Finding the Truth

Agreement doesn’t go very deep in the Body of Christ these days. Just search Google for critics of your favorite Bible teacher or ministry leader and watch detractors come out of the woodwork.

Or, look through the Christian conference resource table and find certain “truths” being promoted in books on one end of the table and just the opposite in ones on the other end; only a few feet away.

This sows confusion at the least and deep division at its worst. So what are we to do? Where do we find truth? Who has the definitive answers?

The most often heard direction from Christians is “look in the Bible.” But that won’t get us much closer to unity of thought since many of the biggest, long-standing disagreements are about interpretation of Scripture.

“Just listen to Jesus,” is another common answer. This usually means that we should put a higher truth value on the words in the New Testament attributed directly to Jesus. But, again, the meaning of Jesus’ words as recorded by the Gospel writers have been debated, sometimes hotly, since He spoke them over 2,000 years ago.

However, regardless of the pitfalls of biblical translation, “listen to Jesus” is exactly the right answer. The first Christians knew this as Jesus words came directly from His mouth and into their ears bursting with great authority and truth, 

Jesus spoke directly to the first Christians and then (after His death, resurrection and return to sit at the right hand of the Father) made provision for all of us to also hear directly from Him. We find this in Jesus’ words recorded in John 14:13-15: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

The “Spirit of truth,” of course, is the Holy Spirit who descended on Jesus’ disciples as they were gathered in one place some time after His Resurrection. “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit . . . “ Acts 2:2-4

So, it happened just as Jesus said. The Spirit of Truth, The Paraclete (Helper), came. And it is significant that the “tongues of fire,” depicted in the story of Pentecost, rested on each and every person present.

There is great – although not total – agreement in the Body of Christ that the fire rested on each person individually because the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is meant for each of us. We each have the ability to be guided by Jesus through His Spirit, who resides in each of us.

Believing this is Jesus’ plan for His Spirit to “guide you into all truth” (John 16:13), we must go inward to “hear” the Truth in our hearts where it will resonate.

Just as Jesus got out of the fray and bent down to write in the sand in the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), we need to get away from the world’s contradictions and disagreements to seek the voice of the Spirit of Truth inside.