What is Truth?

Ironically, Governor Pilate asked the rhetoric question, "What is truth?"(Jn 18:38), to the one person who actually knew: Jesus Christ.  But Pilate, like so many people today, didn't believe or want to believe in a one, objective truth.

Truth, to many, is a rather flexible thing, more akin to opinion than fact.  It is more popular to say that truth is relative to one's experience and training.  People insist that "perception is reality" and truth, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  The idea Pilate alluded to and so many today seem to live by is that everyone has his/her own truth.

Yeah, no that simply isn't factual.  Truth is that which, in fact, is reality.  Reality exists regardless of one's perception or acceptance - truth is not a sliding scale but rather the gold standard.  Truth exists, with or without our input or acceptance.  1+1= 2 whether you understand arithmetic or not, whether you agree or not - this truth is not open to negotiation.

We can debate what we believe to be true.  We can debate what we accept as truth.  We can debate how much we think truth matters.  But truth is static, it comes to us from an unchanging and unchangeable Source: "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (Jn 17:17).  Truth comes from God, man has not the right or the power to change it - try as he may.

The Supreme Court can determine that a baby in the womb has no personhood and therefore not a life to be protected but that does not make it truth.  The Bible is clear in saying of John the Baptist "the baby leaped for joy in his mother's womb" (Jn 1:17) when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, approached.

The Supreme Court can determine that same-sex unions constitute marriage but that does not alter the truth Jesus revealed in saying, “Haven't you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?'" (Mt 19:4-5).

While we can form opinions and decide what we want to or will accept as truth, we don't get to create or alter truth.  Truth is what God determines it is.  Our need is not to determine truth but to discover it in the revelation of God as found in His Word whether in the printed pages of the Bible or shouted to us in His creation.

The Lord's challenge is not just for you to decide what you believe to be true.  Instead, you are called on  to "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth" (2 Tim 2:15).  Jus' Say'n.