We are admonished in a court of law to "…tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God." A command such as this is very straightforward, yet so many of us end up breaking it, bending it, waiving it, or ignoring it, in which none of those things do justice to truth. In the Bible we read in John 18:37-38, "…Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 38 Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?"
Pilate asks the question that we should all ask, because truth is a very important concept; it is at heart the very foundation of law, along with being the very foundation of Christ's incarnation on earth. Yet so many of us, see truth, as something that is pliable, changeable, subjective, and variable, in which none of these can possibly be valid reflections of truth. Truth is immutable, it cannot change, it is non-variable, it is always the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Anything less than this, is not truth, it may touch upon truth but that is not enough, and consequently it is not truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Anything less than the whole truth is a form of deceit, or ignorance, or lying, or manipulation. But what of people that believe that when each of the six blind men who touched different parts of the elephant and therefore came to quite different conclusions about the beast were in their way, telling the truth. This metaphor presses the point that in order to come to the correct viewpoint, you need not only vision and comprehension, but also a dose of humility that instructs you that although your viewpoint appears to be true, that it may not be actually true, certainly may not be the whole truth, and that strict adherence to your viewpoint, while denying others their say, is wrong-headed.
Truth is not an easy concept for most people to get their heads around, because truth demands absolute adherence to its law. It is we, humans that must muster up the courage, and the discipline to recognize the supreme importance of truth or suffer the consequences of our failure. Truth is a demanding master which harbors no deceit or shortcuts. You cannot con truth, you cannot short-circuit truth, and you certainly cannot modify truth. To do any of these things will tarnish your own image and dull your own mind.
When Christ tells us that He bears witness unto truth and that those that believe in truth hear His voice, He is speaking a literal truth to us. The truth that Christ speaks of is not obvious to the uninitiated nor is it obvious to the unenlightened. When none of Christ's hand-picked disciples were able to comprehend Christ's mission before Pentecost, then we take some solace in knowing that we are not alone in our shortcomings and errors. To know truth is to know God, and that can only come through revelation, a process that for most takes guidance, desire, and surrender to that still, small voice within.