"What is truth?" Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, "He is not guilty of any crime."
Our week has started with consideration of the simple , yet powerful question that Pilate asked of Jesus. What indeed is truth? Interestingly Pilate's response provokes an intense debate about how we can know something to be true or not and yet if we turn to our bibles we find that Jesus gives a very simple definition about what is true in John 17 v 17.
'Your word is truth' he proclaims as he prays for His disciples.
So it would seem that a starting point for truth can be found in God's word, clearly not every fact that is true is there, but certainly guiding principles are that help us to establish what it is that Paul urges us to rejoice in.
One of our questions this week is - what difference does rejoicing in the truth make?
Interestingly Jesus prays that the truth will sanctify, a powerful spiritual word, but one that seems to be simply about putting right what is wrong.
It would seem that this might also be a good test of the difference that truth makes and the reason why we need to rejoice in it. Does it change things, does it bring us closer to God, does it heal relationships and build God's Kingdom?If it does, it would seem that these are all very good reasons to rejoice!
It is this impact that we will be considering as we move forward with the next part of our journey through 1 Corinthians for Paul tells us to persevere in love and the motivation behind this can be found in the positive changes that it brings.
