John 17:38 tells us, “Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?”

Dodging the issue of the “spiritual realm” altogether, Pilate doesn’t want to get too close to his own heart. Like many of us, he’s just not going there.

Instead, he wants to clarify what Jesus is saying and trap him in his own words.

I can’t help but think that this is like what people do with Jesus and the Bible. They try to cut words out and camp on their favorites, interpreting them for their own use. Even when Jesus is as clear as he can get that his kingdom is not in opposition to Rome because it is not political but spiritual, Pilate comes back to him.

I can almost hear Pilate saying, “Aha! I’ve got you now!” Or maybe he was more curious, trying to connect with the physical world when he needed to make a decision about the spiritual world.

I think of the discussions I’ve had about perceived errors in the Bible. It’s the kind of thing people talk about when they really don’t want their own life to change. It’s like arguing about who came first, the chicken or the egg, to a person who is about to drown but doesn’t know it. The discussion should be on how to swim.

But Jesus wanted to make it perfectly clear: “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

There was no doubt about what Jesus was saying to Pilate. It was crystal clear that he was the Messiah, the king of the Jews. He was born as a king—just ask the shepherds who arrived at the stable when he was born. And his purpose in being born was to testify to the truth about God’s love and forgiveness, connecting God with man. That was the absolute truth, pure and simple.

But could Pilate handle the truth?

 Can we handle the truth?

Comment: Do you think Pilate was trying to trap Jesus? Why or why not?