John's Epistles & Os Guinness

For the teen class that I have the regular privilege and responsibility of teaching, we have been looking at John's Epistles. We just finished.

One thing that stood out to me is that John never got very far from valuing the truth. The first letter is a bunch of excited blurbs. The second letter is both cryptic and specific. And the third one is very personal. In each letter the truth is always important. The truth is our bond. As you read his letters you'll come across the topics of love and discernment and hospitality; you'll read some vague things and some very specific things. But a blatant promotion for the truth is never far from his pen. It's like he can't get over it and doesn't want his readers to either.

In a different fashion, Os Guinness writes with the same impetus. Here are some examples:

p. 76 "...differences between views of truth - far from being purely theoretical and irrelevant - make an enormous difference."

p. 78 "Belief in something doesn't make it true; only truth makes a belief true...without truth, a belief may be only speculation plus sincerity."

p. 79 "Biblical faith...has a robust view of truth. All truth is God's truth and is true everywhere, for everyone, under all conditions. Truth is true in the sense that it is objective and independent of the mind of any human knower."

p. 82/83 "Without truth we are all vulnerable to manipulation."

It was neat how God put my nose in both places [John's Epistles & Guinness' Time for Truth] at the same time. They dovetailed very nicely.