What Is Truth?

This is Part 2 of a series.

So Pilate went back into the governor’s residence, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or have others told you about me?” Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own people and your chief priests handed you over to me.What have you done?”

Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my servants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Then Pilate said, “So you are a king!” Jesus replied, “You say that I am a king. For this reason I was born, and for this reason I came into the world – to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked, “What is truth?”   John 18:33-38

The subject of this series is truth. It’s fashionable today, even in church circles, to skirt the subject of truth. That is an outgrowth of post-modern philosophy that says we can’t really know the truth, we can only know localized, perception-filtered versions of the truth.

If you call these soft-soapers on their fallacy, point out that Jesus said we would know the truth and the truth would set us free, they get shifty. If Jesus really truly is God in the flesh, then we should be assured that the creator of the universe knows what truth is. But if you don’t believe there can be any ultimate truth, then Jesus must be a liar.

It’s really hard to claim the mantle of Christianity if you think Christ Himself was wrong about something as important as reality.

Although I hope this series will help you to see and accept the truth, my goal is to display Jesus’ truth statements in context so that you may know what Jesus actually taught rather than what the revisionists insist we should believe.

Part 3 Where Did Truth Go?