Joel M Bradshaw

17Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.–John 17

There are two foundational categories of philosophy. Metaphysics deals with reality and how matters came to be. Epistemology deals with knowledge and what things can be understood or known. You might summarize them personally as What defines my existence? and What can I know? I have found that the God of the Bible presents wonderful ultimate answers to those questions. Thus, I know why I am here and what I should know. Thus, that forms the basis of my reality and what forms the basis of my understanding of truth.

Jesus offered epistemological truth in John 17. He prayed to God the Father to sanctify His disciples by the truth and then further defined the truth as God’s Word. We’ll take these in reverse order.

1. TRUTH CAN BE KNOWN AND IS DEFINED AS AN OBJECTIVE REALITY. To Jesus, truth is not defined relativistically as if you can have your truth and I could have mine. Truth to Jesus is objective. Jesus proclaimed that His Father’s Word is truth. Not a truth among many competing equal sets of propositions, but alone in its category. Remember the theological logic of the book of John. Jesus is the Word made flesh (ch. 1) who claimed to be the Truth (ch. 14). Jesus thus is uniquely qualified to know if God’s Word is the Truth!
2. TRUTH HAS A GOAL ACCORDING TO GOD. Since the Bible is God’s Word and Jesus prayed for God to make His disciples holy by that truth, then this means that biblical truth has a goal. I used to be the type of man who learned so much about the Bible but wasn’t actually putting it into practice. When I trusted God enough to actually follow the truths of the Bible my life changed. My marriage was transformed. My parenting was transformed. I saw victory in my struggle with addiction. I learned to trust God through two decades of having a potentially debilitating neurological disease. The goal of the Bible is to reveal the very Words of God (2 Timothy 3:16) and that truth is meant to challenge you, change you, and lead you back to God!

Basic theology proclaims that God exists and that I am not God. Therefore I will have to answer to God someday. Today’s verse reveals the standard upon which God judges and how God interacts with His creation. The foundation of Biblical counseling is the fact that the Bible is God’s truth and is sufficient to direct all matters of faith and practice. So how is God sanctifying you through the Bible? I thank you for journeying alongside me in these daily blogposts.–JMB