When Truth Has a Face

June 11th, 2026
by Matthew Allen

The most famous question in the history of philosophy was asked by a politician who didn't wait for the answer. Hours before the cross. Jesus stands in Pilate's hall, bound and bleeding, and tells him why he came into the world: "to testify to the truth." And Pilate answers with three words, "What is truth?" then turns around and walks out of the room (John 18:37–38).
He asked the right question while looking the answer in the face.

I wish I could tell you that was a first-century problem. It isn't. We live in a world that constantly asks Pilate's question, and asks it the same way he did — not as a question seeking an answer, but as a way of dismissing the whole conversation. Who's to say? You have your truth, I have mine. Our culture doesn't deny that truth exists so much as it shrugs at it.

When the world shrugs at us and asks that question, Christians tend to answer with a list. A list of doctrines. A list of positions. Those things matter. But a list isn't where the Bible starts.
When the question got asked in Scripture, the answer in the room was a Person.
"Jesus told him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'" (John 14:6)

Not I will teach you the truth. Not, I will point you toward it. I am. This Sunday, we're going to focus on that staggering claim and then follow John back to the first page of his Gospel, where the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us. Truth got tired. Truth wept at a tomb. Truth made breakfast on a beach for men who had abandoned him. And we'll end at the verse where it all comes together: the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ — both of them, full strength, in the same Person, without either one costing the other anything.

This is week two of our June series, The Truth Will Set You Free. Last Sunday, we heard that truth is something you continue in. This Sunday, we find out that the truth you've been continuing in has a face — and that face has been wet with tears like yours.

Come with your questions. Come with your shrugs, even. Just don't walk out of the room.

Sunday, June 14 · 10:30 AM · Cornerstone Church of Christ · 5051 Wilmington Pike, Centerville

Pilate's Question
- Pilate asked, "What is truth?" while looking truth in the face—and walked out without waiting for an answer.
- Where in our culture does the same thing happen today?
- Where are we tempted to do this?
Positions vs. a Person
- When the world asks what’s true, we often answer with a list of positions.
- What changes—in tone and in result—when our answer is a Person instead?
Concrete Moments of Truth
- Truth got tired at a well, wept at a tomb, made breakfast on a beach.
- Which of these concrete moments means the most to you when life gets hard—and why?
The Two Ditches
- Truth without grace wounds; grace without truth misleads.
- Which ditch do you naturally drift toward?
- Which one do we drift toward as a congregation?
The Narrow Verse and Wide Welcome
- John 14:6 sounds like the narrowest verse in the Bible, yet it carries the widest welcome in the world.
- How would you explain that to a friend who calls it arrogant?