"When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3, HCSB).
"The entirety [sum] of Your word is truth..." (Psalm 119:160, HCSB),
"The revelation of Your words brings light and gives understanding to the inexperienced" (Psalm 119:130, HCSB).
"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth" (John 4:24, HCSB).
"Refusing to acknowledge and defend the revealed truth of God is a particularly stubborn and pernicious kind of unbelief. Advocating ambiguity, exalting uncertainty, or otherwise deliberately clouding the truth is a sinful way of nurturing unbelief."--John MacArthur
Jesus said that there is "one true God" (cf. John 17:3), and He is the personification of that truth, or that it's incarnate in Him (cf. John 14:6). When Pilate asked Jesus what truth was (cf. John 18:38), he didn't wait around for an answer, the skeptic and cynic he was, thinking "might made right." A sign that one is born again is the newly formed love of the truth--the unbeliever rejects the truth (cf. Rom. 2:8.) (Just cf. 2 Thess. 2:10, ESV, saying, "... so they refused to love the truth and so be saved.") All knowledge begins in faith, as Saint Augustine said, "I believe in order to understand."
Today the very notion and possibility of truth is brought into dispute and doubt ("Has God said?" was Satan's query), as we see a paradigmatic shift into a Postmodern era of skepticism, with a "hermeneutic [and epistemology, I might add] of suspicion" on all so-called facts. To them, truth is a "short-term contract" and cannot be known definitively, directly, universally, nor positively!" They want us to believe truth is only relative to the person, situation, or time and is not absolute applying at all times to all peoples. "O, that's your truth!" They have declared war on truth itself! But there is a war, the war for truth! People are asking, "Is God for real?" "Is God relevant?" Belief in God used to be the default position and proposition of Western Civilization, also known as Christendom, but now mysticism, skepticism, cynicism, scientific empiricism, and many other "isms" have become resurgent as a new type of atheist has become anti-God, not just unbelievers in Him. They want to erase all mention of God from the foundations of our way of life and society.
Christians are only those who know the truth and have been set free by it (cf. John 8:32). One must recognize that truth and God are inseparable and that attacking truth is an affront and offense on God too. Disavowing truth is tantamount to denying there is a God because they are correlated. You cannot define absolute truth without putting God into the calculus and metric, or equation. Demetrius had a good report from the truth in 3 John 12, and this is a compliment for one engaged in the church contending for the faith (cf. Jude 3).
We are sanctified by the truth (cf. John 17:17), and are in the quest to know more truth as believers-- truth edifies, or builds us up spiritually. But the Bible teaches that truth is more than propositional (stating of facts which are true), but personal and incarnate in Jesus, so we can know it personally and grow in our knowledge of the truth by knowing Him. Statements can be true but only Scripture can rightly be called truth! We say that truth is whatever God decrees, agrees with God, and is the expression of God (logos in English can mean "revelation" or "expression of an idea or thought"). God expressed Himself through Jesus in His final revelation to us.
A Christian who is blase, apathetic, or nonchalant about the truth or thinks it's irrelevant, is stunted, handicapped, paralyzed, and crippled in spiritual growth, and is also disobedient to the Word, for this is our means of sanctification through its truth (cf. John 17:17 again). We are all on the quest to know the truth, and when we find out we are wrong, it should be of concern, not ambivalence, without any cognizance, but a chance to get to know God better; for "all truth is God's truth" and "meets at the top" (cf. Saint Augustine; Saint Thomas Aquinas). He, who rejects truth with a capital T, rejects the God of all truth!
Yes, truth matters and some churches are bailing out theologically thinking that only application, such as loving and doing good deeds are all that matters to God--au contraire, God is concerned that we have the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 2:16), and think in a godly manner, expressing and bearing witness to the truth in a world, as lights in a dark place, not to be hidden, muffled, or destroyed. The church is to be the "pillar and ground of truth" (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15).
We don't need to revamp, retool, or update the church to relate to or fit into modern thinking or philosophy such as Postmodernism, which denies the reality of knowable, absolute truth, which is shrink-wrapped, freeze-dried, and even nailed down as the final orthodoxy, not to be questioned. Some may refer to a "church of what's happening now." Equally paramount is the issue of teaching sound doctrine (cf. Titus 2:1), and not losing track of orthodoxy and what is heresy through polemics, because an equal threat to our church's health is the ignorance of the sheep of sound doctrine and the truth and even knowing what they believe theologically (this is a pernicious sort of unbelief and disbelief!). If the devil cannot make a church bad, void of good works, he makes them mere do-gooders, and he will corrupt its doctrine and lead it into heresy and error, forsaking the pursuit of truth and love of the truth. Look at the ambitious humanitarian efforts of Roman Catholics compared to their erroneous teachings!
Everyone will be judged and/or condemned by the truth available to them and what they did and accomplished with it. There is no excuse for ignorance (which is not bliss, either!), if one engages in the willful neglect of it, having had ample opportunity and didn't take advantage of that light God gave the person.
Christians must maintain that objective, absolute truth does exist that we can know with certainty by revelation from God ("The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge," cf. Prov. 1:7). This type of truth is always true, regardless of who denies or affirms it, and is true whether believed or not, and it always applies. We believe in the one God of truth, who cannot lie (cf. Titus 1:2), and "no lie is of the truth" (cf. 1 John 2:21). "So I am writing to you not because you don't know the truth but because you know the difference between truth and lies" (1 John 2:21, NLT).
We are all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own truths! For instance, Postmodern thought says, "All truth is relative [i.e., to you]." This truth claim is invalid and cannot possibly be true, containing a self-contradiction, forcing you to believe in the absolute truth that all truth is relative, and this statement must also be relative. What they should say is that one's truths may be a private matter to know, and one's opinions need not affect yours. But they say, "Your truth has no power over me, and that's your truth!"
Christians must affirm that truth is revealed, and immutable, always applicable and knowable all through and incarnate in Jesus, who said, "I am the truth" (cf. John 14:6). The only way to find truth is to commence with God, the origin of truth, since denying Him leaves no possibility of truth's existence, but only facts and knowledge being in a state of flux and unknowable. Where you begin has a lot to do with where you'll end up! The Postmodern teacher would introduce his lesson with the disclaimer saying, "You can know nothing for certain!" And he is sure of that! If you take God out of the equation of truth, there is no justification for it and no reason to believe you've arrived at orthodoxy or absolute truth.
Note that all knowledge is contingent and, when you begin, some propositions must be accepted by faith, it only matters what set of presuppositions you are willing to assume--and accept--not whether you are being rational or logical. If you presume there's no possibility of a God, you will come to the conclusion there is no supernatural at all and evolution is the logical conclusion of reality and way to explain everything without God in the picture. The Bible makes it clear that the truth is not in the infidel (cf. 1 John 1:8) and establishes the Bible as the final arbiter of truth ("Your Word is truth," cf. Psalm 119:160).
In sum, the church body needs real warriors who will enlist in the battle for truth and engage in the ongoing warfare in this angelic conflict, contending for the faith delivered unto us in the Word of God, not too timid to fly their Christian colors and daring to be "Daniels,"(daring to stand alone) and firmly resisting the evil being perpetrated, and also creeping in to the church ("...some ungodly people have wormed their way into the church ["crept in unawares" in another version]..."--cf. Jude 4, NLT). Soli Deo Gloria!
"The entirety [sum] of Your word is truth..." (Psalm 119:160, HCSB),
"The revelation of Your words brings light and gives understanding to the inexperienced" (Psalm 119:130, HCSB).
"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth" (John 4:24, HCSB).
"Refusing to acknowledge and defend the revealed truth of God is a particularly stubborn and pernicious kind of unbelief. Advocating ambiguity, exalting uncertainty, or otherwise deliberately clouding the truth is a sinful way of nurturing unbelief."--John MacArthur
Jesus said that there is "one true God" (cf. John 17:3), and He is the personification of that truth, or that it's incarnate in Him (cf. John 14:6). When Pilate asked Jesus what truth was (cf. John 18:38), he didn't wait around for an answer, the skeptic and cynic he was, thinking "might made right." A sign that one is born again is the newly formed love of the truth--the unbeliever rejects the truth (cf. Rom. 2:8.) (Just cf. 2 Thess. 2:10, ESV, saying, "... so they refused to love the truth and so be saved.") All knowledge begins in faith, as Saint Augustine said, "I believe in order to understand."
Today the very notion and possibility of truth is brought into dispute and doubt ("Has God said?" was Satan's query), as we see a paradigmatic shift into a Postmodern era of skepticism, with a "hermeneutic [and epistemology, I might add] of suspicion" on all so-called facts. To them, truth is a "short-term contract" and cannot be known definitively, directly, universally, nor positively!" They want us to believe truth is only relative to the person, situation, or time and is not absolute applying at all times to all peoples. "O, that's your truth!" They have declared war on truth itself! But there is a war, the war for truth! People are asking, "Is God for real?" "Is God relevant?" Belief in God used to be the default position and proposition of Western Civilization, also known as Christendom, but now mysticism, skepticism, cynicism, scientific empiricism, and many other "isms" have become resurgent as a new type of atheist has become anti-God, not just unbelievers in Him. They want to erase all mention of God from the foundations of our way of life and society.
Christians are only those who know the truth and have been set free by it (cf. John 8:32). One must recognize that truth and God are inseparable and that attacking truth is an affront and offense on God too. Disavowing truth is tantamount to denying there is a God because they are correlated. You cannot define absolute truth without putting God into the calculus and metric, or equation. Demetrius had a good report from the truth in 3 John 12, and this is a compliment for one engaged in the church contending for the faith (cf. Jude 3).
We are sanctified by the truth (cf. John 17:17), and are in the quest to know more truth as believers-- truth edifies, or builds us up spiritually. But the Bible teaches that truth is more than propositional (stating of facts which are true), but personal and incarnate in Jesus, so we can know it personally and grow in our knowledge of the truth by knowing Him. Statements can be true but only Scripture can rightly be called truth! We say that truth is whatever God decrees, agrees with God, and is the expression of God (logos in English can mean "revelation" or "expression of an idea or thought"). God expressed Himself through Jesus in His final revelation to us.
A Christian who is blase, apathetic, or nonchalant about the truth or thinks it's irrelevant, is stunted, handicapped, paralyzed, and crippled in spiritual growth, and is also disobedient to the Word, for this is our means of sanctification through its truth (cf. John 17:17 again). We are all on the quest to know the truth, and when we find out we are wrong, it should be of concern, not ambivalence, without any cognizance, but a chance to get to know God better; for "all truth is God's truth" and "meets at the top" (cf. Saint Augustine; Saint Thomas Aquinas). He, who rejects truth with a capital T, rejects the God of all truth!
Yes, truth matters and some churches are bailing out theologically thinking that only application, such as loving and doing good deeds are all that matters to God--au contraire, God is concerned that we have the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 2:16), and think in a godly manner, expressing and bearing witness to the truth in a world, as lights in a dark place, not to be hidden, muffled, or destroyed. The church is to be the "pillar and ground of truth" (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15).
We don't need to revamp, retool, or update the church to relate to or fit into modern thinking or philosophy such as Postmodernism, which denies the reality of knowable, absolute truth, which is shrink-wrapped, freeze-dried, and even nailed down as the final orthodoxy, not to be questioned. Some may refer to a "church of what's happening now." Equally paramount is the issue of teaching sound doctrine (cf. Titus 2:1), and not losing track of orthodoxy and what is heresy through polemics, because an equal threat to our church's health is the ignorance of the sheep of sound doctrine and the truth and even knowing what they believe theologically (this is a pernicious sort of unbelief and disbelief!). If the devil cannot make a church bad, void of good works, he makes them mere do-gooders, and he will corrupt its doctrine and lead it into heresy and error, forsaking the pursuit of truth and love of the truth. Look at the ambitious humanitarian efforts of Roman Catholics compared to their erroneous teachings!
Everyone will be judged and/or condemned by the truth available to them and what they did and accomplished with it. There is no excuse for ignorance (which is not bliss, either!), if one engages in the willful neglect of it, having had ample opportunity and didn't take advantage of that light God gave the person.
Christians must maintain that objective, absolute truth does exist that we can know with certainty by revelation from God ("The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge," cf. Prov. 1:7). This type of truth is always true, regardless of who denies or affirms it, and is true whether believed or not, and it always applies. We believe in the one God of truth, who cannot lie (cf. Titus 1:2), and "no lie is of the truth" (cf. 1 John 2:21). "So I am writing to you not because you don't know the truth but because you know the difference between truth and lies" (1 John 2:21, NLT).
We are all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own truths! For instance, Postmodern thought says, "All truth is relative [i.e., to you]." This truth claim is invalid and cannot possibly be true, containing a self-contradiction, forcing you to believe in the absolute truth that all truth is relative, and this statement must also be relative. What they should say is that one's truths may be a private matter to know, and one's opinions need not affect yours. But they say, "Your truth has no power over me, and that's your truth!"
Christians must affirm that truth is revealed, and immutable, always applicable and knowable all through and incarnate in Jesus, who said, "I am the truth" (cf. John 14:6). The only way to find truth is to commence with God, the origin of truth, since denying Him leaves no possibility of truth's existence, but only facts and knowledge being in a state of flux and unknowable. Where you begin has a lot to do with where you'll end up! The Postmodern teacher would introduce his lesson with the disclaimer saying, "You can know nothing for certain!" And he is sure of that! If you take God out of the equation of truth, there is no justification for it and no reason to believe you've arrived at orthodoxy or absolute truth.
Note that all knowledge is contingent and, when you begin, some propositions must be accepted by faith, it only matters what set of presuppositions you are willing to assume--and accept--not whether you are being rational or logical. If you presume there's no possibility of a God, you will come to the conclusion there is no supernatural at all and evolution is the logical conclusion of reality and way to explain everything without God in the picture. The Bible makes it clear that the truth is not in the infidel (cf. 1 John 1:8) and establishes the Bible as the final arbiter of truth ("Your Word is truth," cf. Psalm 119:160).
In sum, the church body needs real warriors who will enlist in the battle for truth and engage in the ongoing warfare in this angelic conflict, contending for the faith delivered unto us in the Word of God, not too timid to fly their Christian colors and daring to be "Daniels,"(daring to stand alone) and firmly resisting the evil being perpetrated, and also creeping in to the church ("...some ungodly people have wormed their way into the church ["crept in unawares" in another version]..."--cf. Jude 4, NLT). Soli Deo Gloria!
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