Short reflection on truth
"It makes all the difference in the world whether we put truth in the first place or in the second place."
This was the quotation in my Franklin Covey Planner this morning, and I find it quite inspiring.
It does no good to put "love" in first place. One will lose all reason for loving, one's moral compass, one's true north.
"Speak the truth in love,"Eph. 4:15. Not "speak love in truth."
"I am the way, the truth, and the life."
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (Unlike the Nazis, who said "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes you free).
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
This was the quotation in my Franklin Covey Planner this morning, and I find it quite inspiring.
It does no good to put "love" in first place. One will lose all reason for loving, one's moral compass, one's true north.
"Speak the truth in love,"Eph. 4:15. Not "speak love in truth."
"I am the way, the truth, and the life."
"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (Unlike the Nazis, who said "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes you free).
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
19This is how we know that we belong
to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence:
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
Go to crosswalk.com and find these and others. My point is first an apologetic one. I have heard for years that in order to "reach the postmodern generation" we have to focus on story, not propositional truth. Big mistake. Story is great, I am all about story, but everyone's story is valid for them and we have a theology that is transpersonal and universal. So why are we surprised by the shallowness of theological knowledge today?
Secondly, it is a pastoral one. Today I am listening to NPR on the ride home. I am learning about the horrible conditions and plight of the people of Syrian. I switch over to a Christian radio talk show for a minute to see what's on there. The subject is how couples should pray together. That's good, although I have to wonder what they are praying about. A caller, a woman, gets on the air and as typically happens, she starts to cry (I usually automatically turn those off). She starts complaining about how her husband wants her to pray when they pray together. I wanted to scream at the radio, "Is that why you are crying? Is that what is important to you? Do you know what's going on in the world?"
The subjective had overtaken the objective, the personal is truth to the exclusion of the universal.
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
Go to crosswalk.com and find these and others. My point is first an apologetic one. I have heard for years that in order to "reach the postmodern generation" we have to focus on story, not propositional truth. Big mistake. Story is great, I am all about story, but everyone's story is valid for them and we have a theology that is transpersonal and universal. So why are we surprised by the shallowness of theological knowledge today?
Secondly, it is a pastoral one. Today I am listening to NPR on the ride home. I am learning about the horrible conditions and plight of the people of Syrian. I switch over to a Christian radio talk show for a minute to see what's on there. The subject is how couples should pray together. That's good, although I have to wonder what they are praying about. A caller, a woman, gets on the air and as typically happens, she starts to cry (I usually automatically turn those off). She starts complaining about how her husband wants her to pray when they pray together. I wanted to scream at the radio, "Is that why you are crying? Is that what is important to you? Do you know what's going on in the world?"
The subjective had overtaken the objective, the personal is truth to the exclusion of the universal.
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