What is Truth?
5/28/2017 11:48:24 PM
Truth matters, and as such, is then actionable.
What is Truth?
“My wish for you...
is that your skeptic-eclectic brain be flooded with the light of truth.”1
Why? Because "one word of truth outweighs the whole world."2 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had the right to speak of truth because when he wrote letters to a school friend, telling the truth about Joseph Stalin, he was arrested and then spent eight years in prisons and labor camps and three years in exile.3 Truth matters.
She said to me, 'That may be true for you, but it's not true for me!'3
‘There is no 'truth'’, each person decides what is true for them.4
Really? Such people believe in relativism, which then makes their previous statement a contradiction—right?
That would mean that 2 + 2 does not always = 4. On a given day, someone might argue that 2 + 2 can sometimes equal five. Surely we all known better than that, don’t we?
Simply, truth may be defined as “the body of real things, events, and facts : actuality ~ the things that are true.”6
Truth is imperative to right thinking . . .
Truth is imperative to right living . . .
That is why I spent five days talking about the key Christian beliefs. These truths matter tremendously, coming 100% from the Bible.
The eleven essential beliefs of Christianity:
1. God is eternal ~ no beginning, no end. From Genesis 1.1 to Revelation 22.13
2. God is triune ~ Father, Son, Holy Spirit three Persons, one God
3. God is the Creator ~ and he created us in his image
4. Sin separated us from God ~ because God loved us, he gave us free will
5. Grace ~ God's way of redemption.
6. God's instrument of grace was Jesus Christ, God Incarnate
7. Jesus Christ defeated death—he rose from the grave!
8. Jesus ascended into Heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father
9. Christ will come again—in the same way he left—in the clouds.
10. The Bible contains the words of God, and is without error.
11. We are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
The one in whom we believe, the one we love said,
“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”7
The beloved disciple, John, also made this very weighty statement:
“And we know that the Son of God has come,
and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God.
And now we live in fellowship with the true God
because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ.
He is the only true God, and he is eternal life.”8
And John quoted Jesus as saying,
““I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.”9
I have been pondering why it was that John had so much to say about truth. John walked with Jesus from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry; he saw it all. In fact, he was in Jesus’ inner circle—he saw Jesus raw. John saw it all, heard it all, and knew the whole story. He was there at the foot of the cross, when his Lord, our Lord, suffered and died. And from the cross, it was to John that Jesus entrusted his mother, Mary. John took her into his home and provided for her.10
If anyone knew the truth of the life of Jesus Messiah, it was John. John was all about truth, and he taught about it—in his gospel and in his letters. Friends, that is because truth matters. You can stake your life on the truths of Jesus Christ, and I pray that you are.
Question: do you wake up every day with the
intention of honoring him??
1 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle
2 – Solzhenitsyn
3 – https://www.biography.com/people/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-9488509
4 - http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/that_may_be_true_for_you_but_its_not_true_for_me/
5 – https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/truth
6 - https://www.bethinking.org/truth/thats-true-for-you-but-not-for-me-relativism
7 – John 8.31-32
8 – 1 John 5.20
9 – John 14.6
10 - John 19.25-26