A Half Truth Is A Whole Lie (Yiddish Proverb)

Brenda and Kevin Buza, or is it?

In American court rooms, witnesses who take the stand are generally asked this question or one similar:  "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
Apparently, this question is designed to allow one and all to understand the importance of telling the truth and refraining from giving a false impression to the judge, the jurors, the attorneys, and anyone listening. To do otherwise is perjury, a crime. But this is how it looks to me: the prosecution wants to present only the damning evidence about the accused. The defense wants to suppress the damning evidence. The judge decides what evidence can be accepted in the court and what is not allowed. So what happened to "the WHOLE truth?" Sorry, I don't get it.

Family and friends, we have problems with the truth these days! Someone has said, "believe none of what you hear and half of what you see." Who said it? When I Goggled that quote, I found it attributed to Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, and Winston Churchill. I stopped there. See? We cannot even agree on who made that statement in the first place!

The issue becomes even more complicated when we realize that we no longer agree on what the truth is! In John 18, at His trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus stated His purpose for being in this world: "For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." I personally believe Pilate's reaction to Jesus was very sarcastic: "What is truth?" Little did Pilate know that he was looking into the face of truth and didn't even recognize it. Jesus had told His disciples, as recorded in John 14, "I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me."

Most have rejected Christ and His message. I think one of the most tragic verses in the Bible is, "He came unto His own and His own received Him not." Is there any wonder that we have a problem with the truth in this world of today? In essence, humanity is not really interested in the Truth after all. In today's culture, truth is relative. You have YOUR truth and I have mine. What is true to you is true. And what is true to me is also true, even if it is the very opposite. Explain the logic in that, please.

Why am I even on this soap box? It is because I am personally finding it difficult to take anything at face value. In the news, on facebook, and in our personal conversations we are being fed twisted versions of events. People are being misquoted, taken out of context, and the bits and pieces of the truth we receive often bring with them false impressions. It is awful to feel that you have to check Snopes on just about everything (and I don't trust them, either).

Is this a "sign of the times"? II Timothy 4 speaks of a time such as this: ". . . the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,  and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." Is that where we are? Maybe so. We tend to believe people who tell it the way we think it is, rather than gleaning the facts and applying logic to them. And we tend to dislike people who do not agree with us. Be careful! 

 Note: The picture above is less than half true. The heads are of our son Kevin and me. I have no idea who the bodies belonged to originally. This picture was to be an incentive for the two of us to embrace a healthy life style and become fit! It wasn't meant to deceive anyone, so I hope it didn't.