Demanding the meaning of truth – Part 1

Demanding the Meaning of Truth.  For those of you who are fans of either Paul Anka or Ofra Haza - you may recognize that line.  But the real issue is - what is truth?  Really.  Depending on what we think truth is - or who we ask, we'll get different meanings of the word truth.  Like beauty, truth is in the eye of the beholder.

The title comes from a line in the son, Freedom for the world.  I have to say - it was impossible to find the actual words to this song. After searching through many pages from search engines, I couldn't find a single one that actually got it right.  So - I ended up doing it from the song - keep moving it backwards on iTunes and keep listening.

How's that for demanding the meaning of truth?  It really is hard.  Even getting the real words for the song depended on whose site I went to.  And even then, none of them got it right!  Trying to find the meaning of truth is no less difficult.

Demanding the meaning of truth.  It's an interesting song.  Full of hope - like the title words, demanding the meaning of truth.  Also full of warnings like, if we don't get it together we'll be gone.  Not to mention the conclusion, Look to your heart and let love lead the way.  The irony is that depending on your point of view, the words of the song lead to wildly varying meanings of truth!  We will, of course, look at it from a Christian point of view.

Not the "nominal" Christian who tends to be little more than Christian in name only.  Or from the "average" Christian, who follows the parts of Jesus' teachings that they like, and finds ways to rationalize ignoring the things they don't like.  Instead, we'll look at it from the point of view of the way Christians are actually taught to live.  A way that none actually achieve, other than Jesus Himself.

This isn't intended so much as a critique, as it is a focus on the goals.  It will look at the words in this song to try to view it from a Biblical, New Testament, point of view.  As I said, not completely possible for us in this fallen world, but the way we should try to interpret it and live our lives.

Freedom for the world

So, the opening words for the song are"

Freedom for you and me A Nation of voices Making the choices Demanding the meaning of truth

Here in Part 1 of the series, let's look at the first five lines in the song.

Freedom for you and me A nation of voices Making the choices Demanding the meaning of truth

OK - so we want freedom - we want out voices heard - we want to be able to make choices - and we want to know the truth.

Well, maybe. 

Maybe we want freedom.  Although, it depends on what we mean by freedom. 

Do we have a nation of voices?  Or do we live someplace where the individual's "voice" is determined by the nation?

We want to be able to make choices.  But then, what choices and with what consequences?  

Depending on how we answer those and other questions, the "truth" that we'll come to know is very different.

Most of you, depending on how you're "reading" this, will notice that the text changed to a different font and is now brown instead of black.  There's a reason for that.  I wrote the first version of this back in January 2012.  It's now September 2019.  More than seven years later.  A lot has changed.  I've changed.  Seven years ago, I didn't include any of the stuff that's in this brown formatted text.  

As you read, you'll see that the original version did raise some of those questions, to some extent.  But now, as I come to realize just how far even "Christian" leaders in our government are from what Christ actually taught, those questions take on much more urgency.  I feel like we, Christians, tend to look way too much to the wrong people and the wrong places to find out about our religion.

Looking to any governmental leader, other than Jesus, is to look to the wrong person.  Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever.  And just in case you've forgotten, Jesus is a governmental leader. 

I know this is generally a Christmas passage, but it's relevant and important in a whole lot of other instances.