It has been a while since I have written anything. The end of a school year is incredibly busy for me, as I am a teacher and supervise two departments. But the school year finally ended last Friday, (about a week after everyone else.)
The last time I wrote about Jesus: The Way. In this statement in John 14:6, Jesus is calling himself three things. He is saying, "I am the Way. I am the the Truth. I am the Life." Today we will examine Jesus: The Truth. To be truthful, I really had a hard time answering the question, "What does it mean to me that Jesus is the Truth?" It just wasn't striking a cord with me. So you know what I did? I opened up the Bible to see what the Bible had to say about, and it turns that the Bible, particularly the book of John has a great deal to say about it. According to the NIV Complete Concordance, the word "truth" is used over 50 times in the book of John, and the word "true" is used another 12 times. Jesus uses the phrase, "I tell you the truth," around 25 times, just in John. It appears that truth is an important concept in John that I was completely missing. So I went back and re-examined a few things. Here are some things I picked up on:
- John 1:14-17 - Jesus came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John goes on to say that the Law came from Moses, but grace and truth came from Jesus. Moses' law was good, but grace and truth is better. I have always been so wrapped up in the Jesus, who was full of grace here, that I have ignored the part about being full of truth. These two things (grace and truth) go hand-in-hand here.
- John 3:21 - Truth and light are connected. "But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God." Jesus is Truth and has no hidden agenda. Likewise his disciples live in such a way that people can see the truth of their lives.
- John 4:23-24 - Jesus is looking for those who will worship in the Spirit and in truth. Again both are important. Jesus is not looking for people who worship in spirit, yet do not hold onto the truth. Truth is an important part of our worship to God.
- John 7:18 - Truth is connected to seeking god's glory rather than our own.
- John 8:31 - Truth sets us free. Logic dictates that if Jesus is the Truth, and the Truth sets us free, then Jesus sets us free. (That Logic class I took in college has finally paid off.)
- John 8: 42-47 - Jesus represents truth, while his adversary, the devil, represents lies. Jesus is also the Life, and the devil has been a murderer since the beginning. (Jn 8:44) Truth is part of the sharp contrast between Jesus and Satan.
- John 15:26 and 16:13 - the Holy Spirit is a spirit of Truth. Important enough that Jesus said it twice. This is the Spirit we have inside of us as his disciples. According to 16:13 He will guide us into ALL truth.
- Finally, in John 18:37 when standing before Pilate, Jesus says that the reason he came was to testify to the truth. I would say that makes truth kind of important. Strangely, a cynical Pilate, responds, "What is truth?" and then walks away from the one person who could really answer that question.
Tom
No comments:
Post a Comment