Introduction
When Jesus said, “For this reason I was born and came into the world, that I may bear witness to the truth,” the Roman governor Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Jesus said, “I am the Truth.” Pilate questioned, “What is truth?”
Many today would echo Pilate’s question, and ask whether there is any truth and whether it can be known.
Actually, these questions are not new. The relativistic and skeptical view of post-modern people today actually has a long history. The “Academic” school of Greek philosophy in Jesus’ day denied that there was any absolute truth, and that even if there were, they said we could not know it.
Today, of course, post-modernism maintains that there is no absolute truth; it all depends on your social situation. Everybody just promotes views that will keep them in power. A particular form of that is Marxism, which denies that there is any absolute truth; everything depends on your social and economic class.
19th-century Romantics reacted against reason and logic when they asserted that emotions are true. What really counts is how I feel about things now. If your feelings differ from mine, well, they are true for you but not for me. You can see that sort of philosophy in movies and songs today. In other words, relativism rules.
You can understand why people think this way. After all, there are so many different religions and belief systems, all claiming that they are true. Politicians from different parties call each other liars; which one is speaking the truth? We can’t depend upon the news media, or advertisers, or even stock brokers, to tell us what is really true. Even people whom we respect, like our parents and our friends, give us contradictory advice. So, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that there is nothing really true, or at least that we can’t know what is true. Many would even say that there is no absolute right and wrong.
The problem is that people can’t live this way! Everyone believes in truth. We buy food at the store believing that the label tells me what is inside the package. In science, we assume that the world is real and that we can obtain accurate knowledge about it. When we discover that someone has lied to us, we say he did “wrong.” Different countries criticize each other, assuming that there is such a thing as the difference between right and wrong – otherwise, why would so many people be unhappy with American foreign policy?
Even those who insist that all truth is relative do so “absolutely!” I remember a conversation I had with a young graduate student who had just come from China to America. As we discussed Christianity, he declared, “There is no absolute truth!”
“Is that right?” I asked him.
“Yes! That is right!”
“Are you absolutely sure that there is no absolute truth?”
“Yes, I am absolutely sure/”
“But that statement, ‘There is no absolute truth,’ sounds like an “absolute” claim,” I said.
He paused for a moment, than replied, “Aside from that statement, there is no other absolute truth!”
Epistemology: How can we know anything?
We are dealing here with the whole question of what the philosophers call epistemology, that is, the question of whether there is any truth; if there is, can we know it; and if we know it, how can we know it.
In general, as Carl Henry has pointed out in the first volume of his God, Revelation, & Authority, there are four answers to the question of how we can know the truth.
Experience
Some say that we know what is true by experience. That includes personal , and experience; experience of others like elders; history; and science. In other words, what people have seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled – these things are real and they are all that we know.
This way of knowing reality relies on observation and then interpretation of observations. That is the essence of the scientific method, of course, but it also applies to history and tradition.
There is great value to this method, and it works for many situations. Scientists have helped us by discovering many useful things, such as the telephone, the computer, and modern medicine. This approach is based upon the assumption that the world is real and orderly, and that we can really know it!
But there this way of discovering truth has some problems and limitations. As we all know, our observations are incomplete. The famous story of blind men feeling the different parts of the elephant is a good illustration of the difficulty we have in acquiring comprehensive knowledge of the world.
Furthermore, observation requires interpretation to be useful. Each of the blind men explained what he had felt, and thought he know what an elephant was. His observation was accurate, though incomplete, but his interpretation was wrong. That can happen in daily life, too. Perhaps your mother or friend has a frown on her face, and you think she is angry with you, when perhaps she merely has a headache. You see clearly, but don’t draw the right conclusion from what you saw.
We make other sorts of mistakes, also. The first Russian cosmonaut who orbited the earth came back and said, “I didn’t see God out there, so he must not exist!” This statement reveals at least two errors: The first is the assumption that if I haven’t seen something, it doesn’t exist; and the other is that God can be seen in space. His observation was correct: he did not “see” God in space. But his interpretation may not have been.
American astronauts came to different conclusions when they looked out the window of their space vehicle. They saw how beautiful the earth is and declared their faith in God as Creator. In fact, one of America’s astronauts became a believer as a result of his journey to the moon.
Reason
Another way that people seek to know the truth is through reason. This process starts from assumptions, then follows the universal laws of logic, such as the law of non-contradiction, which says that a statement may not be both true and false in the same sense at the same time. The way of reasons seeks coherence and consistency, and looks for cause-and-effect relationships.
Reason works in many situations and can be very useful. After all, we are reasonable creatures; the world operates according to universal principles of logic, and people all over the world use the same ways of reasoning to understand and express the way they see reality.
On the other hand, reason has its limitations. The reasoning process relies on assumptions. But assumptions are, by definition, unproved. That means that if the assumption is wrong, the reasoning may be valid, but lead to wrong conclusions The example from the men who went into space and came back with different conclusions provides us with a good example. The Russian started with the assumption that there is no God; the American went into space thinking that there might be a God. Each one made observations, then interpreted them on the basis of assumptions he had before he left the Earth. Their reasoning was sound in each case, but the conclusions were contradictory.
The same is true with the problem of miracles in the Bible. If there is no God, then of course miracles are impossible, and all the accounts of miracles in the Scriptures are simply myths, the product of superstition. But if there is a God who made the world, then he is all-powerful, and he could do things differently from the way that the world usually runs. An all-powerful God could part the waters of the Red Sea, feed the Israelites in the wilderness, heal the sick, and even raise the dead. It all has to do with your presuppositions.
Intuition
A third way of knowing is called intuition. That’s when we just “know” that something is true, even though we can’t say why. For example, beauty is universally appreciated, though some standards vary. Still, people all over the world respond to a beautiful sunset, a lovely piece of music, a fine painting, or a pretty woman. How do you use reason to prove that something is beautiful! You don’t! Science can’t tell us, either.
Likewise, everyone assumed the existence of truth, at least as an ideal: That’s why we all believe that “lying” is wrong. Moral goodness is another thing that we all assume to exist, and it is recognized all over the world. Acts of kindness, generosity, service, and sacrifice are held in honor in every society. We can’t explain the experience of being in love, but we all know what it is!
People know by intuition that actions have consequences. Most people believe that there are rewards and punishments for doing good and evil, and that there is some sort of “heaven” and “hell” awaiting us after this life. Indeed, the existence of “God” is an almost universal belief.
There are limitations to intuition, however. The main one is that intuitions may differ. What you think is beautiful I might not; I may like my music but not yours. You may consider spicy food to be delicious, whereas I might prefer food that has only light seasoning. Neither one of us can “prove” that we are right.
Intuitions may also mislead us, causing a great deal of trouble. I have known several women who have said to me, “I know he is the one I shall marry!” Only later do they find out that he has a girlfriend or even a fiancee! In personal relationships, we may say in our heart, “I feel he/she loves/hates me,” and be completely mistaken.
Even worse is the case when someone commits an action that hurts another person, but says, “I feel good about what I am doing.” I have heard parents getting a divorce say that, even in the face of much evidence that divorce hurts children deeply.
Perhaps the most difficulty comes when people of different religions, or even people with the same faith, say, “I just know that I have seen/heard a “word” from “God,” when others think God could not have said such a thing. Intuitions cannot be shared, explained, or tested. They lack objectivity. There is no way to determine if one intuition is closer to the truth than another.
Revelation
Finally, some groups claim that they have received revelation from God. This idea is not necessarily false, if we assume that there is a personal God who can communicate his will to men. Though both Buddhist and Daoist scriptures are considered to be revelations from above, the main religions that rely on divine revelation as the primary source of knowledge about the truth are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What we call the Old Testament is a collection of 39 books that either claim to be, or are considered to be, words from God to his chosen messengers. The New Testament contains an additional 27 books of various sorts that also are believed to be inspired by God and fully true.
This Bible is the only source authoritative source of truth of Evangelical Protestants. As I said, the idea of revelation assumes that there is a “God” who can “speak” to his creatures. It also assumes a capacity in men and women to receive revelation, because they are created in the image of God. The concept of revelation is also based on the belief that words can convey meaning, and that this meaning can be understood.
Muslims believe that the Old and New Testament are God’s Word, but they also hold the Koran to be inerrant revelation from God to Mohammed. Since the Koran contradicts many passages in the Bible, Islam and Christianity, though both believing in only one God, are really very different religions with conflicting beliefs.
There are problems with revelation as a way of knowing, of course. For one thing, as we have seen, there are different sorts of claims to have received revelation. In addition to the Bible, Roman Catholics also add church tradition, as expressed by the Pope, as a source of divinely-revealed truth. This would not cause much trouble if the Roman Catholic tradition did not include things that are not in the Bible and even some that contradict the Bible. That is why Protestants and Catholics have such different beliefs, even though they also share so much that is in common.
Muslims claim that Mohammed’s visions are the very words of Allah, and they think that the Koran is more accurate than the Bible, even though it was written much later than the Bible and contains many historical errors.
Furthermore, even Protestants differ on some minor points of the interpretation of the Bible. Who is right? How do we decide between different understandings? No wonder people are confused!
Another major problem with the Bible is that many people believe that it contradicts the findings of modern science, and others think that it contains historical mistakes and statements that are mutually contradictory.
Possible solutions to these problems:
General principles
As we have seen, the Bible assumes that there is a God who can speak reliably. He is a personal being who thinks, loves, acts, and communicates with human beings in a variety of ways. Some of these include what we can see from the world around us; dreams; visions; the events of history; our own experience; and especially the words which are written in the Bible by chosen messengers of God.
Christian revelation is received by “faith” = intuition of some sort. Since it cannot be proven beyond a doubt, that which is believed is accepted on the basis of something like intuition in the mind.
At the same time, Christian revelation claims to be consistent with reason. It is internally coherent, with no major contradictions, though there are some matters that are very hard to understand.
Far from being without evidence, however, Christian revelation is held to be supported by “enough” evidence from experience – including history, science, and personal experience - to make it different from superstition.
Evangelical Protestant Christianity: The Bible
Now let us talk specifically about Evangelical Protestant understanding of truth. Protestants believe that ultimate truth – that is, truth about the most important things, such as God, man, right and wrong, and life after death – is found written in the Bible.
As we noted in the principles of Christian revelation mentioned just a moment ago, the Bible claims to be God’s words to his chosen servants, written down accurately, understandable by ordinary people with sufficient study and a heart to receive. That is, even though it was written by men, God worked in them by his Holy Spirit in such a way that what they wrote were the very words of God. These writings are true when properly interpreted, and can be understood.
But the authority of the Bible is something that we accept by faith, as God himself speaks to the heart of the reader. We cannot prove conclusively that the Bible is God’s Word. The Spirit of God creates this conviction within the mind and heart of the reader who sincerely wants to know the truth. Belief in the Bible as the revelation of God, therefore, is kind of “intuition,” though we believe this intuition comes from God himself.
Christians also believe that the Bible is internally consistent; it does not contradict the laws of logic, but assumes them. Many times in the Bible, the writers make a case for something following the usual rules of reasoning. For example, there is an argument from the lesser to the greater. Jesus uses it when he says, “If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him?” (Matthew 7:11)
The argument “from the greater to the lesser” can be seen in Paul’s question, “He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall he not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
Since God cannot contradict himself, his revelation to mankind does not contradict itself, either. Though there are some passages in the Bible that seem to be mutually contradictory, when they are properly understood they are found to be in agreement with each other.
The Bible does not contradict human experience, either. The researches of archaeologists for more than 100 years have shown that the Bible is historically reliable. When I was studying in the Classics Department, I learned, for example, that Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and also Acts, is considered to be the most reliable historian of the Greco-Roman period. Since a great deal of the Bible consists of historical accounts, this is very significant. We may note, by the way, that the Koran is not considered to be reliable history.
There are other ways in which the Bible does not contradict human experience. For example, many of its prophecies, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, were fulfilled. This is hard to believe, unless it is the Word of God.
The Bible also describes the human condition accurately. It tells us that we are made in the image of God, and capable of doing good things to others. That explains why Mencius could observe that when a child is falling into a well, we will automatically try to save it. On the other hand, the Bible also teaches that we are fallen and corrupted in our hearts, so that we are also capable of doing bad things, as Sun Tze and Han Fei Tze taught. So, Christians are not surprised when politicians or business people tell lies or take brides; they grieve over the suffering caused by war, but know that such things are predicted in the Bible as the result of human pride, greed, and malice.
The principles of the Bible “work” when they are applied to daily life, as I said in my previous lecture. its principles are applied to life. For example, when people abstain from sex outside of marriage; when husbands love their wives as they love their own bodies, and lead them in a loving fashion; when wives submit to their husbands with respect and gentleness; when husbands and wives stay together rather than getting divorced; when children obey their parents; and when parents treat their children with kindness and respect, then family life is much happier.
Despite what many people say, the Bible does not contradict modern science. It is widely believed that science has disproved the existence of God, or at least that Darwin has proved that God did not create the world. But this idea rests on several mistaken assumptions. First, how could science disprove the existence of God? Science deals only with what can be observed repeatedly by our senses, but the Bible says that God is a Spirit, who cannot be seen or measured, though you can certainly experience the effects of his power. Science simply does not deal with spiritual matters.
Likewise, Darwin’s theory of evolution is a theory, not a fact or a law. Though micro-evolution has been proven – that is, we know that kinds of plants and animals can develop and change over time – there is virtually no evidence for one kind of thing to have changed into another. Evolution as a theory faces huge problems, such as, How does life come from non-life? How does order come from chaos? How does something come from nothing? How can the upward progress assumed by evolutionism deal with the proven fact that entropy and disorder are increasing? How does random selection produce highly-organized and efficient cells – not to speak of animals and plants? Where does the information for evolutionary change come from? In fact, this theory contradict almost everything we observe in everyday experience; to believe it requires a great deal of faith!
This is a large subject, and much has been written about it, but let me refer you to my little booklet, The Bible: Word of God or Words of Men?
Nor does the Bible contradict universally-recognized ethical principles. Chinese people believe that we should work hard and honor our elders; the Bible teaches this also. Within Chinese society, there is a strong sense of obligation to the group, unlike the extreme individualism of the West; the Bible says that we should live not just for ourselves, but for others.
In the Bible we find an explanation for the existence of other religions and belief systems. Other religions and philosophies have some true insights; these come from what is called general revelation: since man is made in God’s image, we can know some things. Man is created in the image of God, and was meant to worship God. But we have fallen away, and so we turn from God and worship things that we can see or imagine, rather than accepting his own revelation to us, so the errors in other religions are explained by the fall of man.
There are other reasons why Christians believe that the Bible is God’s Word. It is beautifully written and structured. When I was doing my PhD in Classics, I had to read a number of really beautiful works by Greek and Roman writers and poets. While I admired their artistic skill, when I compared these literary productions to the Bible, I found that there is really no comparison, for the Bible is even more intricately organized and its words are even more elegant and forceful. I have read Confucius’ Analects several times; the more I read, the more I admire Confucius, as you can see from my comparison of Confucius and Jesus. Still, however, I believe that the words of the Bible possess even more power than do the words of Confucius. I hope you will forgive me for saying that!
Jesus: The Truth
Finally, we come to what Jesus said, “I am the Truth.” According to the Bible, and to himself, Jesus is the supreme revelation of God, and he rightly receives almost universal respect. Let us think about what he meant when he said, “ I am the truth!”
He spoke truth. He claimed to speak only what is true. Others agreed, and his closest friend declared that in Jesus was no deceit. How different that is from all the rest of us! Christians believe that Jesus spoke the truth about God: That he is almighty; eternal; the source of life. According to Jesus, God created the world, including human beings. He governs the world so carefully that not even a hair falls from our head without his permission. Jesus taught that God is righteous and that he requires us to be righteous as well.
Jesus spoke much about how we can know God. The first step is to repent of our sins, including the sins of loving this world more than we love God, and the sin of self-righteousness. He criticized the Pharisees of his day, and all those who think that they are morally superior to others. The other side of repentance is faith. Those who want to know God must believe in him; they must also believe in Jesus as the Son of God who was sent into the world to reveal God to us and to bear the penalty for our sins on the Cross.
Jesus not only spoke truth about our present situation and how we can know God, he also predicted the future. He told his disciples that Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Romans because the Jews had rejected their Savior, and that is what happened in 70 A.D. Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection, so that the disciples would believe in him after they saw him risen from the dead.
He also said that all people will be raised up from the grave, and that all would be judged according to their works. He urged his followers to pay any price in order to gain eternal life, and promised forgiveness of sins and everlasting happiness to all who would believe in him and follow him.
In his life, Jesus fulfilled prophecies showing God’s faithfulness. In other words, his life proved that God’s promises in the Old Testament are true. He also upheld the validity of the rest of the Old Testament by living according to the law of Moses and quoting many historical accounts from the Old Testament. But his miracles, death, and resurrection are the principal proofs of the truth of the Old Testament; too many prophecies were fulfilled in these events for us to say that they were merely coincidental.
But how do we know that what Jesus said about himself, his teachings, and the Old Testament is reliable? According to the Bible, the resurrection of Christ vindicates his life, teachings, and death. When his disciples saw Jesus on the third day after he had been buried, and then ate and drank and talked with him for more than a month, they knew that he was really the Son of God, the promised savior of sinners, and the one who would come to judge the world. The evidence for the resurrection is very strong. Otherwise, how do we explain the empty tomb? How do we account for the dramatic change in his followers, who had been cowardly and self-seeking? Especially, how do we understand the total transformation of Paul, who turned from persecuting Christians to preaching that Christ was the Savior of the world?
We cannot say that the disciples stole the body, for they had all run away when he was arrested, and the Jews had placed a strong guard at the tomb. Furthermore, would they have risked death by preaching that Jesus was risen from the dead if they had known that his body was still hidden somewhere? The Jews would have had no reason to steal the body of Christ, either. The only reasonable explanation of the empty tomb is that Jesus actually came out of it, alive, with a new body given to him by the power of God.
Jesus promised his disciples that he would send to them the Holy Spirit, whom he called the Spirit of truth, to remind them of his teachings and to reveal new things to them about the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection. After he had ascended to heaven, the Spirit did come to them, giving them courage to preach to the people who had killed Jesus. As years went on, they and others to whom Jesus gave the Holy Spirit wrote down not only the story of Jesus’ life, but also letters, a history of the early church, and a prophecy of the future. This is what we call the New Testament, and it also claims to be true.
So, when Jesus said, “I am the truth,” he meant many things. He was referring to his words; his own life as a revelation of God’s character, especially his power and his love; and the truth that he would later reveal to his followers by the Holy Spirit. We must notice here that Jesus was not only claiming to reveal the truth, but to be the truth. This shows us that ultimate truth is not only a collection of statements – though it is that – but also a person. Truth is more than ideas, it is also a relationship with the living God. At the very heart of the universe is not a number, much less a hollow core without any meaning, but a person, a God who made us and loves us and allows us to know him, now and forever.
That is why Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father but by Me.” Faith in Jesus as revealed in the Bible leads to knowledge of God as Father. The most important revelation Jesus brought was the truth that we can know God not only as Maker, and Ruler, and Judge, but as Father. We can become children of God, along with countless other believers from all over the world. Jesus is making a new family to live in his house with God for all eternity. He brings us home!
As we trust in the words of the Bible and in Jesus as the truth, we are changed on the inside. Actually, this is another piece of evidence that Jesus is the truth. The words of the Bible have the power to change our minds, our hearts, and our lives. What other religion can cause proud men to humble themselves, confess their sins, rely on God, forgive their enemies, and lay down their lives in service to others?
I once had a weekly Bible study in a restaurant in Charlottesville. The workers in the restaurant included a woman who had been a doctor in China. One day she said to me, “I don’t understand. When I read the Bible, I can sense a power in it. Somehow, it gives me peace, and hope. How can a book written by men do that? I have asked my friend, and she says the same thing.”
I said to her, “You are right. This book is not only something composed by men. It is also the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in the minds of the writers. The Bible is not only the words of men, but it is also the Word of God.”
My story
Let me conclude this lecture with my experience of coming to know the truth. I have already told you how I came to believe in Jesus and was changed. You know also that I had already been convinced that the Bible is true, so that my classmates believed that I was a Christian and my professor, a strong opponent of Christianity, constantly challenged me. The strange thing is that the more my professor taught us about the philosophy of the West, the more I believed that non-Christian philosophy doesn’t make good sense. My faith in the truth of the Bible was stronger at the end of the course than at the beginning.
The same thing happened in seminary. Most of my professors did not believe that Jesus was the only way to God. They thought that the Bible was full of errors, and that Jesus did not rise from the dead or would come again. I know it is strange that teachers in a Christian seminary would hold such views, but they were so-called “liberal theologians,” not evangelical Christians. They would try to point out errors in the Bible, but the more I studied, the more I saw that their assumptions were wrong. They were learned men, but they started with the idea that God could not perform miracles and that the Bible was only the words of men, so they created problems that did not exist in the Bible. I received low grades from some of my professors because they could not answer my questions to them.
My classmates, too, were almost all “liberal” in their theology. They made fun of me and the four other men who believed the Bible to be the Word of God. But when I saw their lives, and listened to their reasoning, I realized that they were inconsistent in their faith and in their actions.
During the day, I had to study the views of my liberal professors, but at night I read the works of other scholars who demonstrated that the Bible is trustworthy. So, at the end of three years, my faith was stronger than when I had entered seminary. When I taught in China Evangelical Seminary, I studied several portions of the New Testament in great detail. Since there was no Greek-Chinese lexicon of the New Testament, so I supervised some of my students in translating the main Greek-English lexicon. In the course of teaching and of proofreading their work, I have come to appreciate even more the amazing quality of the New Testament. Each word, each sentence seems to have a meaning and a structure that could not have been the work of men only; god must have been involved.
The main challenge to the Old Testament is the theory of Evolution, which denies the teaching of the first few chapters of Genesis. I first encountered this problem when I served as a chaplain to students at a small college right after I graduated from seminary. At that time, I accepted Darwin’s theory, like everyone else around me. When a student came to me and said that all of his courses assumed that evolution was a fact, and that this was undermining his faith, I began to study the matter for the first time. Though few books wee available then, I learned enough to realize that the theory of evolution has some major scientific problems. I had a friend who was working with a famous scientist, the one who discovered the DNA code; my friend was a graduate of Harvard University and was not a Christian.
I said, “Carl, it seems that Darwin’s theory has some fundamental weaknesses.”
“Yes, of course,” he replied. “All who do advanced scientific research know that.”
“So why don’t you tell people?” I asked.
He responded, “Because the only alternative is creation, and we can’t accept that!”
In other words, they hold on to evolution because they don’t want to believe in creation. Is that true science, or superstition?
Since 1988, I have been talking with scholars from Mainland China, most of whom are scientists. Most of them come to the USA believing in evolution, so I have had read a number of books and articles on the subject. In the course of my study, I have learned that evolutionary theory has very little scientific support. What has surprised me is that when Chinese scholars investigate this question, they abandon their belief in evolution very quickly. They realize that it is impossible for this world, with all its order and complexity, to have come into being by chance; they are convinced that it must be the work of an intelligent, all-powerful Creator. You may find a list of some of the books on this subject in my booklet, The Bible: God’s Word or the Words of Men?
I have told you how my college professor could not convince me that philosophers had demonstrated that Christianity is unreasonable. The next time that I studied Western philosophy was in graduate school, when I had to take an exam in Hellenistic philosophy and in early church theology. I noticed that the major arguments against Christianity had been dealt with long ago by the early church fathers, including Augustine. When I wrote my dissertation on Augustine, I saw how he refuted skeptics and materialists and hedonists, who are the major opponents of Christianity in our time also.
While teaching at China Evangelical Seminary, I met Dr. Carl Henry, the greatest evangelical theologian of the 20th century, who wrote a six-volume work called God, Revelation, & Authority. Dr. Henry, who died a few years ago, had two doctoral degrees and was an expert in Western philosophy, as well as in the Bible and theology. His book is hard to read, so I made an abridgment of the first four volumes of the Chinese edition. In this great work, Henry responds to all the major objections to Christianity that have been raised by philosophers, and shows that the Bible offers the most reasonable worldview. I encourage you to read this book if you want to know more.
In the past 45 years, not only has my faith been tested by different points of view, but by the normal sufferings and challenges of life. I shall tell you more about that in the last lecture, but for now just let me say that nothing has been able to shake my conviction that the Bible is the Word of God and that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. As I have trusted in him and tried to follow his teachings, he has given me strength to overcome every hardship, including years of bad health, and to enjoy more and more peace and joy. You may read more about this in my autobiography. I hope that you will have the same blessing also.