Remember the definition of a lie from the Insight book: "The opposite of truth. Lying generally involves saying something false to a person who is entitled to know the truth and doing so with the intent to deceive or to injure him or another person."
There are two conditions that must be met before the "saying" is considered a lie:
1) The listener must be entitled to know the truth
2) The speaker's intent must be to deceive or injure the listener or some other person
Does this elder consider that the court is entitled to know the truth?
Does this elder have the intent to deceive or injure the listener or some other person?
What do you think the elder's answer to these questions would be? The elder is, apparently, clean in his own eyes.
Read up on "Lie" in the Insight book, it's very informative. Try this from Volume 2, Page 245, column 2, paragraph 2:
"While malicious lying is definitely condemned in the Bible, this does not mean that a person is under obligation to divulge truthful information to people who are not entitled to it." After quoting Mt 7:6 the paragraph continues: "That is why Jesus on certain occasions refrained from giving full information or direct answers to certain questions when doing so could have brought unneccessary harm." A few more scriptural citations follow and the paragraph ends with this: "Evidently the course of Abraham, Isaac, Rahab, and Elisha in misdirecting or in withholding full facts from nonworshipers of Jehovah must be viewed in the same light." (All italics mine)
The elder did what he was trained to do and he did it well.
There was a time when I would have done exactly as he did. God forgive me.
Nina