by J. Randal Matheny

As I sat at the snack bar, the unwelcome noise of the television descended from the high corner where it was bolted to the ceiling.

"... I want the whole truth!"

I snapped my head around to see a soap opera in progress, a severe older man twisting a woman's arm.

The scene quickly lost my interest, but the phrase stuck with me.

When, like the woman with the flow of blood, I fall at the feet of Jesus and tell him the whole truth, I discover his forgiveness and receive his blessing (Mark 5:33).

With all the truth revealed by the Lord, I can walk as a child of the light and learn how to please the Lord (Ephesians 5:9).

When I have the whole truth, I stand in good position to rebuke sharply those whose characters need it, "that they may be sound in the faith" (Titus 1:13).

When I listen to the Spirit of truth who gave "all truth" to the apostles (who, with the prophets, gave us the New Testament), I can do like the Spirit does -- glorify Jesus (John 16:13-14).

Of course, I should not throw pearls to pigs (Matthew 7:6) and tell someone the whole truth of a matter, when they will use that to separate me from the power of God (Judges 16:17-18).

I want the whole truth, not half-truth(s), which are actually untruths, or lies. In the whole truth, there is no deception, no slants, no tendencies.

Though we shouldn't make too much of it, there was even a word for complete knowledge of God and his truth: "epignosis." An example of the word is in 1 Timothy 2:4, where God wants "all men to be saved, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth" (YLT). God wants people to repent in order to come "to the [full] knowledge of the truth" (2 Timothy 2:25).

Some have a bah-humbug attitude about the whole truth, the full truth, the complete truth, all truth. Perhaps they find something disconcerting in the whole truth. Something that doesn't tickle their ears.

I want the whole truth. The truth that frees.

Because life is no thirty-minute soap opera. It's for real. It's for eternity.