Honesty Pays!
A customer who ate at Randy’s Southside Diner in Grand Junction unluckily left $3,000 in a bank envelope at his booth. Fortunately, his busboy was Johnny Duckworth. Johnny gave it to his boss, who through the ATM bank slip in the envelope was able to track down the rightful owner. That unnamed person gave Johnny a $300 tip, but strangers started a “gofundme” page for the struggling Duckworth and have raised nearly $4000 for the young man. In an interview, he said he did not for a moment consider keeping the money, adding, “I work for a living.”
You’ve not likely had honesty pay so well for you. At least not financially. But, as the proverbial adage goes, “honesty does pay.” How?
- In reputation. Honestly builds businesses, friendships, leadership, and the like, when people have implicit confidence in your word (cf. Proverbs 14:25).
- In relationships. People trust you and are closer to you when you are honest with them. The opposite is true, too, that people keep their emotional distance from you if you are dishonest (Ephesians 4:25).
- In righteousness. Your character is built through dedication to unconditional truthfulness (Proverbs 12:17).
- In reliability. Who will people come to, lean on, and go to? The honest. They know where they stand with such a one (Proverbs 12:19).
- In respect. While you may fear hurting feelings and alienating others through courageous honesty, you gain the admiration of most through transparency and scrupulous speech and behavior (1 Kings 22:13-14).
Sadly, doing the right thing was once routine, but now it merits newsworthiness. May the tribe of Johnny Duckworths increase. When we as Christians are renowned for our kind honesty, we will draw a world in search of goodness and trustworthiness to the One who “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2).
Wall Street Ethics
Byron Sherwin, in his book WHY BE GOOD, sarcastically recalls, "Once I was browsing in a bookstore when I saw a huge volume with an intriguing title: WALL STREET ETHICS. I opened it eagerly only to find that each of its hundreds of pages was blank."
When we read this at IE, we were skeptical. So we did a little research and it turned out the book is real. It's entitled THE COMPLETE BOOK OF WALL STREET ETHICS by Jay L. Walker and was published by William Morrow & Co., April 1987.
Writes one reviewer, "If you are not familiar with this book, it is a joke, and a pretty good one. The pages are all blank. … Today, after so many new Wall Street scandals, it probably needs to be updated with a new edition with more blank pages."
How would a book that recorded all of the things that you have done to earn your place in heaven read? The only possible answer is that its pages would all be blank. Not only that, but no matter how hard you tried, all of the updated editions would only add more blank pages. That's because nothing that we do with the motive of self-justification will ever be acceptable to God. Rather, earning the prize of heaven requires a righteousness that is perfect, not only in every action, but in every motive behind every action. It requires the righteousness of Christ.
"As the Scriptures say, "No one is righteous--not even one" (Romans 3:10, NLT).
Does it Really Pay to Break the Rules
She was paid $1 Million per year to research and teach on the topics of "honesty and ethical behavior," but no longer. As of May 28, 2025, Harvard University researcher Francesca Gino has lost her tenure.
Why? Mik Olson of Not the Bee reports:
"The honesty professor has been officially canned for dishonesty while conducting studies on [wait for it!] ... dishonesty. ... So now we have an ethics expert embroiled in a legal battle over whether she cooked the academic books — you really can't make this stuff up. ... Anyways, word on the street is that Harvard is looking for a new ethics professor! Only requirement: Be Ethical."
Publisher Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine tweeted it this way:
Harvard behavioral scientist Francesca Gino, who was paid $1 million a year to study honesty and ethical behavior, was accused of manipulating observations to better support her conclusions. Now lost tenure. Do they still teach irony at Harvard?
The accusations ranged from data falsification to plagiarized passages in some of her high-profile publications.
Ironically (errr, unironically), Professor Gino actually produced a video short several years ago entitled "Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life."
Yep, you really CAN'T make this stuff up!
With instructional videos on the benefits of breaking the rules, is it any wonder this "ethics" and "honesy" professor would find herself on the wrong side of, well, ethics and hoesty?
Hypocrisy is the sworn enemy of the frutiful Christian life. We love to put our best face forward, virtue signalling our ethical and honest Christian walk and lifestyle, all while self-justifying our bending of the rules, a little here, a little there, until finally, our sins are found out. "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known" (Luke 12:2, ESV).
In the end, it's hard to live a lie. Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy.
"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5, ESV).
"You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’" (Matthew 15:7-9, ESV).
"Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people" (2 Timothy 3:5, ESV).