It’s All Relative, Right?

There are no absolutely truths in this world. Truth is what you make it. Well, just because it’s true for you doesn’t mean it’s true for me. Yea, that was true back then, but this is 2007! Sound familiar?

This is what the world teaches. I’m amazed at the way God calls things to our attention in chunks. It started yesterday with the report that a scientist was retracting his paper written in 1955 because Creationists were citing it as proof of Divine Intervention in the creation of the universe. It continued during my seminary class this morning as we read an article by Bishop John Spong of the ELCA. Here is an excerpt from his article titled “The Word of God?”:

“This is the word of the Lord.” That is the liturgical phrase used in Christian churches to mark the end of a reading from the Bible. It is a strange, even a misleading, phrase. Yes Sunday after Sunday it is repeated, reinforcing in the psyches of worshipers a rather outdated attitude toward Holy Scripture. In many of its details, the Bible is simply wrong!

It culminates this weekend as we start a new series (originally scheduled, by the way, back in June) with our Crossroads Youth titled “All Out War,” looking at Spiritual Warfare and the Armor of God. The first week? The Belt of Truth. We see from the Scriptures that the truth is a person (Jesus in John 14:6), it is unchanging (Hebrews 13:8) and it is freeing (John 8:32).

In a world where everything does seem relative and things are always changing, I’m thankful that God has given us His constant Word. We can trust that what He tells us is true in the past, today and into the future. I’m thankful that our church stands on God’s Word as the only authoritative source of truth in the world. I’m thankful that I don’t have to determine what is true and what isn’t, but that I can look in God’s Word for the answer.