Today’s Scripture Reading (June 11, 2016): Psalm 104
I have to admit that I struggle with the idea of truth. Maybe more to the point, I struggle with the idea that anyone has a corner on truth. That one group is obviously true while others must be totally false. In my world, people seem to expect me to see the world in black and white, but all I can really see in a lot of my world are shades of grey.
I also have to admit that it is the grey that I expect. It is the grey that seems right somehow. I mean, of we are right in our conviction, and I believe that we are, that the world was created by a single entity that we call – God, Jehovah, the Prime Mover, etc. – then truth must come from that being and that event. There are not some people who are created in truth while others are created in some sort of a lie. We are all created in truth. And if that belief is correct, then the truth should trickle down through all of creation.
And that is precisely what I see when I look at my world. Yes, there exist pockets where the truth seems stronger, although admittedly not always in the places where I might expect or want truth to reign. And there are places where truth seems almost absent, but I am not sure that there is any place that is absolutely true nor anyplace that is absolutely false. What we are left with is simply many varying shades of grey.
Within religious circles, and maybe especially within the “Abrahamic religions,” sometimes the effect of the grey is unexpectedly pronounced. We sometimes seem to work so hard at making our faith be the absolute truth while declaring other faiths to be absolutely false, and unfortunately in doing that we increase the grey (the false) in our own faith because we introduce absolutes into our thinking. I rejoice in the truth of God that I see in all faiths, but I find that I often stand alone in that kind of thinking.
No, I am not talking about the discovery of a universal faith. I am a Follower of Christ, I believe that the divinity and person of Christ are absolutely essential to my faith journey, and I also consider Jesus to be the essence of truth that the world needs, but I also see traces of this essential truth almost everywhere I look. And I think Paul did too. I love the story of Paul in Athens (Acts 17). It was in Athens that he found truth in the writings of a Stoic philosopher (Aratus), a semi-mythical philosopher and poet (Epimenides), and an altar built to an unknown god. But at no point does Paul try to minimize the truth he found in the other. His only goal as to lead them from their truth to the truth that he knew existed in Jesus.
This is the glory of the Lord. It is found in diverse places and a variety people. No one has all of the truth except for God, but God rejoices in all of his works – even works where truth exists only in minute quantities. But I want to learn to recognize that kind of truth, which has filtered down from the Creator and into all that he has created. And because truth continues to flow from him to us, I know that his glory will indeed endure forever.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 107
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