The devil and a friend were strolling along the road together one day when the friend noticed a man who was walking alone some distance ahead, bend down and pick something off the ground. He examined it for a moment and then he slipped whatever it was into his pocket and walked on.

‘What was that?’ the friend asked the devil.

‘O that was a little piece of truth.’

‘That’s pretty bad for you, isn’t it?’

‘Not at all,’ said the devil. ‘I’ll help him organise it!’ and another sect was born.

When Jesus said, ‘I am the Truth’ I wonder did he foresee the day when truth would be as fragmented and competitive as it is today. Of course he did, that’s why he sent the Spirit of truth, ‘...to guide us into all truth.’

A well-known American writer recently said, ‘Follow the man who follows Jesus.’ Surely that’s the problem, for if everybody’s following the man who’s following Jesus, there’s nobody following Jesus, is there?