It's been a long time...
...shouldna left you, left you without a blog post to read through, read through read through....
hehe sorry. Am I showing my age there?!
Ahem. Anyway...
It has been a while (could break into song again). Sorry bout that. Partly work, partly not having more than 6 hours time to myself in over a week. That's just crazy.
I had planned to live blog Hope 2006, RUCU's events week, but seeing as Ed didn't manage it either I don't feel so bad now...! ;-)
There will be many more thoughts on Hope 2006, and life in general, to follow, when this week is over and I have a weekend where I'm not booked up. Amazing!
For now, I had these thoughts running through my head as I walked to campus this morning. There's two reasons they appear here - firstly, I thought maybe writing them down would make it easier to make more sense of them and secondly, I've been told to update my blog! So there we go...
Ok so I had a bit of a deep conversation with a friend of mine the other night, and we started talking a little bit about truth. It's one of those subjects I LOVE to talk about but at the same time, feel totally out of my depth when it comes to the logical/philosophical arguments surrounding truth...
But as I pondered it a bit more today these thoughts ran through my mind.
We live in a hyper-politically-correct culture, and as a product of such people are so afraid of offending each other that, in fact, I'm offended! People tell me "oh it's ok for you to believe that, I respect you, I understand, I totally think that's great for you....it's just not for me." They bend over backwards to make sure that I'm not offended by the fact that they don't believe the same thing as me. I've had a couple of these conversations recently and actually, what I really wish is that people would stop sugarcoating it and just tell me what they think. Tell me what they believe.
But this is the thing. We're offended by the concept of absolute truth. We're offended because in our hyper-politically-correct-don't-offend-anyone-but-respect-everyone's-views-to-the-extreme kinda culture we've created our own versions of truth, and we've said it's ok. We're not perfect (sorry if that offends you) and so our versions of truth aren't perfect either. By definition, in fact, a 'version' of the truth can never be perfect because it is not truth itself.
If we compare our version of truth to somebody else's, without first of all deciding that everyone is entitled to their own take on life and nobody's wrong, then we stand to be offended. And the thing is, we don't like to be offended. If somebody offends us, they suggest we're wrong. We don't like being wrong. If we're wrong, we're not perfect. We don't like not being perfect. If we're not perfect, then things won't always be great for us. We don't like that, because if things won't always be great, and we're not perfect, and we get things wrong then how do we make things right? If we can't make things right, does that mean there's someone who can? If someone can who are they? And if that someone exists, doesn't that mean we have to rely on them? But if we have to rely on them doesn't that mean we're not independent? And if we're not independent then that means we're not in control of our lives. And that's just plain unacceptable, isn't it...
And so, instead of the mental minefield that is the above thought process, we've cut ourselves off and created a way to avoid offence. But aren't we fooling ourselves? There's a difference between respecting someone/being polite and sensitive to their beliefs, and doing that to the point of refusing to stand for what you believe in.
Yes, we're fooling ourselves. Which is why when we compare our versions of truth to the perfect, shining absolute Truth, of course we'll be offended. That's why people are offended by the gospel. The gospel doesn't say "Ah, yes, interesting, I can see where you're coming from and I wholly understand your viewpoint, I'd just prefer to still do things my way, but you carry on, what you're doing obviously works for you, great!". The Gospel says, Jesus says, "I am THE way, THE truth and THE life." It says we're sinners. Ouch.
Yes, it offends me. When I stand myself next to Jesus I'm offended to the core of my being by my sin and imperfection and I don't want to look, I don't want to see myself for who I am and I'd much rather pretend that I can make my own way in life, with my own happy version of truth.
But here's the thing. Truth is SO much better than any muddled up version of it. Truth says that I'm a sinner, but it also says there's hope. Truth says that I can't do this on my own, that without God I'm nothing....but it also says that WITH Him I have everything I need.
The Bible is true. Jesus is Lord. This is absolute truth, I'm absolutely certain. No corrupted version of it will do.
Be offended. Be humbled. Be changed.
hehe sorry. Am I showing my age there?!
Ahem. Anyway...
It has been a while (could break into song again). Sorry bout that. Partly work, partly not having more than 6 hours time to myself in over a week. That's just crazy.
I had planned to live blog Hope 2006, RUCU's events week, but seeing as Ed didn't manage it either I don't feel so bad now...! ;-)
There will be many more thoughts on Hope 2006, and life in general, to follow, when this week is over and I have a weekend where I'm not booked up. Amazing!
For now, I had these thoughts running through my head as I walked to campus this morning. There's two reasons they appear here - firstly, I thought maybe writing them down would make it easier to make more sense of them and secondly, I've been told to update my blog! So there we go...
Ok so I had a bit of a deep conversation with a friend of mine the other night, and we started talking a little bit about truth. It's one of those subjects I LOVE to talk about but at the same time, feel totally out of my depth when it comes to the logical/philosophical arguments surrounding truth...
But as I pondered it a bit more today these thoughts ran through my mind.
We live in a hyper-politically-correct culture, and as a product of such people are so afraid of offending each other that, in fact, I'm offended! People tell me "oh it's ok for you to believe that, I respect you, I understand, I totally think that's great for you....it's just not for me." They bend over backwards to make sure that I'm not offended by the fact that they don't believe the same thing as me. I've had a couple of these conversations recently and actually, what I really wish is that people would stop sugarcoating it and just tell me what they think. Tell me what they believe.
But this is the thing. We're offended by the concept of absolute truth. We're offended because in our hyper-politically-correct-don't-offend-anyone-but-respect-everyone's-views-to-the-extreme kinda culture we've created our own versions of truth, and we've said it's ok. We're not perfect (sorry if that offends you) and so our versions of truth aren't perfect either. By definition, in fact, a 'version' of the truth can never be perfect because it is not truth itself.
If we compare our version of truth to somebody else's, without first of all deciding that everyone is entitled to their own take on life and nobody's wrong, then we stand to be offended. And the thing is, we don't like to be offended. If somebody offends us, they suggest we're wrong. We don't like being wrong. If we're wrong, we're not perfect. We don't like not being perfect. If we're not perfect, then things won't always be great for us. We don't like that, because if things won't always be great, and we're not perfect, and we get things wrong then how do we make things right? If we can't make things right, does that mean there's someone who can? If someone can who are they? And if that someone exists, doesn't that mean we have to rely on them? But if we have to rely on them doesn't that mean we're not independent? And if we're not independent then that means we're not in control of our lives. And that's just plain unacceptable, isn't it...
And so, instead of the mental minefield that is the above thought process, we've cut ourselves off and created a way to avoid offence. But aren't we fooling ourselves? There's a difference between respecting someone/being polite and sensitive to their beliefs, and doing that to the point of refusing to stand for what you believe in.
Yes, we're fooling ourselves. Which is why when we compare our versions of truth to the perfect, shining absolute Truth, of course we'll be offended. That's why people are offended by the gospel. The gospel doesn't say "Ah, yes, interesting, I can see where you're coming from and I wholly understand your viewpoint, I'd just prefer to still do things my way, but you carry on, what you're doing obviously works for you, great!". The Gospel says, Jesus says, "I am THE way, THE truth and THE life." It says we're sinners. Ouch.
Yes, it offends me. When I stand myself next to Jesus I'm offended to the core of my being by my sin and imperfection and I don't want to look, I don't want to see myself for who I am and I'd much rather pretend that I can make my own way in life, with my own happy version of truth.
But here's the thing. Truth is SO much better than any muddled up version of it. Truth says that I'm a sinner, but it also says there's hope. Truth says that I can't do this on my own, that without God I'm nothing....but it also says that WITH Him I have everything I need.
The Bible is true. Jesus is Lord. This is absolute truth, I'm absolutely certain. No corrupted version of it will do.
Be offended. Be humbled. Be changed.
posted by Welshie at 3:00 PM
3 Comments:
Man thats tremendous. We'd all rather hide from the light that shows up our sins (i know i would at least). But the truth is so much better! So real. And there's our hope. There's what makes everything worth it, that as horrible as facing up to our sin in, there's Jesus, ready to do everything He can do to save us from it, if only we'd let Him.
What an honour it is to worship God. To know that despite the way we feel on any given day that the Gospel is true, and the Cross changed everything.
Psalm 42:5.
"The historic good news of the gospel, right across the centuries, has always been concerned not only with excellent relationships and who God is and turning from that which is evil. But it has also been concerned to confess certain things as true. Human beings can know things, not with the certainty that belongs only to God, but with all kinds of degrees of certainty on which you base your life. The kinds of knowledge that are appropriate to human beings." DA Carson
DM
Awesome stuff Ceryn, tis quite challenging to think how we sugar-coat the truth sometimes. Was reminded recently how it's the truth that impacts people, because the holy spirit's moving when we speak it.
And your finishing statement rocked as it's such an encouragement! It's true that we're dirty sinners, but God promises hope as well!! Amazing stuff!
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