"Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (John 18:37-38) TRUTH Do you ever become weary of two sides of a situation screaming at the other that they are lying? That seems to be the go-to defense when one cannot win an argument based on facts. We just assassinate the other person’s character. In debate, it called an ad hominem argument, and it is considered in very poor taste. Ad hominem is Latin for “to the man.” Since one cannot win the argument based on facts, he will attack the person instead by calling him names or saying anything to cause the audience to doubt him. There was a time when this kind of behavior was considered contemptable. Today, it is a common and generally accepted. True story: There was a teacher whom many of the students did not like. They found him unfair and uncaring. When their homework was late, he refused it and they got a zero. When the time for class came, he locked the classroom door and late arrivals could not enter and received a zero for the day plus a zero on the quiz because there was a quiz on the readings every day. The students whined to their parents and of course the parents ran right to the administration, and demanded that this terrible teacher be fired. But, while his classroom management might have been a little strict, there was nothing that was a fireable offense. So, the students hatched a plan. Several of the young ladies began to tell tales of how this teacher stared at them, looked down their blouses and generally made them uncomfortable. The rumors snowballed and spread throughout the community and soon the teacher, who had taught for 30 years, retired in disgrace, and moved away from the community. It came out years later that this was all a lie because he was a difficult teacher and the kids didn’t like him. Parents, the administration and many in the community were more than happy to believe that he had done something wrong rather than face the truth that their children were spoiled, rotten, little liars. Facts matter. Opinions really don’t. For all kinds of reasons, you may like someone better than someone else. You might prefer to spend your free time reading or maybe you prefer to exercise. You might prefer chocolate over strawberry. None of it matters because its just an opinion. Facts matter and how one FEELS about the facts does NOT matter. When I made a bad grade on an exam, I did not feel good about that grade. I might have felt angry if I thought the questions were unfair. I might have felt ashamed that I didn’t study more. But how I felt did not change the FACT that I had made a bad grade. I had to face the consequences of that bad grade and develop a plan for rectifying it or at least avoiding doing it again. I encourage you to pay attention only to facts. Don’t let others lead you down a spurious path of emotions and feelings. Focus on the facts. If Pilate had been focused on the facts, he would never have asked that silly question, “what is truth?” Truth is the fact, not feelings and emotions attached to the fact. Jesus had healed the lame, given sight to the blind and even raised the dead. Those are facts. The Pharisees feared him. They were afraid that he was going to undo their system of sacrifice and thereby put them out of business. So, they stirred up the crowds with fear and propaganda. The crowds yelled “Crucify Him!” They had no facts. Only fear and ad hominem attacks. Before you make decisions about who to believe and what truth to stand behind, make sure you are making those decisions based only on facts, not fear, not supposition, not feelings, only facts. That is the Godly truth. |
