Truth Makers

It is getting hard to know what is true and what is false.

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully. - 2 Timothy 4:3-5

We live in the time that Paul may have been talking about, when we can shop around for the truth we want and find it in abundance.

Some may say it has always been that way.  People have espoused alternate versions of the truth, claiming that events such as the Holocaust and the moon landing were fabrications.  But most people know these views are not true.

What Paul is warning about is much more threatening than conspiracy theorists and the like who are easy to spot and ignore.  He is saying all of us can find a voice we like and believe in it without knowing it is false, simply because we want to hear what we want to hear.

We are all able to make our own playlists of doctrine we want to call truth and shut out everything else.

Paul tells Timothy to stay the course and continue in his ministry of truth, sharing the good news of the Gospel.  In the age of truth makers and false prophets, the Gospel is the only real truth to believe in.

I think, then, that all of us who minister and preach need to do the same.

If we fail to focus on the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus, we will run the risk of not being heard.  We will be tuned out like all the other voices that espouse their own version of reality.

Of course we may not realize it, since those who agree with us will stay and all who do not will leave.  And many of our church pews will be empty.

Unfortunately, if we lose sight of the Gospel and choose an alternate reality to follow, only those who agree will hear what we have to say.

So, I think we should do what Paul suggests, and stick to the message.

More to come...