In a lawsuit the first to speak seems right, until someone comes forward and cross-examines. – Proverbs 18:17

Today’s Scripture Reading (September 1, 2016): Proverbs 18

You have probably met them. People who believe that their world is the only world that exists. No one has experienced the things that they have experienced. And, of course, no one has ever suffered through the pain through which they have suffered. There is a phrase to describe this feeling – it is “the bias on the side of self.” I recently had a great conversation with a friend who leads an inner-city ministry. And even in this conversation, the bias quickly revealed itself. In the conversation, it was quickly revealed that my friend was sure that the only ministry that really mattered were the ones that dealt with the concerns of the inner city. Any other ministries could cease to exist, and the world would still be in good shape – as long as his survived. And his reasoning was solid. Of all of the Christian organizations, including churches, it is the inner city organizations that probably deal the most with questions of justice in our society. But what was missing in the conversation was that every ministry deals with people, and it is also often the more peripheral organizations that finance the drive for justice in the inner city. There exists a need for Christian organizations both inside and outside of the inner city.

I totally understand the “bias on the side of self.” It is our lives that we know the best, it is our world in which we walk, our problems that we see and our pain that we feel. As much as we talk about the need to walk in the shoes of the other, the reality is that that is a very hard task, because, while we can know some of the paths of the other, we can’t know it all. And we don’t know what the pain of the other really feels like. 

But if we exist in a vacuum, then the “bias on the side of self” works - because then there is no attempt to contradict it. It is only when we begin to hear the story of the other that we start to wonder about our own personal “bias on the side of self.” According to the author of Proverbs, this is just like a testimony in court. We can create a great testimony as long as no one is going to cross-examine us. But the purpose of the cross-examination is to pull at the threads of the story and see if it falls apart. If the story is right, the cross-examination won’t matter. But if there are loose threads, the cross-examination will result in the dissolving of the testimony we have created.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Proverbs 19