Loving Truth
Do you tell the truth? Do you check your sources and verify your references? That is only the beginning.
Both of the biblical words for truth, the Hebrew emeth and Greek aletheia, have “faithfulness” as their root meaning. Faithfulness to the facts is essential of course, but it is only the first part. To be fully “true” in biblical terms, one must be faithful to the facts in such a way as to be faithful also to God, to one’s covenants, and to one’s neighbor. Gossip, for example, is, in this regard, false speech even if it is factually correct, because it is not being faithful to one’s neighbor.
“Truth used responsibly,” then, would be one way of beginning to capture the greater fullness of the biblical concept. But “responsibly” also takes us only part-way; it is really too weak a term. We must finally add sacrificial love to the mix if we are fully to appreciate Christ’s claim that he was the ultimate embodiment of the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
It is tragic that so many of our fellow Christians fall short even of the secular standards of truth. Many of them are unaware that the richer biblical concept even exists.
Donald T. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. He stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, between theology and literature, and between Narnia and Middle-Earth. He is the author of fourteen books, including Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C. S. Lewis (DeWard, 2023). He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
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