Comment: In the Cambridge dictionary integrity means ‘ the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change:’ Just because the word ‘integrity’ is not found in the NT, is integrity no longer expected of Christians? (While the older translations of the NT don’t use the word ‘integrity’ but, as you see in the following quotes, it is found in the ESV!) The word probity is very near to the meaning of integrity and it also isn’t in the Bible at all. Synonyms for these two words are – cohesion. purity, soundness, stability, unity. (and further strong matching words are), absoluteness, coherence, entireness, perfection, simplicity, totality, wholeness. morality, rectitude, righteousness, rightness, sincerity, trustworthiness, truthfulness. Obviously space doesn’t allow me to chase up all these words but following are several examples…
RE: 1. purity – 1 Tim 4: 12 ‘Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.’ 2. sound speech and integrity – Titus 2: 7-8 – ‘Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us’. 3. Perfection (completion) – 2 Cor 7: 1 – ‘Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God’. 4. Righteousness – 1 Pet 2: 24 – ‘He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness’. 5. truth and truthfulness – Heb 10: 26-27 – ‘For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries’.
Proverbs 20: 17 Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.
Prayer: Please Help me to see and live the full richness if an integrated life!
As I read it! 