A few days ago, I started listening to a book called "Living With Questions" by Dale Fincher. I listen to audiobooks regularly, and this one caught my eye while looking through one of my favorite auditobook sites. If you like to read, it's well worth your time and reinforces some of the things we're discussing in Spoudazo this year.
The second chapter of Dale's book is entitled "What is Truth?". Think about it for a minute. How would you define truth? Is it merely an opinion? Or is it what you believe? And in the end, does it really even matter?
Let's consider the two definitions that Dale proposes in his book:
TRUTH is when an idea reflects the way the world really is
or
TRUTH is a proposition that corresponds to reality
Think about these two definitions for a moment, and realize this: Just believing something doesn't make it true. For example, I (Tim) can believe that at 5 foot 5 inches, I have a lucrative career in the NBA ahead of me......but that doesn't reflect the way the world really is (especially if you've ever seen me play basketball). My belief doesn't correspond to reality.
A rather interesting example of this is the practice of bloodletting Yes... I said bloodletting...a little bit gruesome, but you'll see my point shortly.
According to Wikipeida, bloodletting was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluids were believed to be "humors" whose proper balance maintained health. It was the most common medical practice performed by doctors from antiquity up to the late 19th century, a time span of almost 2,000 years.
Although the Saturday Night Live sketch "Theodoric of York: Medieval Barber" with Steve Martin painted a quite humorous picture of the practice, it actually probably led to the deaths of unknown numbers of people over the last 2,000 years. It may have even hastened the death of both George Washington and Mozart. Yes - really!
So what does this have to do with Truth? Everything. For centuries, people believed something (bloodlettng) that did not reflect what was really true about medicine and the human body.....and at tremendous cost to both individuals and society.
That's why the TRUTH is so important. While we may pride ourselves that we don't believe in something as "barbaric" as bloodletting, we still believe lies that affect us almost as drastically, both individually and as a society. Don't believe me? Let me offer a few examples:
- The lives ruined by drugs after believing the 1960's mantra of "Drop out, Tune In and Turn On"
- The number of young women affected by anorexia and bulemia, who have ideas about their bodies and self-worth that don't correspond to reality
- The current obesity epidemic in America, based on the "belief" that we can eat anything we want, ignore exercise and still maintain a healthy body
- The AIDS epidemic in Africa - of which a significant contribution is "beliefs" about human sexuality, promiscuity and tribal superstitions that don't match up with how the world really is
That's why the TRUTH is so important. TRUTH has the power to free you. TRUTH has the power to uncomplicate your life, to unshackle you and allow you become all that God created you to be.
That's what we want to focus on in Spoudazo this year. Seeing the TRUTH instead of the many lies that surround us. Embracing that TRUTH, and putting it into practice in our own lives.
As Jesus said in John 8:32 - "Then you will know the TRUTH and the TRUTH will set you free"
(By the way - feel free to jump to some on the links on this page when you're done. The video link is pretty funny and there some good infomation on Dale Fincher's site as well.)
