Truth-telling is not necessarily a clear-cut matter

Tell the truth. Those words are not explicitly stated in the Ten Commandments, although they are broadly inferred by commandment No. 9 -- the one prohibiting false testimony against a neighbor.

"Don't steal," however, is straightforwardly stated. In the 2003 best-selling book, "The Kite Runner," the author suggests that every violation ultimately comes down to stealing.

Apply that notion to the Ten. If you commit adultery, you steal the affection rightly due to another. If you violate Sabbath by ignoring the need for weekly rest and reflection, you steal from yourself the ability to have perspective and to give God His due. Should I go on? I can do this all day.

Stealing is unambiguous. Truth is a different matter. Truth is colored with shades of gray. Before you turn your eyes from this column and suggest otherwise, please read on. When Jesus tells Pontius Pilate that everyone on the side of truth listens to him, the Roman procurator of Judea replies, "What is truth?" (John 18:38)

Next to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" -- Pilate's question may be one of the most intriguing queries in the Bible. Consider that truth has gradations.

Bosses wonder if subordinates are telling them everything when something goes wrong. Subordinates wonder if bosses are being completely candid about a job reassignment. Parents wonder if their child spoke honestly when asked, "Where did you go with your friends last night?" A wife may wonder why her husband came home so late; his excuse seems a little flimsy.

A husband may wonder why the joint checking account is mysteriously short of funds, and her explanation doesn't seem entirely credible.

What any of us chooses to tell may well be accurate. Accuracy is a kind of truth but it very often is not the complete, unvarnished truth.

Sometimes the absolute truth is just difficult to tell. Telling the truth about Santa, for example, seems a tad cruel when a 4-year old is involved.

Sometimes you make a pledge to keep a matter confidential and to withhold the truth about someone else. When you are asked to break your promise because it seems reasonable and prudent to do so to another person, you face an awful choice: break your solemn commitment to silence or face discipline. If it is a criminal proceeding, a person who doesn't answer may face imprisonment. Occasionally, reporters are asked under oath to reveal a source. When they decline to tell what they know -- to tell the truth, in other words -- jail can be the result.

Truth-telling is not nearly as clear-cut a matter as not stealing. If you think it is, you either haven't lived long enough yet or you haven't found yourself in a terrible conflict of conscience.

In the dystopian film "The Giver" (2014), residents of earth live out their lives in controlled environments, with each citizen receiving a daily injection to control emotions, to encourage conformity and to discourage curiosity. Only one person in the community, a so-called "receiver of memory," knows the truth about their apocalyptic and terrible history. No one but the "receiver" knows about war or the ravages of disease or the terrible toll racism and bigotry exact on a society. Religion does not exist.

The founders of the community decide that the rewards of faith are far outweighed by the potential divisiveness between adherents of multiple religions. If the common folk knew the full truth, if their withheld history were revealed, the fear is that the safe and tranquil community the elders created would be destroyed. The populace is told just enough -- and no more.

Pilate's question -- "What is truth?" -- is forever relevant at Christmas and at all other times. Truth-telling is always more complicated than not stealing.