Here are a few quotes with regard to TRUTH:
My People (Laos in Greek used for True Israel) are destroyed for lack of knowledge:
Because thou hast rejected knowledge,
I will also reject thee,
That thou shalt be no priest to me:
Seeing thou hast forgotten the Law of thy God,
I will also forget thy children.
Father YAHWEH – Hosea 4:6
Am I then become your enemy,
Because I tell you truth?
The Apostle Paul – Galatians 4:16
All Truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Truth wears no mask,
Seeks neither place nor applause,
Bows to no human shrine,
Yields to neither fear nor favor,
All she asks for is a hearing!
Charles A. Jennings
In John 18:38, Pilate asked YAHSHUAH (Jesus the Christ), “What is Truth?” According to The Eerdmans’ Bible Dictionary[1], “Pilate’s question was probably conceived in abstract terms, thus having an ironic ring because the governor was in the position of judging the One who is truth itself and who calls each person to an existential decision regarding the truth.”
According to Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary Of The English Language[2], the word truth means:
- Conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance with that which is or has been or shall be.
- True state of facts or things. The duty of a court of justice is to discover the truth. Witnesses are sworn to declare the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
- Conformity of words to thoughts, which is called moral truth.
- Veracity; purity from falsehood; practice of speaking truth; habitual disposition to speak truth; as when we say, a man is a man of truth.
- Correct opinion.
- Fidelity; constancy.
- Honesty; virtue.
- Exactness; conformity to rule.
- Real fact or just principle; real state of things.
- Sincerity.
- The Truth of God, is his veracity and faithfulness. (Psalm 71).
- Jesus Christ is called the Truth. (John 14).
- It is sometimes used by way of concession.
According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology[3], the word truth means: “Quality of being true, faith, loyalty, something that is true.”
According to The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, the word truth (Strong’s #G225 aletheia is used 109 times in the New Testament) means: “truth, true, truly, verity.”
According to Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words[4], the word truth means:
Perhaps the most common use of the noun aletheia and the two corresponding adjectives is to refer to something that is accurate…Truth is not only something that we believe; it is also something that we are called upon to speak and even to practice. This connection between truth and action is found throughout the New Testament.
According to Ben Williams[5],
The term “right” must mean something, and term “wrong” must mean something. “Truth” must be objective if it is going to “set us free” (John 8:32). Word meanings must be stand and consistent.
Our words must be based in reason and honesty, not left to individual whimsy, emotional preference, or serendipity inspired by an individual’s mood at any given time. Without standard of definitions, our words become completely meaningless and no one knows what the other person is talking about or thinking.
In modern America, this is a huge problem. Today, the people in general are losing the ability to communicate or to know what is meant by their words. For example, the concepts of “right” and “wrong,” “good” and “bad,” “male” and “female,” are no longer of any use in America. Today’s culture is losing its ability to know anything definitively.
While we are losing our words, we are losing our intelligence and our ability to reason anything at all. This phenomenon is a reflection of a past time, thousands of years ago, when men sought to build a power center referred to as The Tower of Babel. However, in today’s instance, the operation of the principle is somewhat reversed. Today, it is the men who are confounding words, whereas back in Babylon, the words were confounded by God for the destruction of men’s power. In both instances, we can see the power of word meanings, and the confusion that can come from changing or confusing the words.
Today, word meanings are being confounded by philosophers and professors who teach Americans that words have no standard meanings. According to this new philosophical movement, called Postmodernism, words can mean whatever you wish them to mean – as it was with Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s strange book, Alice in Wonderland, 1865. In this book, Humpty Dumpty says that when he uses a word, it means “just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” He used words in a way that they had no standard or consistent meanings.
So, it is today. When words can mean anything you wish them to mean, it causes total cultural breakdown of intelligence and connection – a disconnect with reality. Any generation that suffers such a devastating blow falls back into a stone-age status. Learning is no longer possible. Truth is no longer accessible to that generation.
We read of this precise problem in the book of Revelation, which tells us that something called, “Babylon The Great” (a system of confusion reflecting the earlier Tower of Babel) will dominate the world – our world.
In Genesis 11:1-9, we read of the Tower of Babel. Some typical politicians and monied elite formed an international communication center by which they controlled the nations. It was called a tower, which makes me think in terms of modern broadcast towers or telecommunication towers.
The Tower of Babel represented man’s ambition to control the masses by controlling communication. Through propaganda and verbal programming, they were exercising great control over the minds of people.
God stopped them by confounding their words. Thus, we see that power over words (definitions) equates to power over the minds of people. Since their Intention was to use their power over words to enslave and oppress the masses, God stopped their power over people by causing a confusion of their words and word meanings. Thus, the language was confused and the politicians and mediacrats of that day were stymied. They lost power.
This story illustrates that without a consistent and accurate standard for word meanings, men are unable to communicate. Today, our culture is awash in words which have been confounded. Their meanings are being twisted, and this is crippling American culture. America’s intelligence and the people’s ability to solve problems is now in deep decline. Americans no longer possess the ability to discriminate or to know right from wrong.
For instance, let us look at the word “discrimination.” This is a good word. A positive word. However, in modern American culture, this word is being changed into a bad word.
Historically, when someone was told he had a “discriminating” mind, it was meant as a compliment. It meant he had a god mind that could differentiate between truth and error. But, in today’s world, this term has been turned on its head. Discrimination now, in most quarters, is an offensive insult that implies hatred and could bring an arrest or a lawsuit.
So, what has happened? And what is the actual meaning of this abused and misused word?
DISCRIMINATION: The ability or power to see or make fine distinctions; discernment. The making of distinctions; the act of observing or marking a difference; recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another, as in “discrimination between right and wrong.”
Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? So, what has happened to change a once glowing compliment into a modern abusive epithet?
Words are being changed. In the modern mindset that is infecting American society, words no longer have meanings. This mindset that is infecting American’s minds is the philosophical movement of Postmodernism, and it has changed the very nature of life and intelligent inquiry in this country. In essence. Postmodernism has destroyed honest intelligence and knowledge in America. In the process, it has also altered the very use of the English language. People are no longer using words to learn and gain wisdom, but rather for self-aggrandizement.
Mr. Williams’ further states[6]:
God doesn’t reveal His truths to people looking for “easy.” You need to ask yourself just how important it is to you. Where does truth rank in your list of priorities? Truth is like “the pearl of great price” (Matthew 13:46) which a man finds and then sells all that he has to buy it. Today, there isn’t one in a thousand with that kind of thirst for truth, or who can navigate the Greek New Testament. Thus, they are left to place their trust in church-hired translators. How will they answer to their Lord for their lack of effort to find truth? Truth is available to anyone who hungers and thirsts for it and will strive to find it. But ONLY the sincere find it. Truth is not inherited. It is not like the lottery…it is not acquired by luck. Truth is found and kept ONLY by the man who values it over all other possessions. That is the nature of truth…only the sincere find it!
Are you ready for the TRUTH?
[1]. Allen C. Meyers, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1987), 1022.
[2]. Noah Webster, 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language (Chesapeake, VA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1967).
[3]. C.T. Onions, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1966), 947.
[4]. William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary Old & New Testament Words (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 747–48.
[5]. Ben Williams, “Our Words Must Mean Something,” Ben Williams Library, March-April 2019, accessed December 30, 2022, https://benwilliamslibrary.com/pdfs/st19-3&4.pdf.
[6]. Ben Williams, “What is “The Kingdom of God”?,” Ben Williams Library, March-April 2010, accessed December 31, 2022, https://benwilliamslibrary.com/pdfs/st10-03&04.pdf.