun by a whirlpool of rumor, innuendo, false accusation, slander, libel. People are tried and condemned by online lynch mobs. We like or share Tweets and Facebook posts even though we can’t possibly confirm their accuracy. Luther said that the Ninth Word requires us to put “the best construction on everything,” to give others the benefit of the doubt. We exaggerate the stupidity or malevolence of ideological adversaries to score points and win honor in Twitter combat. Officially committed to the Ten Words, the church does no better. Christians fire up the digital kindling to burn supposed heretics without due process, humility, or care.

This isn’t merely an improper use of neutral technology. YouTube gives preference to controversial videos, the more outlandish the better. Twitter is a medium of self-presentation, often self-preening, where every user plays a game of “brand p 108 management.”119 Not by accident but by design, social media encourages violations of the Ninth Word.

Lies can become embedded in the foundations of a culture. When a member of the Toraja tribe sets out in his canoe, he tricks the gods by saying, in a loud voice, that he’s planning a canoe trip tomorrow. No Toraja will compliment a pretty girl, for fear that jealous gods will give her the face of a dog.120 We smile at the primitive superstition, but in living memory much of Eastern Europe lived under a regime of lies. As Vaclav Havel memorably put it, “Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.” The Soviet bloc crumbled when truth-tellers like Havel and John Paul II uttered the simple, childlike words, “The empire has no clothes.”121

That broadens out the Ninth Word. It demands truth-telling in every setting, not merely under the formal procedures of a court of law. As Martin Luther said, it prohibits betrayal, slander, the spreading of evil rumors.117 True words can destroy, when spoken as gossip. Few themes are more prominent in p 107 Proverbs than the wise use of the tongue. Too much speech is dangerous (Prov 10:8). Timing is all the difference between rotten words and verbal apples of gold in settings of silver (Prov 25:11). Sweet speech is dangerously seductive (Prov 5:3), but for the same reason it can persuade kings (Prov 16:21; 22:11). Smooth speech enables the ambitious to steal hearts (see Absalom, 2 Sam 15:6). Deception is a lubricant of social life, from excusable courtesies to self-serving flattery, which has been called the most harmful of lies.118 We rarely sin without a backup plan in case we get caught: “I can always lie my way out of this.”