Revelation 3:14, 17 English Standard Version
14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Recent conversations with a Muslim acquaintance in Indonesia has been about truth. He gives me poor examples and then quotes dictionaries. As I ponder how to answer him fairly and without rancor, the Lord brought me these verses today.
We cannot rely on opinion nor worldly wisdom to discover truth.
We have to rely on the Words of the Amen, who was with God in the beginning, by whom the whole world was created.
John 1:1-5 English Standard Version
The Word Became Flesh
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The gospel of John identifies Jesus Christ as the Word, He is the true witness.
In Revelation 3:17 we see two parts which distinguishes our ability to see and accept truth.
The first part is man’s acceptance of his condition. The second part is being exposed to what is true by the true witness. Apart from the true witness there can be no understanding of truth.
Dictionaries will change to reflect usage, they only speak to how man uses word to communicate with one another. Those definitions change as man abuses the language they were given and redefine their understandings by agreement via popular usage.
Jesus Christ declare He is Truth. Believing on Him is believing the truth.