The Spirit of truth… will guide you into all the truth. – John 16:13
Long before the days of Jesus, ancient philosophers issued a variety of ideas on what constituted truth. Through the centuries, theories, essays, and papers have been written on what truth is and what it is not. As late as 1990, international scholars and philosophers still could not agree on whether classical theories or newer radical interpretations divulged truth. They seem to conclude, wrongly, that truth is one’s own assertions… that your truth is yours, and his is his. Can you imagine that across all those eons, God simply smiles and says, “Foolish children: My Word is Truth.”
Truth is not an unknown abstraction – it comes from knowing the One who has claimed that He is the Truth and that the truth can be known through Him. Both the Old and New Testaments affirm the words written in the Bible are God’s breathed-out and inspired words and that they are true (Psalm 18:30). Since God is eternal and His Word is eternal, truth must also be eternal and it will not change. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever“ (Isaiah 40:8).
To know truth, you must first know Jesus. When you spend time in Scripture He promises that the Holy Spirit will always guide you in the ways that are true and you will not fall victim to error or be left to discern for yourself. Pray that more of your fellow citizens would respond to God’s written Word and the Word made flesh in Jesus Christ.
Today’s Verse: John 16:13
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: John 17:6-17
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
