What Is Truth


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This was the question asked of Jesus by Pontius Pilate.

  • (John 18:37-38) Therefore Pilate said to him: “Well, then, are you a king?” Jesus answered: “You yourself are saying that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone that is on the side of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him: “What is truth?” And after saying this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them: “I find no fault in him.

It was a rhetorical question, meant  to imply that there was no way to separate fact from fiction.

Jesus revealed the answer to Pilate's question on the night before his death in his final recorded prayer for his followers

“Sanctify them by means of the truth,” Jesus continues, “your word is truth.” Here Jesus calls the inspired Hebrew Scriptures, from which he continually quoted, “the truth.” But what he taught his disciples and what they later wrote under inspiration as the Christian Greek Scriptures is likewise “the truth.” This truth can sanctify a person, change his life completely, and make him a person separate from the world.

Jesus now prays “not concerning these only, but also concerning those putting faith in [him] through their word.” So Jesus prays for those who will be his anointed followers and other future disciples who yet will be gathered into “one flock.” What does he request for all of these?

“That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in union with me and I am in union with you, . . . that they may be one just as we are one.” Jesus and his Father are not literally one person, but they are in agreement on all things. Jesus prays that his followers enjoy this same oneness so that “the world may have the knowledge that you sent me forth and that you loved them just as you loved me.” —as excerpted from chapter 116 of  The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived"

So, what is truth?
  • (John 17:17) Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth.

Yes, God's Word, The Holy Bible (all 66 completely harmonious books of it) would be the yardstick for measuring and sorting fact from fiction, as Paul wrote in a letter to Timothy:
  • (2 Timothy 3:16-17) All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

This, then, is the primary authority we will cite in discussing the ensuing list of questions, starting with...

Does God really care how we worship him?