What is Truth?

What is Truth

It’s an old question and yet so relevant today.  I have a friend that’s deathly allergic to peanuts.  He ended up in the emergency room on one occasion.  Doctors told him to avoid peanuts in all forms as he could die if he ever came even into contact with them.  

The other day we were talking and he told me that he believes he is not allergic to peanuts anymore. He said that if he just added green food coloring to peanut butter it would look different and he would not be allergic to it. I asked him, “Why?” He felt that way and he explained that he just really felt it inside.  He truly believed it in his heart and was sure that it would be, Ok.  He said that he believed that if a person felt and believed something, and held this belief from deep within their person it had to be, True. I tried to explain that just feeling or believing it did not change a medical diagnosis.  He claimed that I did not understand that I was not very loving.  

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—”

Galatians 1:6 ESV

Yes, the truth may not feel loving, but it’s still the truth!  So what’s going on?  Some people just don’t know the truth.  Others have been taught the truth and have rejected it.  And some have known the truth and yet by subtle persuasion have turned away.  Many are afraid to speak the truth because someone may call them, “unloving” or even worse names than that. 

“and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

2 Timothy 4:4 ESV

Today unfortunately most people don’t want the truth.  They have turned away, they have followed after a myth, fable, or fiction.  This brings me back to the allergic reaction.  If you ever want to see someone have a reaction just tell them the truth.  Show them that they have followed a myth, that they are believing in fiction.  Here is one to try.

Tell the world that there are only two sex’s and you don’t get to pick.  No matter how much you may believe or feel inside it does not change.  Even if you change what the outside looks like (food color) it does not change the inside.  It’s not about what you believe or feel but is a medical/scientific fact.  You are either born with X’s or Y’s and that cannot be changed.

“Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.”

Genesis 5:2 ESV

This is a particularly unpopular truth in our world today yet just like my friend that is allergic to peanuts if I don’t tell him the truth there is a very good chance he could die.  The same is true with the world, if we do not tell them the truth they will die!  Are we willing to be called bigots or homophobic?  Will we risk being called unloving to love people in the truth? The answer unfortunately for most churches is, “No”. On the contrary, many churches are embracing the lie.  They have departed from the gospel of grace that they were first called to. How can they claim to follow Jesus and in the same breath reject the very gospel they declare to represent. They have been subverted from the truth and have led millions astray. 

“Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”

Jeremiah 17:5-6 ESV

Men will turn away from God, their hearts will go astray.  Men turn to other men for the truth and all like blind leading the blind will end up in a desolate wilderness.  The place Jeremiah describes is a place where man can not live.  It is a desert filled only with death.

We have the truth, it’s time to stand firm and tell the world the truth.  Do it in love. Do it with love. Do it for love.