Truth should always matter. For Christians, it matters more than for most, because one of the foundational claims of our faith is that there is such a thing as absolute truth. There is a standard outside of us by which all things can be measured, including ourselves.
Scripture is not subtle about where lies come from. Jesus calls the devil "a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). If deception is the native language of the enemy, then truthfulness ought to be the native language of the people of God. To follow Jesus is to follow the One who walks into darkness and turns on the light.
What I See When I Scroll
That is why one of my deepest fears about our moment is not what the world is doing. It is what the church is doing. Many who carry the name of Christ no longer seem to stand on truth.
Scroll social media for ten minutes and you will find it. People speak with total confidence about things that are half true, unverified, or simply false. Often the post sits right beside a Bible verse, and sometimes beside an end-times prediction aimed at whoever their political enemy happens to be.
I do not say this from a distance. I have felt the pull to share the thing that confirms what I already believe before I have checked whether it is true. That pull is the problem. When Scripture and falsehood are posted side by side, the falsehood does not become holy. The Scripture gets dragged down with it.
Truth Is a Person
Jesus did not say, "I will show you the truth." He said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). For the Christian, truth is not first a position we hold. It is a Person we follow.
That changes the stakes. If truth belongs to Christ, then loyalty to truth is loyalty to Him, and it outranks loyalty to any party, tribe, or preferred story. When a fact is inconvenient to my side, my allegiance to Jesus requires me to accept it anyway.
This cuts in every direction. It does not matter whether the person speaking is on the left or the right, or whether the claim flatters my side or theirs. A lie that helps my cause is still a lie, and I am still accountable for repeating it.
The Examined Faith
I sometimes wish we could recover the Socratic method. Socrates did not win arguments by shouting louder. He asked questions until the weak places in a belief showed themselves, and he was willing to follow the answers wherever they led.
But it is easy to forget where Socrates started. His wisdom, as he understood it, was knowing what he did not know. He turned his questions on himself first.
Jesus said the same thing more sharply. Before I point out the speck in my brother's eye, I am to deal with the log in my own (Matthew 7:3-5). The examined faith begins at home.
So the hard question is not whether other people are believing lies. It is whether I am. Am I willing to test my own views against the evidence? And when the evidence is plain, can I say the words our culture seems to have forgotten: "I was wrong about that"?
I suspect that admission, offered humbly and without excuses, would be one of the most countercultural acts of witness a Christian could make right now.
Truth Spoken in Love
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" was never limited to a courtroom. Sharing something untrue about a neighbor, even one I disagree with, even one I fear, is bearing false witness. Clicking share does not make it someone else's lie.
Paul ties truthfulness directly to the life of the church: "Having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another" (Ephesians 4:25). When believers trade in falsehood, we do not only damage our reputation. We tear at the body itself.
Yet accuracy alone is not the goal. Paul also tells us to speak "the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). It is possible to be factually right and still use the truth as a weapon. The aim is not to win the thread but to be the kind of people whose words heal rather than wound.
Our Words Should Mean Something
As Christians, we are called to hold to the truth and to stand on it, regardless of which side of the political aisle a person sits on. That is not a political stance. It is a discipleship one.
People should be able to trust us. When a follower of Jesus says something is true, it ought to be because they have checked, because they care about getting it right, and because they would rather be quiet than be wrong.
We should be a guide toward truth in a world that is losing its way. That starts small: pausing before we post, asking whether a thing is actually so, and being willing to correct ourselves out loud. Jesus promised that the truth would set us free (John 8:32). The least we can do is refuse to trade it for something cheaper.
Our words should mean something. Let's live like they do.
