Chapter 15
A Sermon About Truth

One Sunday morning Rev. Rutledge preached about truth. Nothing he said had that much to do with writing, I suppose, but I found myself listening carefully, trying to understand everything and applying it to my own life.

“Truth means different things to different people,” he was saying. “To some people truth means a set of ideas. Therefore, if we were talking about five statements, we might ask which of them were true:

“The sky is blue and the sun is shining today.

“California is smaller in size than New York.

“It is raining outside.

“There is no gold in Miracle Springs Creek.

“This building is used for a church and a school.”

He paused a minute and let the words sink in, and then repeated the five statements.

“Now then,” he went on, “which of those are true and which are false? We can look outside and see the sunshine and the blue above, so we know that it is not raining. How about New York and California—which is larger? Any of you youngsters of Miss Stansberry’s school know the answer?”

Someone piped up that California was the second biggest state behind Texas.

“Right,” said the minister. “So saying California is smaller than New York is a false statement. How about the gold? Is there gold in the creek?”

Some laughter spread through the room.

“Depends on who you ask, Reverend!” called out one of the miners whose claim was known not to be doing so well.

More laughter followed.

Rev. Rutledge joined in the laughter. “However, I think we would all agree that there is some gold still around,” he said, then added, “even though it might be unevenly distributed!”

He let the chuckling gradually die away before he went on. “Then, finally, is this building used for both a church and a school?”

“Yes!” went up a chorus of young voices, enjoying being able to participate during the sermon time for a change.

“Right you are again!” said Rev. Rutledge. “Now, think back to the five statements. How many were true, and how many were false? Let me repeat them for you.”

He did so. Then he waited a minute.

“All right, now—how many statements were true?”

“Two,” answered someone.

“Are you all agreed? Two true, three false?” said Rev. Rutledge.

A nodding of heads and general murmur went around.

Again he waited until everyone had quieted down. When he finally started speaking again his tone was different and he was more serious.

“I must confess that I tried to trick you,” he said finally. “I hope you will forgive me, but I wanted to get across a point that many people misunderstand. Now—let me answer my own question. How many true statements were there? My answer is . . . none.”

He waited to let the word sink in. I don’t think anyone in the whole church understood what he meant, but we were all listening for what would come next.

“Two statements were correct—two statements of fact; three statements were incorrect—three statements of error. But my point this morning is that truth is a very different thing from correct ‘facts.’ That’s why I said in the beginning that to most people truth has to do with the factual correctness of a set of ideas. But in reality, as the word truth is used in the Bible, it means something very different.”

He stopped, opened up his Bible, then went on. “Let me read to you what the Bible calls truth. In John, Jesus says, ‘I am the truth.’ He doesn’t say that such-and-such an idea, or a certain set of statements or facts are the truth, he says that he is the truth.

“Do you remember when I said that truth means different things to different people? Let me show you two people in the Bible to whom truth meant completely different things. In the eighteenth chapter of John, after Jesus had told his disciples that he was the truth, Jesus stands trial before Pilate, and he again brings up the subject of truth. Jesus says to him, ‘Every one that is of the truth hears my voice.’ And then Pilate asks one of the most profound questions in all of the Bible. He says to Jesus, ‘What is truth?’—the very question we’re examining this morning.

“Can you get a picture of these two people in your minds—Pilate and Jesus—both talking about truth?

“But they mean very different things by the word. When Pilate asks ‘What is truth?’ he is asking for a set of ideas, facts, opinions—just like the list of statements we talked about. Pilate wants Jesus to tell him what facts and ideas comprise what he calls ‘truth.’ But Jesus gives him no answer. Jesus says nothing. Why doesn’t Jesus answer him?”

Rev. Rutledge paused a moment.

“Jesus doesn’t answer him because truth is not at all what Pilate thinks it is. There are no ideas that would make up what Pilate calls truth. Not even any religious ones.

“What is the truth, Pilate wants to know. Jesus himself is the truth, and he is standing right in front of Pilate. Pilate has the truth but doesn’t know it!

“In other words, the truth is a person, but Pilate wants mere ideas. And even true ideas, even correct facts, are not the truth. ‘The sky is blue today’ is a correct statement of fact. But it is not a truth. Only a person can be true.”

Rev. Rutledge stopped again, and took in a deep breath. I was concentrating hard to understand what he was saying.

“I hope I’ve made myself clear,” he said, “about the difference between truths and facts, and about the contrast between Jesus and Pilate. I know I’ve gone on a long time, but there’s one more very important point I must make. If I don’t say this one last thing, then my whole sermon may mean nothing to you. My whole sermon could amount to nothing more than just a nice set of ‘ideas’ that I have given you, without there being any truth in it.

“So, here is my final point: Jesus is not the only person who can be of the truth. So can you and I!”

Again he stopped to let his words sink in.

“Jesus said that everyone who is of the truth hears his voice. In other words, Jesus is the truth, but others—people like you and me, people who hear his voice and obey him—we can be of the truth. Jesus is the first truth, but we can be of the truth if we follow him and do as he did.”

As I pondered Rev. Rutledge’s words afterward, what he said next was the thing that stood out most in my mind. “Truth is people and how they live. If we want to be of the truth, like Jesus said, it’s in how we live and what we do, not in what we think about ideas and facts. Someone sitting right here this morning—one of you in this church building—may have been mistaken in all five of those statements I gave. You might have missed every one. Yet you might be more an of-the-truth person than another one sitting here who got every answer correct—if that person with all the wrong answers went out and lived the truth by what kind of person he was—lived following Jesus’ example.

“Was Pilate a true man?

“After asking ‘What is truth?’ what did he do? Knowing Jesus was innocent, knowing the charges against him were lies, and even admitting that he could find nothing wrong in him—knowing all this, Pilate still gave Jesus over to the Jews to be crucified. Pilate may have wondered what truth was, but he was not a ‘true’ man. He did not stand up for what he knew to be right. He was weak. He was not of the truth.”

The minister paused again, took a breath as he closed his Bible, and went on.

“Truth is not ideas, not even religious ideas, not even Christian ideas, not even correct ideas. Truth is life, not thoughts. Truth is a person. That person is Jesus. And he wants us to be of the same truth as he is—by how we live.

“As Christians we are to be true people. Jesus was of the truth. Pilate was not. Jesus is the truth. Pilate wanted ideas, but was not a strong enough person to live truthfully.

“Each of us has to make the choice which of these two men we are going to be like. How are we going to live? By the truth or not? Who is going to be our example? Are we going to live truth, or only think and talk about it?”