Most traditions say yes, while distinguishing a small sin from a grave one. The pastoral point usually made is that white lies are a habit that trains you for larger ones.

Scripture is explicit

Is it a sin to lie?

Q: What about Rahab and the midwives?

They are the standard test cases, and Hebrews 11 commends Rahab's faith. Whether the text approves the lie or the courage behind it is precisely what Christians dispute.

Q: Is it lying to keep a secret?

No. Withholding information you are not obliged to share is not deception. Lying involves asserting something you know to be false.

Q: Is it a sin to lie to protect someone?

This is the one genuinely contested case. Augustine says yes, others say the obligation to truth is not owed to someone seeking to do harm. Both positions have long standing.

Yes, and Scripture then tells stories that complicate it

Two sealed parchment letters side by side, one wax seal crisp and the other malformed.

In short

Yes. Lying is condemned plainly and often, and it is among the things God is said to hate. Scripture also records people who lied to save lives and are commended, which is why Christians have argued for centuries about whether those are exceptions, or a different thing altogether.

What the text says

Ephesians 4:25

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.

The reason attached to the command is the interesting part: truth is owed because people belong to one another. That is why lying registers as a wound rather than as a broken rule.

Ephesians 4:25 was the verse of the day on January 20, 2024. See that day

Often brought inProverbs 12:22

Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.

Among the strongest language Proverbs uses. This is not presented as a preference but as something God finds detestable.

The counterweightExodus 1:19

And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.

The Hebrew midwives lie to Pharaoh to save newborns, and the next verses say God dealt well with them. Any complete answer has to account for this passage.

What Christians agree on

Deception for your own advantage is sin, in every tradition, without qualification. All the disagreement lives in the narrow case of lying to protect someone from harm.

Where they disagree

Augustine's position, held by many

A lie is always wrong, without exception. The midwives were blessed for their courage in saving children, not for the falsehood, and the text never praises the lie itself.

Proverbs 12:22

Those who allow for the life-and-death case

Speech owed to a murderer is not the same as speech owed to a neighbour. The midwives and Rahab are recorded approvingly, and the text does not flinch at what they did.

Exodus 1:20

Those who focus on intent to harm

The definition of lying does the work: withholding truth from someone with no right to it is not the deception Scripture condemns, which is always deception that damages.

Ephesians 4:25

Questions worth asking

Who does this lie protect - them, or me?
Am I calling it a white lie because it is small, or because it is convenient?
What would telling the truth here actually cost, and to whom?

Almost every lie people worry about is not the midwives' case. It is easier, smaller, and about avoiding a difficult conversation. The hard cases are genuinely hard; most cases are not hard at all.