Does Truth Matter? -2 Timothy 4:3<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Do you remember when UFO sightings and Big Foot stories were questioned due to their obvious lack of facts and truth value?  Well times are changing.  It seems to me that communications today, no matter how bizarre or lacking in evidence, are pretty much being accepted at face value.  Few people if any are checking the facts and it truly is troubling.  Doesn't the truth matter anymore?
I believe the truth does still matter but there is a problem.  The truth is rarely told these days.  I heard someone say when questioned about telling a lie that they simply "told the truth several different ways."  This isn't being truthful but manipulating and dishonest.
It is amazing to me to see how things that should be a big issue are being deemed irrelevant, overestimated or misunderstood.  Aren't people accountable anymore for their words?  Not to mention the double standard being enforced on those who actually expose the lies being told.  Where is the sense in any of that?
I am constantly reminded that the scriptures speak just as much today as they did when they were first written.  In this matter, it is no different.  In Paul's letters to Timothy he talks specifically about those who are dishonest and lead others away from the truth.  The reason why they do so is for personal gain both in popularity and prosperity.  From religion to science to business and even civil service, people have been exploited for someone else's personal gain for centuries.  All of this is a result of the aberration of truth.  It just seems that today it has become more or less the norm.  Look at what Paul says in Second Timothy chapter four.
"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."
I believe this text reaches beyond religious teaching to all kinds of teaching or communication.  We are certainly seeing people follow after those that "suit their own passions."  The problem with this type of follow-ship is that it negates a standard of moral law and absolute truth.  A world without a compass has no direction.  Leaders and followers that are fueled by passion alone are destined for destruction.  That passion must be seated in truth for it to be of any real use to humanity.
Paul warns about this in First Timothy chapter six…"If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.  Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.  But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.  But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs."
These verses alone prove that there is both a moral compass (teaching that accords with godliness) and absolute truth (the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ).  The result of abandoning both compass and truth for "controversy" and "quarrels" is "envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions and constant friction."  Where does all this end?  Paul answers, in "ruin and destruction."
I exhort believers in Jesus Christ as truth bearers to remain steadfast in the truth.  There are people who are seeking the truth and need to know that it still exists.  We should hold people accountable to the truth.  We should lead people with the truth.  It is in this truth that Christ is exalted.  It is in truth that a nation is grounded.  It is by truth that we live in peace.  It is for truth (Jesus) in which we live.
 "you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." -Jesus
 Jon Langford