- Do you remember the last time someone lied to you? Without using any names, can you tell us what happened? (Encourage your students to share brief stories. As the teacher, you may want to begin with your own experience.)
- In one or two words, how did you feel when you found out someone had just lied to your face? (Again, begin with a description of your feelings, then encourage your teens to share their own. The bottom line is that no one likes being told an untruth.)
- If there was a way to know when you were getting the truth—or not—would you use it? (Most likely, your students would love to have a foolproof way of sniffing out liars.)
You probably know there’s a device that is supposed to tell you when somebody’s fibbing. It’s called a polygraph or lie detector. Just hook a person up to the machine, and you’ll know when they’re truthful! Just one problem: Lie detectors don’t work nearly as well as they seem to on TV.
Actually, there are times when a lie detector may—well, tell lies. Let’s watch this short video explaining why polygraphs aren’t necessarily foolproof.
Share this short video clip with your students:
Are Polygraph Tests Accurate?
- If lie detectors are unreliable at times, why do you think people still use them? (Guide your students to the idea that we all want to be sure we’re hearing the truth. Even if a lie detection method isn’t perfect, people still hang onto the hope that it will keep them from being fooled.)
It would be nice if lie detectors worked perfectly. But since they don’t, people are going to lie to us. For that matter, all of us are liars ourselves at times. Even when we aren’t telling untruths on purpose, we make mistakes. So no human being is a perfect fountain of truth.
Of course, there is one reliable source of truth—Someone who never lies or makes mistakes. God doesn’t often speak out loud, but we can learn how He’s revealed truth in the Bible. Let’s explore some things the prophet Jeremiah wrote about God and truth.
