The Truth… the Whole Truth
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There is a tale told of an English preacher who once asked an actor: “I wish you would explain something to me.” “Well, what is it? I don’t know that I can explain anything to a preacher,” replied the actor.
“What is the reason for the difference between you and me? You are appearing before crowds night after night with fiction, and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the essential and unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any crowd at all.”
The actor’s answer was this: “This is quite simple. I can tell you the difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction.”
Have you ever watched a movie in which the actors played their parts so well that you forgot that they were acting? Movies like Forrest Gump and Life is Beautiful not only have the power to challenge and inspire us they also, because of the brilliant acting, allow us to forget that we’re watching a story made up in someone’s head; everyone plays their parts so well it’s as if we’re watching a true story.
On the other hand have you ever seen or heard a preacher who drones on and on as if the very Word of God bores them to tears, or met a Christian that, when asked about their faith, is less than eager to speak about what they claim to believe in or hold as truth in their lives?
It’s amazing, and a little scary, to think that many people get all excited about the supposed truth in magazines (many of them nothing more than “rag-azines”) and reality TV shows, believing it all to be true, and yet, when it comes to the truth found in Jesus Christ they are less than enthusiastic. Why is this?
Well I may not have an answer, because everyone has their own reasons for the amount of zeal, or lack thereof, in their lives, but the Bible picks up on this in Romans 1:25, “The true word of God was changed into that which is false, and (people) gave worship and honour to the thing which is made.” (Bible in Basic English) The truth presented as fiction and fiction the truth; in essence the truth is overlooked, instead the “made up” stuff, whether that be fictitious stories or created beings, are worshiped as the truth?
This issue is a bit of a head spinner to be sure. But give it some thought. Are you presenting the truth of God’s Word and Jesus Christ as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God? And do you ever wonder why some believers talk about and present God as if he were just a story? Maybe it’s because for the most part he’s still a big story to them. Maybe they haven’t taken the time to get to know him more and by not doing so they have failed to experience for themselves the truth found only in God.
The long and short of it is this: If we as believers are to get people to believe the truth found only in Jesus then we have to do so by first believing this truth for ourselves and then present this truth to others as though it means everything to us.
Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
June, 2009
Picture by Julia Freeman-Woolpert
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