What is Truth in a Culture of Liars?

We live in a broken world

The problem is we focus on things that come from our own brokenness

Our problem is that we tend to believe only what lines up with our own ideas

Bias will overcome truth unless we make truth more important than self-satisfaction

How to Destroy the Truth

Start With A Bit of Truth

Propose an Idea That Could Be Truth

Only Share What Supports Your Idea

Claim “The Others” are Hiding Truth

Ignore Any Truth that Contradicts the Idea

Fire Up Emotions

Use Fear to Find a Solution

Create a Need to Do Something Now

Jesus Came to Bear Witness to the Truth

A Threat to Power Structures With a Different Base

John 18:37–38 ESV

Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.

Pilate is the Roman System with an Iron Fist

Jesus Is The Problem: Truth that Upsets Control

The Jewish Accusers: Religious Leaders Facing Upset

The Crowd are Manipulated by Those in Power

Don’t Give Us Christ, Give Us a Criminal

John 18:39–40 ESV

But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” They cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.

Barabbas would have no standing or power

He knows he is guilty

He is surprised by his release

Deface Truth and Defame the Threat to Power

John 19:1–3 ESV

Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands.

It’s tough when you have to face truth

First ignore what is true

Next deface the truth

Then mock what is true

Display the Threat as a Caricature

John 19:4–5 ESV

Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”

Claim your place of power

Claim you hold no bias against truth

Present the defaced version of truth

Sidestep Responsibiliaty

Accuse the Threat of Treason

John 19:6–7 ESV

When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.”

Destroy the Challenge to Authority

Sidestep responsibility

Call on a “greater good”

Make Truth a Liability

John 19:8–9 ESV

When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer.

Real Truth can really make us uncomfortable

When we seek the source, we are left to choose between the facts and our own fallacies

Use Power and Privilege Against Truth

John 19:10–11 ESV

So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

Claim authority over those you have chained

Present a bad choice or a worse choice

Yet truth will always stand on its own

Remind the Powerful that they are Pawns

Hang On to Power No Matter the Price

John 19:12–14 ESV

From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”

Pilate didn’t want to be used

The Jews cried out treason

Pilate judged against the threat to Caesar

Against the threat to the Jewish leaders

Against the truth of Jesus

Eliminate the Threat

John 19:15–17 ESV

They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

Nail the Truth to the Cross

John 19:18–19 ESV

There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

Debunk Statements of Truth

John 19:20–22 ESV

Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’ ” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”

Jesus was Sent Into a World of Sin

Sinners Hate to Think They Have Been Caught

Jesus is Our Only Promise of Salvation

Barabbas was the first one release from a death sentence because Christ took his place