“I stand alone without beliefs. The only truth I know is you.”
—Paul Simon, “Kathy’s Song”
—Paul Simon, “Kathy’s Song”
Paul Simon wrote the above lyric for a woman. “Kathy’s Song” is a love song par excellance. Yet every time I hear this line from the song, I cannot help but think of the Lord. Over the years I have believed many things—about faith, about spiritual authority, about the role of spiritual warfare, about church government, about prayer, and many other things. Some of these things have been helpful, some unhelpful, but at this point, the only truth I know is Jesus Himself. He is my first truth, and He is my last.
This is not to say that I reject all beliefs, doctrines, theologies. They are all, in a certain sense, lights in a dark place. But like stars at sunrise, they have faded as the day has dawned and the Morning Star has risen in my heart (2 Peter 1:19; Rev. 22:16). Teachings come and teachings go. Some outlast their usefulness, some are outgrown. But “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).
“The crucified and yet living Christ is the concrete summing up of the Christian message and the Christian faith. He is Himself the wholly concrete truth of Christianity.”
—Hans Kung, On Being a Christian
