Love and truth seem to be like tea and coffee – you have one or the other, but not both. Let’s think about the possible combinations.
Truth – love = insensitive Perhaps you know someone who is free with their opinions but delivers them in an ugly way. They may well speak truth (and at lengthy detail) but they do it in a graceless way with respect to timing, audience, manner and purpose. Perhaps they are trying to ‘score’ a point against you, lack EQ or are unknowingly trying to bolster their insecurity with a ‘win’. This is ugly and never more so when it is religious truth. God’s cause is invariably harmed, not helped, when someone pushes their truth about God on us without love.
Love – truth = indulgent Others may go to the opposite possibility. This is the person who avoids certain topics, withholds their real views or presents a false view in an effort to make and keep peace. Perhaps this person craves acceptance or avoids conflict so much that it’s a case of peace at any price. Or perhaps they are repelled, or have been bullied, by graceless truth. Or maybe they have a mistaken idea of what tolerance means.
Whatever the roots, love without truth is bound to end in tears. A peace created without truth is apt to be short lived for truth invariably comes out. Again, if we start avoiding certain topics to preserve peace we may end up with nothing to talk about apart from the weather. Something else: is it really loving to suppress the truth that makes people free and whole?
Where do we go with this? Let’s go back to tea and coffee. Have you tried yinyong? It is a Hong Kong mix of tea and coffee that makes a delightful combination. Likewise, godly love and truth make a delightful combination.
Love + truth = inspired Consider these words: instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is Christ (Eph 4:15).
These words were written about relations between church members, but they apply more widely. Our personal integrity, our love for others and our love for God compel us to speak only truth, even if it is uncomfortable truth. However, those same forces should compel us to speak the truth in love as to audience, manner, intent and timing.
None shows us this better than Jesus. His dealings with people show a consistent combination of love and truth. Let us do the same and thus show ourselves to be children of he who came to bring ‘grace and truth’ from God (Jn 1:14).
Showing posts with label life skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life skills. Show all posts
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
MAKING ATTRIBUTIONS
Do you know this experience? You say or do something. Someone talks about your motives or purposes and you hear of their views. As you see it, they are wide of the mark, but then they and others go ahead to act and react on the basis of their mistaken ideas. Or, perhaps you are the one doing the talking about other’s motives and purposes.
It’s common to make attributions about the motives and purposes of others based on our ‘reading’ of their actions. However, do we test our attributions by with the person concerned? It’s surely their right to first tell us what their motives etc were. An untested attribution may be wide of the mark and quite dangerous when we act on it.
How do we feel when people make untested and wrong attributions about us? Most of us are annoyed – and rightly so. We wish the person had come to ask questions and listen to us before making their attributions.
Now let’s apply this to God. We sometimes use phrases like this: I can’t believe in a God who …. ; or, I know what the Bible says, but I think... . Do you see what we are doing? We are taking our ideas of God and attributing them back to him. Ultimately this is the idolatry of us making God after our own image instead of him making us after his own image (Gen 1:26-27).
Like all misattributions, this is insulting to the one of whom it is made and dangerous to the one making it. It also misreads God’s nature. God revealed himself to Moses by a Hebrew name YHWH which we render as ‘Yahweh’; ‘LORD’ or even ‘Jehovah’. It means ‘I am what I am’ (Ex 3:14). We don’t define God with our attributions, but he defines himself in his works and his words.
Do you notice something else about the attributions we make to God? We generally emphasise one aspect or another of God’s character and omit others. By contrast, God defines himself with multiple aspects that complement each other. For example, consider these words:
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but i who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Ex 34:6-7)
Let’s stop making untested attributions about other people and especially about God. Let’s instead listen as God tells us who he is and relate to him on his terms.
It’s common to make attributions about the motives and purposes of others based on our ‘reading’ of their actions. However, do we test our attributions by with the person concerned? It’s surely their right to first tell us what their motives etc were. An untested attribution may be wide of the mark and quite dangerous when we act on it.
How do we feel when people make untested and wrong attributions about us? Most of us are annoyed – and rightly so. We wish the person had come to ask questions and listen to us before making their attributions.
Now let’s apply this to God. We sometimes use phrases like this: I can’t believe in a God who …. ; or, I know what the Bible says, but I think... . Do you see what we are doing? We are taking our ideas of God and attributing them back to him. Ultimately this is the idolatry of us making God after our own image instead of him making us after his own image (Gen 1:26-27).
Like all misattributions, this is insulting to the one of whom it is made and dangerous to the one making it. It also misreads God’s nature. God revealed himself to Moses by a Hebrew name YHWH which we render as ‘Yahweh’; ‘LORD’ or even ‘Jehovah’. It means ‘I am what I am’ (Ex 3:14). We don’t define God with our attributions, but he defines himself in his works and his words.
Do you notice something else about the attributions we make to God? We generally emphasise one aspect or another of God’s character and omit others. By contrast, God defines himself with multiple aspects that complement each other. For example, consider these words:
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but i who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Ex 34:6-7)
Let’s stop making untested attributions about other people and especially about God. Let’s instead listen as God tells us who he is and relate to him on his terms.
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