“My truth...”  “Speaking my truth...” “Your truth...” I have read a number of articles to try and learn what is meant by “My truth.”  There are a number of suggestions such as:

“The way I see things may be different than the way you see things.”

“Be true to yourself.”

“A pretentious substitute for a non-negotiable personal opinion.”

“The way I see and understand something may be different than the way you see

and perceive it.” 

“I know some stuff, and it’s likely that may change over time.”

In a recent trailer for a show on Hulu titled, Faces of Music, one of the cast members stated what I think is the current understanding of “Your truth” with the following words: “It is not about right or wrong, it’s about your truth.”   

Maybe there is no real definition of what “Your truth” really means and maybe that is the point.  The reality is that we live in a day and age when truth is determined by one’s experiences and feelings which is nothing new, just a different dress.  So, is there such a thing as “your truth?”  The good news is that the Bible does address the question of truth.

The Unknown but Knowable God

Permit me to begin with a story. About 600 hundred years before Paul ever set foot in Athans, there was a plague that came upon Athens that none of their gods could answer or fix.  The leaders of that city learned of a man who was a prophet of what they called the “unknown God.”  They summoned a representative of this unknown god from Crete, and he instructed them what was needed for the plague to be lifted.  This representative requested two flock of sheep be brought — one white flock and one black flock.  He prayed to this unknown God and asked that all the sheep that he caused to lay down to graze, would be sacrificed to this god on a new stone alter.  Well, there were sheep that did lay down to graze, so they were sacrificed on alters to the unknown God and the plague was lifted as a result. 

This unknown god was worshiped and then forgotten over time until two of Athens’ elders found one of the altars and refurbished it.  One of the things they had done to this altar was that they etched into it an inscription that read: “TO THE UNKOWN GOD.”  This was the altar the Apostle discovered while walking through Athens.  This was the only God the Athens had no idols for whom they did not create or know.  This is the God who, according to the Bible, “…has planted eternity in the human heart” (Eccl. 3:11 b; NLT).

What the altar to “THE UNKOWN GOD” teaches us is that we grope around for something to make sense of our world and to discover something more than what is visibly before us.  The reality is that each of us is born spiritually blind just as the Bible states: “...the god of this world [Satan] has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).  It is not all that different with our society’s pursuit of truth. 

This whole business about speaking your truth or standing in your truth reminds me of the six blind people who heard about a strange animal, called an elephant, that had been brought into their village.  Because none of them were aware of an elephant’s shape or form they thought they would inspect the creature by touching it. One of the blind men grabbed the elephant’s trunk and said, “This elephant is like a big snake.”  Another blind man felt the elephant’s ear, and said the elephant seemed like the shape of a fan.  Another who felt the elephant’s leg, said, “this creature is a pillar like the trunk of a tree.”  The blind man who placed his hand upon the side of the elephant said it is like a wall that breathes. The blind man who felt its tail, described the elephant as being like a rope.  The blind man who felt its tusk, stated that the elephant is like a spear. 

People trying to figure out what truth is or what their purpose is in life are like those blind men. There may have been some truth to what they felt but could not understand what they were touching unless they understood that what was before them was much greater than individual experiences.  We live in a world full of blind men groping in the darkness trying to make sense of it without considering the Creator who made it all.   

God is Too Big to Be Manipulated (vv. 22-25)

There was a god to be worshiped for just about every occasion in Athens.  We are told that Paul’s spirit, “...was being provoked within him as he observed that the city was full of idols” (v. 16).  It is important to point out that his spirit was provoked, but it was not because he thought those who worshiped those idols knew better.  The provocation that he felt was not unlike the kind of provocation you might feel if a family was asleep in a house on fire, the provocation you would feel in your spirit would be the recognition that you had a moral obligation to do all that you could to wake the family up and get them out of the house before it was too late. 

What we can learn from Paul in the way he addressed the Athens is that he used their culture as a bridge to introduce them to the God they did not know who was too big to be manipulated like the gods they created.  By bringing the gospel to Athens, Paul shared how there was only one true God who was knowable only because He has made Himself known.  He alone “made the world and everything that is in it…” and He, “…does not dwell in temples made by human hands…”(vv. 24-25).  The God who made everything is not served by human hands like the hundreds of idols that filled Athans.  What Paul meant is that the God they thought was unknowable did not need to be cleaned up, polished, or fixed, because as Creator... He cannot be manipulated. As Creator and since He made everything, God is in need of nothing. Not only does the One true God need nothing, but He also cannot be treated as an idol because unlike the idols people create, He alone, “gives to all people life and breath and all things.”  What this means is that God does not adjust or yield to what we think truth is.  Because He is the Creator, by default... we are the creature; manipulating God is as impossible as it is for a statue to manipulate the artist who made it.

Apart from God, we are blind and what spiritually blind people are able to see are the shadows of spiritual truth.  People genuinely know that both good and evil exist.  The Greek Mythology of the Athenians proves this as do the stories we read and watch.  I believe that all humans, although spiritually blind, are able to see and sense the reality of the existence of God and his truth.  The Athenians groped in the darkness in pursuit of truth while their only hope was the gospel of Jesus Christ that allows us to know the truth of who God is and how to live in the world He created. 

Our Purpose Is Too Significant to Be Ignored (vv. 26-29)

When God created mankind, He created us with a deficiency that could only be met by Him.  Why else would the Apostle write that God created men and women, “if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us” (v. 27).  God has created in us a deep longing for Him because He has made us in His image.  In verse 28, Paul said to the Athens: “for in Him we live and move and exist...”  Think about that statement for a moment.  Our living and moving and very existence is found and experienced in God.  In other words, our purpose in life is found in Him.  Every study out there that has been done about the importance of finding your purpose in life reveals how important having purpose is. 

We humans are like the farmer who was seen by his neighbor shooting at his barn. As the neighbor got closer to the farmer’s barn, he noticed the many targets panted onto the side of his barn, and at the center of every single target was a bullet hole put there by the farmer’s gun.  The neighbor commented to the farmer: “Wow! You are an amazing marksman, your ability to hit the bullseye from that distance is impressive!  What is your secret, and can you teach me?”  To which the farmer replied: “It is really not that hard, for I first shoot my hole and then I draw the target around it.”  To live life like the Athens or to make up truth as you go without any consideration of who God really is, is to shoot for what we think is important and then draw the meaning of life around it. We shoot for security and then draw the meaning of life around it.  We shoot for relationships and then draw the meaning of life around it.  We shoot for what we think truth should be and then draw the meaning of life around it.  When we do that, we are like the bl