During the summers of my youth, my Grandmother and I watched with great joy the adventures of Perry Mason on TV.
We scrutinized each scene trying to catch the clues that would reveal the truth about the killer.
The court always swore the witnesses to speak “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
God, also, worries about “His truth, His whole truth, and that there be nothing but His truth.”
Jesus stated that, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Scripture refers to Christ’s church, which He built (Matthew 16:18) and purchased (Acts 20:28), as the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).
The Word of God is also about truth. “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17). God cannot lie (Titus 1:2).
Therefore what He has given us in His word cannot be anything but the truth.
We must approach the entire Bible as the truth.
The Psalmist states that, “The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”
When we study from the Bible we need to study everything the scriptures tell about any particular subject.
If we do not include all the scriptures about a particular topic we do not have the whole truth and may err in understanding.
When Satan tempts Jesus after His baptism, he uses Scripture as the basis of one of the temptations.
The devil takes Christ to the highest part of the temple and dares Him to leap from it.
Satan quotes Psalms 91:11-12, “For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.”
That’s Scripture and it’s true. We actually see it enacted at the end of the temptations.
After Satan leaves, the angels come to minister to Christ (Matt. 4:11).
So why didn’t Jesus jump? Another scripture speaks to this situation. Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not tempt the LORD your God.”
Satan quoted a scripture but it wasn’t the only scripture which applied to that circumstance. It must not only be the truth, but the whole truth.
“Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar” (Pro. 30:6).
In Proverbs 30:6, God admonishes us not to add to His words.
We see the effect of adding just “one” word in the Genesis account of man’s corruption.
God tells Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and that if they do eat of that tree, “you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17).
Once again we see Satan as the source of antagonism against the word of God.
The Devil adds only one word (not) to what God said to Adam (Gen. 3:4).
We observe that the one addition of that one word (and the false faith it produces in Adam and Eve) causes the fall of man into sin.
God has given us a book that we can read in a year’s time and study for a lifetime.
This book teaches us that it is inspired (literally “God Breathed”) and that it furnishes us all things pertaining to “life and godliness” (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:3).
And God’s word also instructs us that it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!
Larry Jones passed away April 22, 2024. He was the minister at the Gordonville Church of Christ for more than a decade. This devotional was first published in the March 26, 2009 edition of the Whitesboro News-Record.