Ephesians 4:25: the reason given for not lying is not a moral one
25Because of this, setting aside lying, speak the truth, each one with his neighbor. For we are all part of one another.
The verse this page is about.
Short answer
Ephesians 4:25 calls for lying to be set aside and for truth to be spoken between neighbours, closing with an unexpected reason: all of us are parts of each other. The argument is not that lying is ugly, but that lying to someone in the same body is lying to part of yourself.
- Written by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
The command is ordinary; the justification is not. Almost every culture condemns lying on moral or practical grounds. Paul picks a different one: physical belonging.
The sentence sits inside a list of exchanges — set this aside, take that up — running across several verses. Each item shares the same structure, and this is the first of the series.
Where this verse appears
The chapter had just described the community as a body growing toward its head. The image is not decorative: it carries the practical instructions that follow.
In the preceding verses Paul asks readers to set aside their former behaviour, be renewed in the mind’s spirit and put on the new man. Today’s verse is the first concrete example of what that looks like in company.
What it says
The command has two halves. Stopping the lying and speaking the truth are not the same act. Silence handles the first; the second requires opening your mouth, which costs considerably more.
The addressee is a neighbour — in this edition, each one with his neighbour, which points at concrete relationships rather than generic transparency. The instruction concerns the people you actually live among.
The closing justification is the key, and this edition sharpens it. Where many translations speak of being members one of another, here the wording makes us parts of each other — plainer, and harder to spiritualise. Lying then behaves like bad data inside an organism: the body acts on false information and injures itself. That is an argument about function, not reputation.
What to do with it today
Start with the half that is easiest to measure: is there something you have been letting someone believe without correcting it? Sustained omission is the form of lying this verse most likely reaches.
The second half needs care. Speaking truth to a neighbour, in this chapter’s argument, exists for building — the same chapter had already tied truth to charity. Truth spoken to wound satisfies the letter and loses the purpose.
What the passages say
15Instead, acting according to truth in charity, we should increase in everything, in him who is the head, Christ himself.
Ten verses earlier, truth had already appeared tied to charity and to the growth of the body. It is the frame that keeps candour from becoming a weapon in today’s verse.
22Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. But whoever acts faithfully pleases him.
The wisdom version of the same theme, as a contrast: lying lips on one hand and, on the other, whoever acts faithfully — note that this edition puts the contrast in deeds rather than in speech.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, there is something I let someone misunderstand and never corrected. Give me the nerve to undo it today, and care in how I say it. Let my mouth serve the body rather than myself. Amen.