Woman holding a glowing sphere labeled TRUTH amid digital networks and words including Integrity, Logic, Fact, and Falsehood

Truth and Deception

“People, I call out to you; my cry is to the children of Adam. Learn to be shrewd, you who are inexperienced; develop common sense, you who are foolish. Listen, for I speak of noble things, and what my lips say is right. For my mouth tells the truth, and wickedness is detestable to my lips. All the words from my mouth are righteous; none of them are deceptive or perverse. All of them are clear to the perceptive, and right to those who discover knowledge. Accept my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than pure gold. For wisdom is better than jewels, and nothing desirable can equal it.” (Proverbs‬ ‭8‬:‭4‬-‭11‬ ‭CSB – Read the chapter) ‬‬

We live today in a world in which truth—real truth—is becoming ever more important. Because of the rise of AI and the creation of phantom facts and increasingly sophisticated fake photos videos it is difficult to know if what we are seeing with our eyes on a screen is real. This unmooring of our lives and our culture from truth leads to a degradation of trust which in turn makes everything we do more difficult. We need the foundation of truth more than ever before so that our entire culture doesn’t give way to cynicism, doubt, and a host of other civilization-destroying traits. In this kind of a world, godly wisdom is vital. Let’s talk about wisdom’s self-description and why we can trust it even when we can’t trust anything else.

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Morning Musing: Romans 3:9-10

“What then? Are we any better off? Not at all! For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, as it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of my boys is working on a project for school right now in which he has to write a research paper and create a presentation about a mythical character. Specifically, he has to write about one of the Greek gods. This was very exciting for me to learn because I greatly enjoyed reading all the various stories about Greek gods and heroes. As far as figures to look up to for how you should be doing life, they were all awful, but in terms of sheer entertainment value, they were great. I think that is part of what has made this particular set of myths so enduring. This is the last Friday before we officially enter into the season of Advent. With that in mind, and to get us ready for where we are going to go starting this Monday, I want to take just a minute today to talk about one of the most enduring myths in our culture today. Let’s talk today about the myth of the good person.

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Does It Matter Which “Truth” I Believe?

This week finds us kicking off a brand-new teaching series called Confident in the Face of Tough Questions. For the next few weeks, we are going to be tackling some of the toughest questions skeptics and critics alike ask of the Christian worldview. These are the kinds of questions that trip us up and leave us wondering how to respond. The goal of this series will be to better equip you to answer them with confident grace and bold humility. In this first part of the series, we are starting right where we need to with the nature of truth. Does it matter which “truth” I believe? Let’s talk about it.

Does It Mattew Which “Truth” I Believe?

I am not a big fan of Minecraft. I don’t have anything against the game itself or those who play it. I have three fairly active players living under the same roof as me, and I regularly admire the things they have built in the game. Their creativity in there is simply amazing to me. But while I do enjoy video games every bit as much as the next boy born in the early days of the video game era, Minecraft doesn’t represent my gaming wheelhouse. My personal creativity lends itself to different applications. 

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Morning Musing: Colossians 3:10b

“You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

As far as genre goes, dystopian future novels tend to be a pretty unrealistic bunch. They imagine things being either much worse than they likely will be, much more technologically advanced than they’ll be, or both. They reflect either too great an optimism about the future, too great a pessimism, or, again, both. These features, unrealistic as they may be, are also what make them fun to read. They variously give us hope in what tomorrow might be and comfort that we aren’t as bad as we could be. Of all the entries into the genre, though, there are two that have proven to be the most prophetic of the bunch in their outlook. These are A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and 1984, by George Orwell. Although their respective visions of the future are not the same – in some ways they are opposites – something very similar lies in both of their hearts: The future will be marked by lies. Well, that may be where we are in the future relative to those books, but in another sense, it’s where we’ve always been. This morning, I want to talk about truth, lies, and the Gospel.

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Morning Musing: Proverbs 14:25

“A truthful witness rescues lives, but one who utters lies is deceitful.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What value is there in truth? Do lies really hurt? We live today in a culture in which truth is a bit of a fluid concept. We speak of having “my truth” as if that can be different from your truth or even the truth. Indeed, if there is such a thing as your truth and my truth, can there even be something that is the truth? Perhaps more importantly, does it really even matter? What’s wrong with these fluid concepts of truth? I’ve been watching a show lately that puts on display just why living in the truth matters so much. Let’s talk this morning about the HBO miniseries, Chernobyl.

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