Cornerstone of Faith ...

What is truth?  What is fact?  Lawyers argue “the facts of case” each seeking to convince a jury that their own position is the correct one.  But how can both be right, or wrong?  Discerning truth becomes a challenging thing when evil’s influence in pervasive and powerful.  Evil cannot defeat truth, but it can mask it, obfuscate it, bury it in enigma, or make it seem unpalatable.  If evil is able to convince you to question the source of truth, how can you ever know what truth is?  With so many competing voices that all claim to know what truth is, we are faced with the dilemma of choosing where to put our faith and trust.  It is easy to say we will trust our God, but then who’s God?  The God described in the Old Testament of the Bible, the New Testament, the Talmud perhaps, the Quran, Hindu writings, those of Confucius, where do we turn to find a basis, a cornerstone from which to discern truth?

Christians point to the Bible as the source of truth.  But Lucifer has not been idle in putting forth arguments to destroy the credibility of the scriptures.  The idea that truth has been somehow “lost in translation” from scrolls that date back nearly 3000 years has merit from a logical perspective.  Any child who has ever sat in a circle and played the gossip game can attest to this.  Then there is the dilemma that even ancient texts written in the time of the Bible may not be directly attributable to sources we believe to be inspired.  Recently a “gospel of Judas” and a “gospel of Mary Magdalene” have been discovered.  Neither agrees with New Testament writings but both have been put forth as viable additions to our current collection.  Even those that were in existence at the council of Nicaea were debated with some being excluded from what we now refer to as the New Testament.  Add to this the Catholic church’s position that scripture must be the sole province of priests to interpret and what scripture there is had to be preserved and copied in caves for nearly a millennia until the printing press was invented.  Even if we accept the current collection of writings that compose the books of our Bible, there exists today no less than 10 significant “versions” of the same text.  Attempts to simplify the language of the King James version has resulted in widely differing interpretations of the same base texts. 

Science, or rather men who profess that scientific thinking is the only viable method for finding truth, have proposed that the “evidence” of evolution outweighs the miraculous accounts of our creation in the Book of Genesis, therefore the portions of scripture which deal with the fantastic must be allegories written by enlightened philosophers in an attempt to make men better than they are.  These scientists have all but declared that there can be no basis in truth of the Bible, at best idealistic ideas, at worst superstitions designed to control men by appealing to their fears of the unknown and death.  There are “creation scientists” who seek out evidence supporting the ideas of creation and the flood for instance, but as they approach science with a predefined set of ideas they are derided by their peers.  Many modern Christians seek to find a balance between the big bang / evolution and the accounts written in scripture – deciding that where science can be proven, it is there that scripture is in error.

Atheists claim their ideology, or rather lack of ideology, is the fastest growing segment in modernized nations.  The implication is that with higher education, and higher IQ, comes a lack of belief in scriptures.  Atheists assert that intellect is the key to the discovery of truth, and being bound to texts of ancient superstition is merely a cherished part of our past.  They assert that freedom from the ideas of punishment or reward at death liberate one to live in the here and now.  They have a point actually.

It is a wonder that any Christian can maintain faith in our Bible.  But then what is faith but a choice as to what to believe.  The evolutionist chooses to believe that despite the inability to take base elements from the periodic table and create life, it was done anyway.  They believe that even though it requires billions of years as the variable to evolve, combined with trillion to one odds, it happened as theorized anyway.  There are many facts on the other side of the evolutionist aisle, enough to cause doubt in the mind of any true scientist, making the theory of evolution one of choice as well.  The Atheist too must also make a choice not to believe in anything beyond what they can see, feel, touch, and describe.  Atheists do not do well with mysteries, and completely discard supernatural phenomenon, until it happens to them.  Belief is about choice first and foremost.

To answer the question of the accuracy of the content of our Bible, and the validity of the books that were included in it, one must examine the question “why” would it be our basis of truth.  The purpose of the Bible is not to define condemnation for evil, it takes no such volumes to accomplish such an obvious goal.  Rather, the Bible is a love letter that speaks incessantly of hope, love and redemption.  The Bible is given to man by a God who explains why evil exists, how to be free from it, what love means, and of an eternal destiny that will unite us with Him in the absence of all evil permanently.  The Bible is about making an informed decision as to whether to follow the God who stands behind its inspiration.  If the Bible is a lie, then the God who purports to be behind it does not exist.  There is no middle ground.  God cannot expect man to make an informed decision to follow Him based on partial truth, omissions of critical facts, or ideas that were lost in translation.  Man can only choose to love God if an accurate picture of God is provided in scripture.

If what is in the Bible is incomplete, then we do not have enough information to make our decision for or against the God of the Bible.  If the information in the Bible has been altered by the designs of men, then the God who stands behind it cares not enough to preserve His own letter to us.  If the information is mere allegory then why is it presented as fact.  If the Bible is a lie, whether in part, or in full, then hope is a lie – redemption is a myth – purpose and individuality are meaningless – and death is the only real escape from the evil that surrounds us and inhabits us.  The Bible if accurate, answers all these dilemmas and gives us a complete picture of love and of evil.  Not all the things that occur in scripture are by the will of God.  Many are acts committed by men in various circumstances that illustrate evil and the consequences of evil.  But with every instance of death or destruction in the scriptures are even more instances of mercy whether accepted or rejected.

Those Christians who seek to integrate competing ideas of evolutionism and creationism are attempting to blend completely counter ideologies.  We were either created by design, or not.  There can be no middle ground.  To try to annul portions of scripture is to deny the power of the God who stands behind them.  Why bother with scripture at all, if the God behind it is a liar.  Those Christians who believe we should take the writings of Paul out of the Bible, equally deny the God who has stood behind our Bible for nearly 2000 years.  The Bible has been preserved at great peril by those who chose to abandon their homes and run from persecution in order to preserve the sacred word.  To have them die in vain for the writings of Paul, so that “modern enlightened” Christians who do not like what Paul says can remove them only now, is to have their martyred deaths and persecuted lives for nothing.  That too is not a picture of a God in whom I would serve.

But if the Bible is not a lie, if it is indeed the absolute truth, then love is real – a finality to evil is real, both in me and around me.  If the Bible is the unvarnished truth it does not change over time.  The study of it will yield even more truth as we submit ourselves to the God who was its inspiration and protector for all these generations.  The God who means to communicate with us through the instrument of His written word, longs to lead us to understand it as it was meant to be understood.  He longs to show us the deeper meaning in the stories, lives, writings, songs, failures, and successes we find throughout scripture.  He does not bury the truth in numerology that would require a supercomputer to decode.  He presents it plainly in language the audience of the day could understand.  Its principles and values live on as if written only yesterday.  Its message is truly timeless, as truth itself is timeless.

One could argue that every religion has “sacred’ texts, and that our Bible is no different than any other competing set of written works.  But there is one difference that remains, in every other religious ideology lives the notion that service must be offered in order for favor to be granted.  Only does our Bible teach about a God who does the work of saving His creations from evil – even while they choose to number themselves as His enemies.  Our God reaches out to us in love, even before we know who He is.  Our God does the work of reforming, transforming, and recreating a new character within us as we submit to Him.  In every other ideology, man finds enlightenment through his actions or abstentions – only in the Bible is man offered wisdom as a gift.  Only in the Bible are the enemies of God loved by Him, with incessant offers to save them from the evil they choose to embrace.  This difference is substantial.  It is the reason why Christianity and the scriptures behind it offer a better life than ALL the other competing ideologies.  Man simply cannot save himself.  This is a demonstrable scientific fact.  Only the Bible offers man a future without evil as a gift.

Those who argue that the Spirit of God has informed them to disregard portions of scripture are essentially arguing that God cannot make up His own mind about His word.  If God is the God behind the scriptures, why would His Spirit decide some of them should not be there?  In order for God to be God He must be consistent.  In order for truth to be truth it too must be consistent and accurate.  If the Bible contains inaccuracies or partial truths it cannot claim to be “the” truth.  Our interpretations of the meaning of scripture varies, but the words themselves remain, unchanged, and there by the intentions of a loving God.

Scripture can be used as a cornerstone of faith.  One must ultimately make a choice as to what to believe.  But putting our faith in scripture is our best hope to discover what truth is.  It is a choice to put our faith in something over which we have no control.  It is an act of trust in the God who is behind the words in His book.  It then becomes a doorway into discovering who He is, what it means to love and be loved.  It is our gateway to truth.  We will finally know truth, when we see Him face to face.  For Christ is truth.  Everything about Him is truth.  Everything about His Father, and His Spirit are truth.  There is no guile, no deceit, no omission of facts, no exaggerations, no partial truths in anything that God has said to us, or will ever say to us.  It will forever be only truth, and with that truth will come the freedom of truth, the beauty of truth, and the truly profound discovery of truth itself.  I make this choice gladly and would happily encourage anyone else to do the same.  In God, and in His word, I safely put my trust, for He alone is truth.

The Pursuit of Truth ...

People of all walks of life find themselves in the pursuit of truth. News reporters believe it to be their job. Men of science believe it is found in discovery, observation, and verification. Those who study philosophy and religion search for the deeper meanings of life. And the populous accept what most of these searchers assert as truth they can rely upon. You could define truth by saying it is an absolute. Truth remains constant no matter what perspective you look at it from. But I would suggest there is more to it than that. I believe that truth, just like science, is more of a process than a destination.

You could say for example that the sun in our solar system is yellowish red in color. This would be the truth, a fact if you will. But there is much more about our sun than one simple characteristic. Our sun is a certain size, certain composition, certain distance from our planet – it provides light during the day and is reflected off of our moon at night. Our sun could destroy our planet were it not for the atmosphere that wraps our earth like a blanket. All of these other facts do not diminish the original truth we stated; rather they provide more context, more details, more information, more character if you will. While the color of our sun is a truth, it is not the most important truth about our sun. A deeper study of our sun provides a much more thorough understanding of the central star in our solar system. In fact a study of other stars throughout the universe, and the life cycles they go through, reveals what kind of star our sun is, and why it is the color it is.

Science takes pride in providing truth about our physical world around us. However many of the scientific truths we assume are true are based on theories that have not been proved absolutely true, only based on the best knowledge we have to date. Science then, leaves open the idea, that over time as study methods become better, new information may affirm, alter, and completely obliterate old theories and accepted truths. No scientist is thrilled at this prospect, to be proved wrong that is, but all must be willing to accept it, or they can no longer consider themselves objective scientists.

When it comes to matters of religion, men have been much more rigid in their application of what is truth. Instead of looking at a truth as being capable of further study, of a deepened understanding, of being able to evolve as our knowledge increases; men have put boundaries around truth and decided it is limited to a singular interpretation where all others are wrong. And yet in matters of religion which often deal more with the non-physical matters of life such as motives, behavior, emotions, intentions, and classifications such as good and evil all of which are much harder to observe; we treat ideas like concrete that cannot be altered rather than sand that could fill entirely different shapes over time. Men of religion are even more reluctant than men of science to be proven wrong. They make no allowance for it. And the result is that truth becomes stagnant, confined to the box the searcher has created for it, and argued to the death it is right without ever trying to get a better understanding of what he may have initially come across. Men of science rightly criticize men of religion in this behavior.

So why are religious believers so much more adamant that their interpretation of truth is the only viable one to be had? It could be this is how they were raised. It could be this is how their particular church has presented any “truth” to them; that they must be on guard against alternative ideas about truth, that they must act defensively to preserve their truth or it will be destroyed by evil. But this type of paranoia seems less required by God’s truth than by His competitors. The priests sought to silence the message of Christ by killing Him - A lot of good that did, His resurrection only spread His message like wildfire throughout the world. The Catholic Church was responsible for trying to keep scripture away from the common people for more than 1200 years, they failed. The Bible was meticulously copied by Waldensians living in caves during this time, and completely liberated by the invention of the printing press. God’s truth simply cannot be destroyed by His enemies.

For some reason, religious men tend to believe that accepting any alternative ideas about the truths they hold to will somehow result in them losing their Salvation. As such they put a heavy penalty on any who challenge the least of the truths they espouse. They begin to equate behavior, and accepting everything the church states, as equivalent to Salvation itself. All truths become equally important in order to defend them all. But our simple analogy of the sun defeats this idea. Yes our sun is in fact yellowish red, but this is not the most important fact about the sun. Why it is this color may be entirely more important than the fact that it is. The same could be applied to most every doctrine of truth we hold in a given church. Most Christian churches teach the idea that God continues to want a tithe brought into His storehouse. This practice of tithing sets aside ten percent of a person’s increase as a freewill offering to the Lord. The practice of tithing is established throughout the Bible and could be considered a truth. However as with the sun analogy, “why” God established this practice may be entirely more important than the fact that He did. Determining why God set this up tells us more about His character and our own, than merely following what is proscribed without any further study on the matter. Determining “why” should not alter the original set of facts or truth, but may add an entirely new dimension to this practice than merely rote obedience.

It is unfortunate that human ego seems to be the reason why men are so reluctant to allow their versions of truth (i.e. the interpretations of scripture they espouse) to be challenged. If Christ is really to lead us, why would we fear engaging in discussion or debate when behind His banner. But therein lies the problem, we Christians charge out on to the battlefield attempting to prove only that we are right, and expecting that God is only on our side. Oops. This is not Christ leading, it is our pride, our arrogance and our ego. And it is folly. Turns out Christ was trying to lead us to a better understanding of His truth, and did not want us fighting on the battlefield in the first place. But how do we get this message when already engaged in battle? First we must stop fighting. Our truths should be self-evident, if they are not, then perhaps there is room to learn rather than to teach. We must stop approaching every discussion with paranoid ideas that the devil is behind all ideas different than our own. In this mindset, the Holy Spirit can show us nothing, as we simply won’t let Him.

Humility is the key to the discovery of truth. We must be willing to learn in order to learn. We must be willing to be led rather than always asserting our leadership on a topic. We must learn to discuss, and with it, truly learn to listen to what someone else has to say. Blanket disregard for the opinions of others should foretell how they will feel about what you have to say. If you tune out someone who disagrees with your position, they will in-turn tune you out. What results then is merely noise. Attempting to listen to someone means not only listening to the words, but to the meaning they are trying to convey. Often our choice of language is less than ideal. We speak harshly, defensively, or make rash statements we would rather take back. When trying to listen, we must learn to temper our anger, embrace patience, and search out meaning without accepting personal insult. In this effort we can finally begin a dialogue on truth.

Lest you think your version of Christianity needs no further leadership from Christ on a given point of doctrine, I would point you to the example of Peter. Peter was Jewish by descent and carried with him the natural inclination to discuss truth with only his fellow Jews. The he dreamed a dream of all manner of unclean animals and was bidden by the Lord to eat. He refused. He was bidden again. When he awoke he knew the meaning of his dream was meant to coax him out of his long accepted prejudice and embrace the freedom of the gospel to ALL men. But bottom line, Peter was wrong. Peter who had accepted Christ, been with Him the longest, was most famous among the twelve, and worked many miracles with the power of the Holy Spirit – was still wrong about how/who he shared the gospel with. His humanity still managed to interfere with the work of the Lord. And if an apostle of Christ could still be so deceived, do we really think ourselves above all reproof and correction?

Realizing that there are 38,000 Christian churches and only one Christ says that many of us must be mistaken about views we hold to be true. We simply cannot all be right about everything. It would be arrogance to think that only I am right in the face of 38,000 other competing views. This does not mean we are all wrong about everything either. This puts us in the perfect position of seeking truth. The time to sort out what is correct, reverse what is incorrect, and come to a deeper understanding of what remains is upon us. We are in a perfect position to allow Christ to begin leading us once again. We can in humility open the word of God without pretense or prejudice, but to try to understand what He would have us understand. Our ideas of truth can now finally evolve with our depth of understanding. It begins and ends with humility, and in humility we can finally begin.