Monday, June 12, 2017
552 - The Stuff of Truth
Spirituality
Column No. 552
June
13, 2017
Common
Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
The Stuff of Truth
By
Bob Walters
“Whoever believes in Him is not
condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already …” – Jesus to Nicodemus,
John 3:18
There is a lot of disturbing stuff
in the Bible. Unyielding stuff. Condemning stuff. Misunderstood stuff. Harsh stuff. Hopeful stuff. Salvation stuff. True stuff.
It’s that last one – true stuff – which
society always seems to have the most trouble with. Truth is so final; righteousness rarely
sounds tolerant or understanding. Opinions
can be dismissed but truth can’t. Truth should be a dependable organizing
principle. Instead, throughout history
man has devised horrific “truth” claims that bely real-world dictatorial
tyranny. Villains flaunt the
inescapability of political power hiding the disingenuousness of stated purpose
within the wickedness of an enslaving agenda.
So there sits the Bible on my
table. I do not doubt a word in it. It describes God, man, sin, salvation,
freedom, condemnation and eternal life.
And love. And truth. God’s
truth, not “my” truth. Through Jesus
I am allowed – and overjoyed – to claim and live God’s truth, peace, mercy and
permanence; to love God and others.
People far from Jesus – at least, they
seem that way – desperately pursue truth of their own making but reject
especially Christian truth because it has no wiggle room, i.e., “I am the way and the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) That’s Jesus describing truth to “doubting”
Thomas the disciple. G.K. Chesterton
made a truth point years ago: the nettlesome thing about Christianity is that
if it is true, every other religion has to be false. The great opening line from the current movie Wonder Woman poses: “What one does when
faced with the truth, is more difficult than you would think.” Pontius Pilate asked Jesus: “What is truth?” (John 18:38)
So, let’s discuss truth. This past week socialist scold and political shooting
star Bernie Sanders, a Jew, berated political nominee Russ Vought, a Christian,
for a truth Vought wrote about Islam.
Vought described Islam as “a deficient religion” based on its denial of Jesus
as the son of God. John 3:18’s
inescapable conclusion (above) is that if you believe as a Christian that Jesus
is the only path to salvation (John 14:6, above), then if you don’t have Jesus,
you deficiently don’t have a path to
salvation. Christians want everyone to
be saved because Jesus, for God’s glory, came for everyone (John 3:16), not
just Christians. Note: There were no
“Christians” when Jesus arrived.
I’m guessing Sanders wouldn’t berate a
Muslim who wrote an Islamic doctrinal truth concerning Christianity – e.g., Christians are infidels (as is every
non-Muslim) – but that misses this point: Sanders rebuked both Christian truth
and Christian political fitness last week at a U.S. Senate hearing (see the
humor there? “truth … in the Senate”).
While Sen. Sanders exhibits no doctrinal
comprehension of his criticism, people foolishly buy into his PC nonsense rather
than trust the truth of Jesus Christ.
Folks have to be wise when picking a
savior. This stuff matters.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com)
learned that the trick to trusting Jesus is in understanding the Bible as a
description of God’s righteousness.
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