Greetings!
All we have is the truth. All that we have, as the church of Jesus Christ, is the truth. And all that our ministers have, precisely in the exercise of the ministry, is the truth.
That is to say, we, as the church, do not have a military force or police force with which to compel people to go along with our teachings. We, as the church, do not have an internal revenue service with which to compel people to contribute. And that is as it should be.
Instead, all we have is the truth. It is therefore our duty and our calling to proclaim and to teach the truth as faithfully and as well as we can.
Without the powers of civil government, the only power we have is the power to speak the truth and so to attempt to persuade. So let us speak the truth, and let us pray that the Holy Spirit works within the hearts of minds of our hearers to lead them to believe.
Conversely, let us avoid all falsehood. If we ever give anyone any reason not to believe anything that we say, however small, how shall he or she ever believe us when we speak of grace, election, creation, covenant, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, salvation, and so forth?
To say that all that we have is the truth is not, of course, to suggest that we are impoverished. It is quite the opposite. Jesus said, "I am . . . the truth." For us to have Jesus Christ and his gospel is for us to have exactly what we need.
All that we have is the truth. Let us cherish it and share it.
