3 John : About Truth in the E-World

3 John 4 "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth"

Recently, in Parliament on 3/4/17, Minister of Law and Home Affairs named certain websites as FAKE News. So now the government is "seriously considering" how to address the issue and will announce its position upon completion of review.

Well...... 

Fake news is not new.

Fake news is ubiquitous.

Hope and pray not that we will have another "Law" mooted in the coming months to be passed in Parliament to decide on the punishment on those who either seemingly love to publish such fake news or half truths knowingly or unknowingly? LOL

Can one be 100% be well informed of the facts of any case before it is published? We live in a digital world of news today.  Jack Ma in his recent address in KL on 25 March 2017 just launched the digital free trade zone in Malaysia. Globalisation. Gone are the days of the physical Silk Road.  The E road is the coming in thing of the future. The E is for everybody. The envision of an E-Hub. "Where trade stops - war starts"  

Today's news is no longer localised.  Information is now pretty globalised.  

Jack MA shared" China is famous for the Silk Road.  But the Silk Road will not be successful without Malaysia.  People asked 'Why?' The Silk Road that time was to sell tea leaves. And tea at that time was so difficult to protect & preserve and expensive.  That time Malaysia had the best mine in tin. And because of the TEA and the TIN, the "TT"  that makes the Silk Road happened. Without the Tin of Malaysia, the tea trade would not have been popular and vice versa without the Silk Road in 18th century, Malaysia would not have been the #1 country in tin products. This is the amazing thing of trade. Where trade stops- war starts.

Trade is to respect the other people's culture according to Jack Ma. Trade is not about product exchange.  It is about the idea exchange and the innovation exchange.  

Trade and information - quite synonymous?
Alibaba had been accused for being a conduit for the trade of 'fake goods' vs the real ones.  
The channel of news is now a nightmare too for regulators who wants to be in control of the furnishing of "true news" according to what truth means to them. Hence can a regional government implement laws in Parliament to clamp down on websites that churns out fake or half truth news or news seemingly genuine to them but not verified due to manpower and time of uploading? 

Reflections
Was reading 3 John epistle. The word "truth & true" appeared 7 times in just this short letter of 14 verses.

Daniel 12:3 "Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall increase".  

We are living in this era of information overload via the multimedia platform. News can be viral at the press of a finger.

Unstoppable.  We will be bombarded with all kinds of news and information.

But the truth is that we are created in the image of God.  We can have the discernment to truth and falsehood, if we put some thoughts to it and be guided by none other than the Holy Spirit who has been given to us when Jesus left this world back 2000 years ago.

But He is coming back again.

More so we see the signs of such events of technology happening in our midst.

Hosea 4:6 " My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge"

News emitting from such social media is meant for us to chat about.  Deliberate over.  To have different perspectives. To help one appreciate the minds of the other party.  However, let them not be divisive.  The freedom of expression is one of God's greatest gifts to mankind.  We are uniquely created with a special unique UEN.  We are not robots without emotions.  We have been given a mind to think. The truth shall set us free and we shall be free indeed.

At the end of the day - what is truth? What is false?

There is one thing stated as truth.  John 14:6 "Jesus is the way the truth and the life"

Truth here is not only personified.  It is a fact that happened 2000 years ago in history.  A man called Jesus was born.  He was crucified.  He rose from the dead after 3 days.  That is truth.  Truth is Jesus Christ .  He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  

So much for the fake and true news of the world today. E world or otherwise.

3 John 4 "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in the truth"

Pray that such noises from this world will not cloud us out in knowing HIM and walking in Him.  

This was John's simple letter to Gaius.  

And Gaius means "Happy" "Rejoice".

Indeed, how much we need to embrace this in such a world we now live in.

AMEN!