I’ll admit it. I’m a lane-changer. If I’m going to only drive the speed limit, well I want to drive the speed limit. So, if someone is going slow, I’ll pass around him.
Well, this morning on the way to work, I came up behind a slow truck in my lane. When I went to switch, however, I discovered another car blocking me. “No problem,” I figured. “I’ll just let him pass me, then I’ll pass behind him.” But he neither moved ahead nor dropped behind. Now I was stuck, and going slow. I was very frustrated.
Well, he eventually did move along, so I pulled in behind him. Guess what his license plate said? “TRINITY.” A message for me about Your pace, Lord?
So as I continued driving along that road, it was a real freakshow. Construction, weird slow traffic, cops working on a signal. I switched lanes numerous times, always because of some new impediment. After the final switch, I looked up to notice something very unpleasant. The car in front of me after all of my effort? “TRINITY.”
So you’re saying the best I can do with all my effort is still just end up right where I would have been if I’d followed you all along, Lord?
Virtues of omission.
My wife and I just finished watching the first season of the TNT show Leverage on DVD, and we loved it. The premise is a superstar insurance fraud investigator whose own company refused to help save his son’s life who decides to organize a team of thieves to pick up where the law leaves off by running cons on people who abuse others.
Aside from being clever and funny, the concept of a group of misfit criminals who find themselves doing good only because a brilliant leader organizes them is a fascinating analogy for Christianity. But perhaps the thing I love most about it is that it’s clean. There is fighting, but rare bloodshed. There is only the mildest of language, and there’s virtually no sexuality at all.
In fact, in one episode, to portray the character of an addictive person, they showed him coming out of a strip club. And that’s the point. The scene was outside! They declined a gratuitous trip inside a strip club, something which most other shows are eager to include. So, kudos for a show that’s really trying to be better than its competitors.
Virtue is so often about what you omit.
Aside from being clever and funny, the concept of a group of misfit criminals who find themselves doing good only because a brilliant leader organizes them is a fascinating analogy for Christianity. But perhaps the thing I love most about it is that it’s clean. There is fighting, but rare bloodshed. There is only the mildest of language, and there’s virtually no sexuality at all.
In fact, in one episode, to portray the character of an addictive person, they showed him coming out of a strip club. And that’s the point. The scene was outside! They declined a gratuitous trip inside a strip club, something which most other shows are eager to include. So, kudos for a show that’s really trying to be better than its competitors.
Virtue is so often about what you omit.
True isn't enough.
Truth isn’t true just because it’s true.
This may seem silly, perhaps self-contradictory, but allow me to explain.
Whenever we speak, we are representing more than just propositional content. We are revealing God and His Nature. Because the Bible is true and Jesus calls Himself the Truth, honesty is an essential part of the Christian paradigm. However, truth can become a tool for evil in a variety of ways, most notably when it is used to hurt people rather than bless them.
For instance, when people are vicious in the way they wield true ideas, we call them “brutally honest,” a label which should immediately show a speaker’s ungodliness despite his statement’s non-falisty. As Richard J. Needham explained, “People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.” Thus truth without mercy actually becomes untrue.
But merciful truth can still fail the test of godliness by being weak or impotent. If God’s Word is both true and merciful, it is also abundantly powerful. In short, any expression which is not true, merciful, and powerful becomes false as a result. Achieving all three simultaneously is a terribly high standard, but then again, consider Whose Word we represent.
This may seem silly, perhaps self-contradictory, but allow me to explain.
Whenever we speak, we are representing more than just propositional content. We are revealing God and His Nature. Because the Bible is true and Jesus calls Himself the Truth, honesty is an essential part of the Christian paradigm. However, truth can become a tool for evil in a variety of ways, most notably when it is used to hurt people rather than bless them.
For instance, when people are vicious in the way they wield true ideas, we call them “brutally honest,” a label which should immediately show a speaker’s ungodliness despite his statement’s non-falisty. As Richard J. Needham explained, “People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.” Thus truth without mercy actually becomes untrue.
But merciful truth can still fail the test of godliness by being weak or impotent. If God’s Word is both true and merciful, it is also abundantly powerful. In short, any expression which is not true, merciful, and powerful becomes false as a result. Achieving all three simultaneously is a terribly high standard, but then again, consider Whose Word we represent.
On tests and cheating
This weekend, my pastor preached a sermon on honesty, during which he mentioned in passing that well over half of all high school students admit they would cheat on a test if it meant the difference between passing and failing. Of course I found this statistic extremely troubling. But it didn’t make me think so much about the pathetic state of our moral culture as much as about the structural defects of mass education.
See, in a setting where teachers know their students for only an hour a day and each class has 25-30 of them, the simple fact is that any student is almost a complete stranger to any teacher. This means that tests become ripe opportunities for cheating precisely because of the teacher-to-stranger ratio.
In the school in my house it is not like this. Because the teacher knows each of our students so intimately and interacts with them so intensively, she truly knows where each of them is educationally. She needn’t rely on a test, and the ability of her students to trick her is virtually zero. Even a tutor would be in virtually as confident a position as she is, if only because of the intimacy of the relationship.
When mom is the teacher, the teacher already knows how you’ll do on the test before you take it.
See, in a setting where teachers know their students for only an hour a day and each class has 25-30 of them, the simple fact is that any student is almost a complete stranger to any teacher. This means that tests become ripe opportunities for cheating precisely because of the teacher-to-stranger ratio.
In the school in my house it is not like this. Because the teacher knows each of our students so intimately and interacts with them so intensively, she truly knows where each of them is educationally. She needn’t rely on a test, and the ability of her students to trick her is virtually zero. Even a tutor would be in virtually as confident a position as she is, if only because of the intimacy of the relationship.
When mom is the teacher, the teacher already knows how you’ll do on the test before you take it.
The problem isn't where you think it is.
Sometimes, it’s the most subtle pieces of the Bible that have the most impact on us, if only we don’t miss them entirely. For instance, Matthew 28:16-17 says, “But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshipped Him, but some were doubtful.”
Some were doubtful?
These men had seen Him raised from the dead, touched him, eaten with Him, seen His miracles, and even worshipped Him. But some were doubtful? Whatever way you cut it, that’s exceedingly strange.
The point being made here in passing is that our problem is never a lack of evidence. These people had far more of it than we will ever have, and some were still doubtful.
And the only plausible explanation is that the heart wants what the heart wants: whether to believe or to doubt. Although we should encourage honest questions and strive to provide reasonable answers, we must never delude ourselves into believing that the difference between faith and doubt is primarily a matter of how much evidence we have.
Some were doubtful?
These men had seen Him raised from the dead, touched him, eaten with Him, seen His miracles, and even worshipped Him. But some were doubtful? Whatever way you cut it, that’s exceedingly strange.
The point being made here in passing is that our problem is never a lack of evidence. These people had far more of it than we will ever have, and some were still doubtful.
And the only plausible explanation is that the heart wants what the heart wants: whether to believe or to doubt. Although we should encourage honest questions and strive to provide reasonable answers, we must never delude ourselves into believing that the difference between faith and doubt is primarily a matter of how much evidence we have.
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