What is truth? What a classic question, and one worth asking.
This is the foundation of the question, from ancient script. John 18:37-38:
37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.
As a nod to pop culture, and another classic found in the movie A Few Good Men:
Jessup: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled!
Jessup: You want answers?!
Jessup: You can’t handle the truth!
In trying to determine what is truth, I begin with the (correct) assumption that there is Absolute Truth.
God either says yes, no, or wait. He never says “It depends.”
What got me thinking about this question is an observation of The Way Things Currently Stand.
There’s COVID-19. As I’m writing this, I’m still quarantined. I’m waiting to turn that corner people keep talking about.
Specifically, it’s the mask thing. I can’t even.
Should you wear a mask or not?
What would Jesus do? Would He say “it depends?”
Beats me. He hasn’t let me in on His counsel on that one. Personally, I wore a mask and got COVID-19 anyway, which gives some folks an excuse to say “see?” Well, pilgrim, if wearing a mask before I tested positive kept someone else from getting it, then I have problems making that a bad move on my part. So there.
Building on that, then, I’d have to say there IS a truth about how the virus spreads, where it came from, how it can be treated, all that. God created the virus, and if you start going on about how it emerged from a Chinese lab, okay, but God still allowed it. Man can’t create life, but it seems that he can manipulate it. That’s all I got to say about that.
Another thought about truth – and I abhor bringing this up, just because it devalues my spirit – we’ve had this election in the United States recently, right? You probably heard about it. I hope you participated in it.
What is truth? Specifically, who is the president gonna be?
Here we go: we can discuss and debate if there was fraud, and to what extent. I just bet your mind is already made up.
Buried beneath all the hype and hyperbole and anger and frustration there is a truth out there: someone has been elected president, and God knew who that was to be before the foundation of the world was laid. So we/they just need to get at the truth – there is a truth out there – and then we all collectively abide by that even if it’s something we don’t want to hear. We can’t handle the truth … sometimes.
That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? We say we want the truth, but then we say “What is truth?” When we learn the truth, and we don’t like it, we might just go somewhere else to hear the truth we want.
Oh, y’all. That’s not the way it works. Don’t be that way.
I’ll illustrate.
I won’t go into the dynamics of why all these platforms have been on a meteoric rise. It’s a definite thing, though.
And I am not, not, not bashing any of these, nor the folks that have embraced them. That is absolutely fine and commendable.
What has brought these platforms to the forefront is that many, many people have looked around themselves, become disgusted at what they’ve seen as bias, and gone somewhere else with others of like mind.
The danger for some people (SOME, not all) is that they’ve gone looking for “a truth” that suits them, that confirms what they’ve already come to believe.
Chuck Swindoll obliquely addresses this tendency in a different context:
We refuse to become the “rabbit-hole Christians” John Stott speaks of, popping out of our holes and racing from our insulated caves to all-Christian gatherings only to rush back again. For salt to be tasted and for light to be seen, we must make contact. We are personally responsible.
That’s a lot of background for me to set up my thesis statement. Ready?
Truth is truth, no matter where you find it. And we should never fear the truth.
All truth is ultimately God’s truth.
Now, Satan is a liar, and the father of lies. He’s really, really good at wrapping his lies in the mantle of truth, and even we believers can get suckered, big time.
Paraphrasing ancient script:
You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you mad.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. It’ll set you free.
Look, pilgrim, I get it. I want to have my beliefs confirmed independently. There’s that carnal streak in me that sometimes lives to say “told ya so!”
But if I’m going to honestly ask, “What is truth?”, then I need to be willing to make peace with that.
Even if it means my guy isn’t elected.
Even if it means that there was something to COVID-19 all along, and there are ways of curtailing its spread that we haven’t done.
And even if it means my little word is rocked in other ways and cherished beliefs are turned on their collective heads.
I don’t want to make things harder on myself than I need to. Here’s God, offering His truths (and remember, truth is absolute from His vantage point), and I build this social or society-driven wall that protects me from what I don’t want to hear.
I spend all my time with like-minded people and automatically assume other folks are delusional at best and evil at worst.
That makes it hard for me to be salt and light.
What’s the answer to “What is truth?”
To the extent that we can, we need to:
- Check our hearts and emotions. There is a place for righteous anger, but I’m guessing you know when you’re righteously angry and just plain mad. There is a difference.
- Hold up what we see in society against the backdrop of scripture. And if God “reveals” something to you in scripture that doesn’t hold up to orthodoxy or 2000-plus years of scholarship, you’re about to mess up.
- God is not going to reveal something to you and something else to another that is contradictory.
- We can factor in differences of opinion, but we can’t make truth unique to ourselves, and we shouldn’t detest others who don’t see things the same way as we do.
- Most of us were born with an open mind. Let God pry that open if you’ve allowed it to slam shut.
- It’s all going to be okay because God is sovereign.
“What is truth?” It’s not what you say it is. It’s what God says it is.
Be well. Comments are, as always, welcome.