“for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’” (Acts 17:28, NKJV)
If you intend to live by God’s truth, how do you measure what is truth? Whether a declarative statement, a direct commandment, or an unavoidable inference of a divine mandate and moral principle, is something “truth” because you or others have testified that it is the truth of God? Or, is a teaching and practice truth because it is found in the inspired Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16-17)? It is commonly said, and often practiced, that truth is “in the eye of the beholder.” In other words, many believe truth is relative; ever-changing and opinion-driven. But, Jesus said God’s word is truth (Jno. 17:17). The fact that Aratus, the Cilician poet (whom Paul quoted) had said 300 years earlier that “ever and in all ways we all enjoy Jupiter, for we are also his offspring,” did not authenticate Paul’s teaching to be true. It illustrated that even idolaters acknowledged the truth he spoke about our Creator and His nature (Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7). We do not assure our confidence of truth because an idolater said something that harmonizes with it. Neither did Paul. Nor are we assured of truth because a secularist or religionist happens to agree with what the Bible says on some point. Truth is what the Scriptures say. That we what we will speak and preach (1 Pet. 4:11; 2 Tim. 4:1-2). We must reply on the word of God, not on the word of men.
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