Let The Truth of Jesus' Life Speak For Itself

One of the challenges for those who teach about Jesus is to tell the whole truth about His life—to attempt to give a fair and complete account regarding what He said and what He did.

There is, sometimes, a tendency to want to over-emphasize certain truths about Jesus and His life; and to de-emphasize or maybe even ignore other truths about Jesus and His life. For example, when we look at Jesus’ life in the gospels we find He was loving, gracious, tender, patient and kind. I find myself wanting to emphasize these truths about Jesus. I want Jesus to be likeable. My experience is that people like hearing about these characteristics of Jesus.

However, in those same gospels we also find that Jesus was firm and uncompromising in His teaching, never afraid to present unpopular truths. He was boldly confrontational with the religious leaders of His day, referring to them as “whitewashed tombs” and “a brood of vipers.” That’s not the type of approach that wins popularity contests.

We even find Jesus exhibiting righteous anger when He threw the money changers out of the temple.

Occasionally, it is helpful for me to remind myself that I do not need to manage Jesus’ image. He does not need me to handle His PR. The best thing to do is present His life and teachings as honestly and accurately as possible and let the truth of who He is speak for itself.

Gov. Christie's Apology. Are We Hearing The Whole Truth?

As a pastor I have heard a number of people, over many years, confess wrongdoing and apologize for their sins, errors, mistakes, etc.

One of the things I have discovered is that even when people are supposedly “coming clean” there is often a tendency to hold back and not offer up the whole truth.  It’s quite possible that a confession and apology will involve most of the truth but not all of the truth.  The whole truth can be very uncomfortable.

I do not have a political agenda in this piece.  Politically speaking, I do not consider myself to be for Gov. Christie and I do not consider myself to be against Gov. Christie.  But as I listened to the apology he offered in his news conference I had the feeling that he was not offering up all of the truth.  It’s not just Gov. Christie, by the way, I have this feeling almost every time I see a politician, who is seeking to remain in office, give a press conference and offer an apology for some controversy that has surfaced.

Gov. Christie said a lot of the right words and he expressed them well.  He seemed sincere.  He apologized.  He is humiliated.  He takes responsibility.  The wrong behaviors are unacceptable.  The people who committed the actions have been terminated.  The people deserve better.

I’m really not going after Gov. Christie, specifically.  In my mind this impression that I’m expressing has more to do with political apologies, in general.  An apology that is done properly and effectively might be able to get the person out of hot water from a political perspective.  But the real healing that an apology is supposed to bring—to the one who is apologizing and to those receiving the apology—occurs best when the whole truth is humbly and sincerely spoken.

Once again, unfortunately, I just can’t escape this sense that we’re not hearing the whole truth.

Rev. Dan Marler

Oak Lawn, IL