Written Nudges | The Truth
“Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” John 17:17
These words were part of a prayer Jesus prayed only hours before He was arrested and later crucified. John 17 is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus and we are privileged to peek inside this intimate communication between the Father and the Son. In spite of the fact that He knew He was about to be tortured to death for the sins of the world, His prayer was for His followers. He asked that they would stand strong and that God would be glorified through it all. But Jesus also made a startling affirmation that forever silences those who try to discount parts of the Bible. Jesus asked the Father to make believers holy by using His word. The only written word available at that time was what we now call the Old Testament. Jesus called it truth.
It has become fashionable, even among some professing Christians, to malign the Old Testament. All that violence, weird customs: they don’t make a lot of sense to our 21st century thinking. So, some take a hatchet to the Old Testament and declare that it is either misinterpreted, mistranslated, or no longer relevant. It’s full of cute little Bible stories (as long as they remain cartoonish), but doesn’t apply to us. Jesus disagreed and He documented that stance in John 17: “Thy word is truth.” The Old Testament is truth. Adam and Eve are truth. Creation, Noah, Jonah and the whale are truth. The Ten Commandments are truth and God’s moral law is still His moral law. We don’t get to vote on it because Jesus already validated it. His word is true.
Final Thought: For further study on the reliability of the Bible, visit https://www.gotquestions.org/is-the-Bible-true.html
Prayer: Lord, I have struggled to accept some of the things in the Bible. I wrestle with questions and other opinions. But if Jesus validated the Old Testament, who am I to argue? I may not understand it, but I believe in your word. In His name, Amen.