What is Truth? (A Seriously Write Blog Post)

 What is Truth?

Over the last year or so, as we watch our nation literally burn, both physically and figuratively, I’ve been wrestling with an ideal. The ideal of “truth.”

My personal dialogue comes from the conversation between Jesus and Pontius Pilate in John 18. By this time in the narrative, Jesus has been:

• arrested
• taken before Annas
• sent to Caiaphas
• presented to the Sanhedrin
• accused of blasphemy
• sentenced to death
• sent to Pontius Pilate for execution
• found not guilty by Pilate
• sent to Herod Antipas for adjudication
• sent back to Pilate for execution

Pilate still disagrees with the sentence, and decides to question Jesus privately in his palace, thus creating a very intricate conversation in John 18.

Pilate asks Jesus if He is the “King of the Jews.” Jesus responds, “Is that your own idea, or did others talk to you about me (v. 34)?” In other words, Jesus was saying, “What do you think, Pilate? And don’t listen to the crowds. Decide for yourself.”

Pilate’s response was one of confusion in verse 35. “Am I a Jew? It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me.” Translation: “I’m not Jewish, so I don’t really care whether you are what they say you are or not. Besides, it was your fellow Jews who arrested you. Not me. Not Rome. Not even Herod Antipas. So, if you are not the king of these people, then I understand why they might be upset. However, if you are the king of the Jews, then none of this makes sense. For why would they want their king dead? By my hand, no less?”

So, in an attempt to gain understanding, Pilate asks a very interesting question. “What is it you have done?” Why does Pilate ask this? By this time in the narrative, the chief priests and ranking officials have stated twice what the indictment is. Apparently, Pilate doesn’t understand the nuances and meanings of Jewish Law. He knows the procedures, as evidenced in verse 39 when he references a Jewish custom. But he doesn’t seem to understand the concept of blasphemy, a theological term.

Jesus answers in verse 36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Did you catch all that? Jesus was saying, “If I was the kind of king you all are thinking of, my servants would wage a war, because that’s how earthly kingdoms operate. But my kingdom is different. It’s not like all the others you have known throughout the centuries. Hence, my kingship is also different.”

Pilate, still not understanding, asks, “You are a king then?” Well, yes and no, Pilate. Yes, Jesus is a king. He’s “The King, the One and Only” (John 1:1; 3:16; 14:6). Yet, the answer is also no. He’s not like Herod. Nor Rome’s Emperor. Nor the king of Persia. Or any other earthly king.

So, Jesus qualifies things for Pilate: “You are right in saying I’m a king. In fact, for this reason, I was born, and for this reason, I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Pilate’s answer is more than telling in verse 38: “What is truth?”

You see, because of sin, the world has a hard time with the truth. We all do, if we’re completely honest. It was so bad in the eyes of Pilate, he was questioning if such an ideal even existed. I don’t believe he was making some metaphysical statement here, advocating an ancient form of situational ethics. He was confused. A group of people who claimed to be God’s People were trying to kill a man named Jesus. Pilate was wrestling with their decision. He felt an innocent man was being accused of wrongdoing. At this moment in time, in his mind, to crucify Jesus was to make wrong right and right wrong. He really needed more time to investigate these claims, but the crowds were not affording him that opportunity.

However, instead of taking a stand against wrong, investigating for himself the claims of both the crowds and Jesus, and arriving at a proper decision, Pilate figuratively throws up his hands in disgust with his response in verse 38. Unwittingly, Pilate answers Jesus inquiry in verse 34 by sheepishly washing his hands of what he is now deeming a crime against an innocent man. And to add more grief to Pilate’s plate, he must now release a known murderer by the name of Barabbas.

An innocent man is to be sentenced to death. A guilty man is to be set free. Right is wrong. Wrong is right. In this kind of world, truth only exists when it benefits the deceitful and their agendas.

I believe Pilate understood this, but he took the easy road out instead of seeking a truly truthful decision. Why? Because he believes truth doesn’t exist. Otherwise, I don’t believe he would have made the decisions he did.

Ironically, The Truth was standing right in front of him, but all Pilate saw was the physical world around him, with all its troubles. And all the troubles to come, if he didn’t give in to the crowds demands.

As a writer, poignant dialogue, transfixed within a scene which captures the human condition juxtaposed against the truth is (or should be) our goal. This path may, and probably will, take us down roads we may not wish to go because they are too troubling to write. Why? One reason is because it forces us to slide our most secretive parts under the microscope of God’s Word. Then, the Word, doing its work, magnifies what we’ve rationalized in our minds to be miniscule and unpretentious into something so detailed and contradictory to our gracious facade that we want to simply write it a different way, or just wash our hands of it altogether.

Another reason is that we’re afraid the crowds will “shout us down” and threaten our livelihood. Easier to write entertaining fluff than sin-challenging stuff in a world without truth.

But I’m reminded of the simple fact that the Bible is one of a few, if not the only, historical record of kings and rulers wherein battles depict both wins and losses. The stories tell us of the good characteristics of the kings and rulers and the not-so-pleasant sides of their personalities. The accounts are even-handed. Why? Because Truth exposes the warts of sin. And truth also exposes the mercy of God. Both of which are exposed in John 18, as they are in all of scripture.

How do you show truth in your writing? How deep does it go? Does the dialogue challenge and inspire right living? Do the questions engage our spiritual side as well as our intellectual side? Do you do it justice when creating a scene in your work of fiction? Do you give the reader “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God” when you write those non-fiction books?

How do you answer Pilate’s question with your writing?

To see this article on the Seriously Write website, click on the following link: "What is Truth?"

*Photo used courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Am I the Only One Who Struggles? (An ACFW Blog Post)

Watch this video, then we’ll talk.

Do you feel a little small after watching that video? Insignificant, perhaps? Hopefully awestruck, though, right?

Now, read this article, then come back for the finale.

I watched this video and read this article within a couple of weeks of one another. Although the article was not quite so factual, as Dan Balow notes at the end, it still caused me to do some thinking.

When we got into this business, regardless of our place in it (i.e., unpublished author, icon status, or anywhere in between), we would be exceptions rather than the rule if we didn’t think, even for a few seconds, how nice it would be to be a bestselling author. Most authors I know had dreams (have dreams?) of writing full-time, seeing their books on the store shelves of every brick and mortar store across the fruited plain, that sort of thing. I think you know what I’m talking about, or am I the only one who struggles with this issue?

When you take the statistics of Balow’s piece, factor in numbers like present world population, the population of people to have existed between the years of publication of each book, something amazing–and humbling–happens.

Take Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo, for example. If the estimates of ten million copies sold are accurate since its publication date of 2010, there have been well over eight billion people in existence since that time. If you consider 60% of those to be of reading age, then 4,800,000,000 possible readers existed between 2010 and now (I know they all don’t read books in English, but just go with the flow for a moment because we do have international rights, and they could have picked up the book in their primary language ?).

When you divide the number of copies sold by the number of possible readers, you end up with 0.0020833333 or 0.20833333%. Not even one percent. If you consider the Book of Common Prayer or The Imitation of Christ with their top notch numbers of 300 million-plus and do the math, the percentage would be even lower because billions and billions of people have lived and died since 1418 and the mid-16th century, respectively.

Now, bring in the facet of us living on a planet so very small in this massive universe we call the cosmos, with billions of galaxies swirling in the inky blackness of space, and those sales numbers become even more miniscule by comparison.

What’s the point? We serve a mighty God. We may accomplish great things with our writing, but it’s all dross and rubbish compared to His infinite greatness.

To think that anyone would want to buy a book I wrote when there is so much good reading out there to be had is humbling. To think our God would even wish to use my feeble attempts at crafting a sentence to possibly reach a soul for His kingdom is awe-inspiring. To think He rules this vast cosmos yet has time to be concerned about my whether or not my manuscript gets published is wondrous.

This fills me with awe because I know how great God is in comparison to me.

When I hear students at my school parrot the chants of the masses, “The struggle is real,” I think to myself now, “Yes, it is. Because of sin. That is why we all struggle. Against God. Against each other. Even with ourselves.” But it wasn’t meant to be that way.

This fills me with humility. And sadness. Because as I contemplate the Lord’s glory, I know how much of me still needs to be transformed into the likeness of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Hence, the struggle. A heart of joy for salvation’s gift hindered by a heart of pride because of a generous gift from God we call writing.

“Heavenly Father, the pen is yours. The paper is yours. The computer is yours. The words are yours. The books are yours. I am yours. Now, help me avoid the struggle and keep it that way. Everyday. “I am not the Creator, but a scribe with a pen. I’m recreating visions through a cracked and broken lens. And only One has ever seen the hope for which we long, and I am just a beggar who gives alms. Amen.”

To see this blog on the ACFW website, click on the following link: "Am I the Only One Who Struggles?"