John 18:38   Pilate said, “What is truth?”  (TM)

In this verse, Pilate is cross examining Jesus to find out who He was. The Jews were baying for Jesus blood and Pilate wanted to be sure he knew the background details to Jesus situation before deciding what to do.

Jesus declared to Pilate that He was a King and had come to proclaim the truth of his Father. Pilate immediately responded, “What is truth?”. Pilate was confused because the Romans worshipped many gods. They were also immersed in the Greek culture which had many gods and were obsessed with knowledge, reason and philosophy. Remember Paul on Mars’ Hill. Acts 17:23 I found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.  (NIV)

The situation of Pilate’s time is not much different to our time. Today there are many gods and philosophies and society has developed a pick & mix approach to personal religion. “Let’s see, I’ll have a spoonful of new age, a drop of Islam, a squirt of astrology and I’ll mix it all together with confusion, oops! sorry, i meant Confucius”.

Christians can only counteract these untruths with the truth. Who is, ‘the truth’. The truth is Jesus Christ. John 14:6  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.   (NKJV)  Jesus is also called, ‘the Word of God’. John 1:1-2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.   (NKJV)  We can better understand this verse by substituting the word, ‘Word’ for Jesus: In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God.

So the, the Word (Jesus Christ) came to earth and proclaimed the truth; and as Christians we must settle it in our hearts that the Bible which contains the Word of God is the truth. How can we do this. We spend time meditating on scriptures such as Jn1:1, Jn 14:6 etc until the revelation of those Words are anchored deep in our hearts and minds. Otherwise we could be swept away by the powerful waves and winds of false doctrines and teachings that are being peddled in society.

Eph 4:14-15 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love……..

In my next blog I will discuss how we can speak the truth in love.

Meditation point: “Holy Spirit, you are the author of God’s Word. As I meditate on this Word will you bring the revelation of this Word and establish me in the, ‘truth’”.

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