This month, Stephen has asked us to redefine our priorities and not wait until the last minute to write our posts for Middlings. As you know, Ben openly rebelled against this admonishing. I have shifted all of my priorities for Stephen, however, and instead of napping on this fine Sunday afternoon, I have decided to write my post. Later tonight, between the hours of 8-11 P.M. (when I would normally panic-write), I will be giving myself many mental high fives and back pats of congratulations for my several-hour-lack of procrastination.
In all seriousness, I knew what I wanted to write about this month as soon as Stephen reminded me of the topic two weeks ago because I could not find my list. Love versus truth. That is what I wanted to write about. Unfortunately for me, I wrote about that topic back in February. In fact, the post that I wanted to write for redefining priorities, I essentially wrote for redefining love. In that post, I argued that what the world calls love must be tempered by truth.
Apparently, not everyone has read my post from February, because the world is still prioritizing love over the truth. I genuinely thought I’d have seen wholesale change by now. At the risk of being perceived as a “one-trick pony,” I am still going to write about prioritizing the truth because it is something we must do. If you want to take a jump over to my February post, you will find a humbly-written, but still majestic, ode to speaking the truth in love. In the post, I wrote, “If we truly love, we must be willing to speak the truth. Speak it in love, of course. But speak it all the same.”
One could quote the Apostle Paul as saying, “the greatest of these is love,” and one would be correct. But the world is not starved for love. The world is starved for truth. Truth is necessary to answer the big questions of life. These are questions such as:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?
Statistics tells us that most teen/college age students leave religion because of a search for truth, and they find that science answers more of their questions than religion does. They leave, in part, because church leaders and parents are not properly teaching a biblical worldview. Maybe this is because they don’t understand it themselves, or maybe it is because they were raised in a generation that didn’t ask questions. But culture has been asking for truth for quite some time:
Johnny Cash – 1970 – You better help the youth find what is truth.
John Lennon – 1971 – All I want is the truth, just give me some truth.
Prince – 1998 – What if half the things ever said turned out to be a lie? How will you know the truth?
Creed – 2001 – What is the truth now?
TFK – 2005 – We want the truth. Give us the absolute. We need your help, ‘cause we’ve got nothing left to lose.
Muse – 2013 – I want the truth!
Today, we have to deal with phrases like, “speak your truth,” “fake news,” and “truth over facts.” To be fair, that last one was said to be a mistake. While I doubt that the statement was purposefully made, I think the sentiment aligns well with our culture. If there is no objective truth, and if your truth is what you feel at any moment, then culture certainly does choose truth over facts. We also have to try to discern between real and fake crimes, doctored pictures and videos, and re-written textbooks.
There are those who say, "'love at any cost' is a better way to live than 'truth at any cost'" (@jeremy.jernigan), and this not only aligns with culture, it also sounds good initially. But prioritizing truth is vitally important. So much so, that Scripture says, “…let God be true, but every man a liar…” in Romans 3:4.
To finish off my post, I just want to point out some biblical truths that will need to be sacrificed if love (as the world defines and redefines it) is going to be the ultimate value:
God exists and He created everything. Paul makes it clear that mankind cannot ignore God’s handiwork as evidenced through creation in Romans 1:20 “For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” Even Darwin admitted: “The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe with our conscious selves arose through chance seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God.”
God is personally knowable. We are concerned not only that God exists, but that there is relationship between Him and man. God has revealed Himself to mankind in a general way through creation and in a special way evidenced by His divine words and acts contained in the Bible and life of Christ. To say that God is knowable is to say that He relates or has personality. God is personal in that He knows Himself; He thinks or acts. God’s self-awareness, His emotions, and His self-determining will make up the core of His personality. “I am the first and the last, and there is no God besides me” (Isaiah 44:6). The God of the Bible also has sensibilities. At times He is portrayed as sorrowful, angry, compassionate, jealous, and able to show satisfaction. This shows that God is willing to reveal Himself in an anthropomorphic, personal way to us.
God is perfectly holy and demands holiness. (Leviticus 11:44-45; 1 Peter 1:15-16)
God will judge unholiness. The holiness of God necessitates the judgment of God. God must be a judge because His holy nature is antithetical to sin. To preserve His creation God must destroy whatever will destroy it (see: Flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, Nadab & Abihu, Canaan, Israel, & Judah). God judges because He is One Who is wise, discerning, and able to know what should be judged. Biblical Christianity believes that God is all-wise, all-knowing, and stands alone as the One qualified to discern truth from deceit.
All of mankind is in rebellion against God. (Romans 3:10-18, 23; Romans 5:12)
The judgment for sin is eternal death. (Luke 16:23-31; Matthew 7:23, 25:41)
God made a way of salvation. (Romans 6:23b; John 3:16; Romans 5:8; John 14:6)
These truths, presented as absolutes in Scripture, become increasingly offensive to those at enmity with God. In the final, Jesus claims to be the only avenue through which peace with God the Father is possible. Holding fast to these truths may come across as intolerant and unloving. Make no mistake, if we continue to deprioritize the truth, even in the name of love, we will end up like Michael Gungor, spouting off platitudes that mean nothing: “Jesus was Christ. Buddha was Christ. Muhammad was Christ. Christ is a word for the Universe seeing itself. You are Christ. We are the body of Christ” (Twitter, @michaelgungor, July 23, 2021).
This month, and every month, prioritize the truth. And if you are on the struggle bus trying to prioritize your daily tasks (which is almost assuredly what Stephen wanted us to write about), speak reminders into existence by using Siri, Alexa, or Google.
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