There is nothing wrong with being right. In fact, everyone ought to always think they are right. You ought to live according to what you believe to be right until you are proven otherwise, and then you should live according to that right. Being right is not the problem; the problem is in assuming that being right is the ultimate good. Being right is NOT the ultimate good.
If being right is your ultimate good to you, it is because your self-worth is tied to it. To put it another way, your justification comes from being right. Any challenge to your position on an issue, is by its very nature a personal attack, because it undermines your security, your sense of self.
This can more dangerously apply on a religious level where you believe your justification before God is based on being right, having the right doctrine, displaying the right behavior. This belief undermines your sense security in your own salvation.
When you make being right the ultimate good, you create an idol of it; it becomes your god.
Therefore you live in service to the rightness of your position. You must defend it at all cost. It automatically divides you from others who disagree. The end result is pride and self- righteousness. See, if you are right, then I must be wrong, and if I am wrong, then you are better than I am. You, then, have the right to judge me, and perhaps even to punish me. The wrong must be converted, or cast out. In fact, You must judge and correct me. You cannot leave me in my error; my “salvation” depends on it, right?
One example of the problem would be political correctness. Nothing against being sensitive to what might offend others, but the extreme of political correctness comes with an air of disdain. Those who misspeak are not gently corrected; they are held up to public shame in an attempt to bring them to heel to the “right” way of speaking, or thinking. The individual who does not speak “right” is deemed unacceptable.
But this applies to any situation. If you are seriously considering what I‘ve said so far, look at any area of your life: politics, work, family. Why is it so important to be right?
Consider marriage. How long do you think my marriage would last if every time I was right, I insisted that my wife acknowledge that I am right. Anyone in a relationship can think of a time when they knew they were right about something and could not get the other person to admit it. But a marriage does not depend on a strict adherence to truth in all its forms. There are other things that are more important.
In a marriage specifically, you learn when to let it go. If you haven’t learned that; you should. There’s a concept called, “making the perfect the enemy of the good.” I see couples fight in this way all too often. They squabble over minor matters as though they are willing to sacrifice the entire relationship if they don’t get their way about squeezing the toothpaste in the middle. If this is you, step back and look at the relationship as a whole. If it is a good relationship on the whole, you should let this one go.
But so far, this has been predicated on the assumption that you are right. But what if you’re actually wrong? Never mind that damage that occurs when your insistence on being right is out of proportion with the importance of the issue. Imagine the damage that occurs when you are knowingly or unknowingly defending a position that is actually wrong.
The energy you must expend in order to avoid admitting that you were wrong is debilitating. But you can’t admit you were wrong; that undermines your place in the hierarchy. It is humiliating. If you don't know you are wrong, your insistence undermines your credibility. Imagine how you look to those who know better. Will the ever listen to you again? Or imagine the damage done to those who fall under your sway. Be right, or be humble. Be both.
But the bottom line is the ultimate good is not being right. The ultimate good is love.
Tune in next week to find out the difference.
I think the ultimate good is love balanced with Truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, the Truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except by me." When Jesus publicly condemned the Pharisees calling them whitewashed tombs, dead men's bones, was this unloving? Out of love we tell our children not to touch the hot oven. We should do the same for each other when it comes to spiritual matters. No?
ReplyDeleteI should have published this quote to explain my point more succinclty: “Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.”
ReplyDelete― Warren W. Wiersbe
JIm,
ReplyDeleteIn part two, I debated whether to write about balance, or something else and I chose the other thing, but since you bring it up...
I think I have a philosophical prejudice against "balance." It always seems to me that a deeper look leads to another answer. Maybe this is what people mean by balance, but it seems to come down to the relationship between the two things. My observation is that when people tell me to balance two things, they never say what that balance is, which is never 50-50.
So, I ask myself, what is the relationship between love and truth? I looked at the end of your quote and I realized something. When he says "love without truth is hypocrisy," he could just as easily say, "Love without truth isn't love." In fact, I think you can have truth without love, but you can't have love without truth. So, it's not a matter of balancing them, but how they interact.
The first problem I think comes when we don't specifically define our terms. What is love? I'll propose this definition: Love is the commitment toward the best interests of another. If I love you, I want what is best for you and will dedicate myself to that end. Can I do that by lying to you? If we also accept that "the truth will set you free," how can we think lies and falsehood benefit our loved ones?
I think of raising children. We don't lie to them in their best interest. Our little lies are in our best interest, because it is easier, or quicker, or more comfortable for us, the parent. One way the lies usually come back to haunt us is that when they find out the truth it undermines our credibility.
When you love someone, you want them to be the best person they can be. Without truth, they can't be. I may not tell you everything I think at every moment, but my commitment to you will lead me to tell you the truth I think will help you get there. So, I guess the relationship is more how we tell the truth: in the context of love.
I'm going to just throw out another thought: perhaps, truth is a tool. Truth is not our goal, just like being right is not our goal. Our goal is God, spiritually, and the best interests of others, on Earth. So, could truth be an indispensable tool for that purpose, in service of that goal?
Truth is absolutely our goal Alan. Jesus said that the Truth is what sets us free and Jesus also said that he IS Truth. The dogmatic approach "Our religion is right, and everybody else is wrong" is not accepted in our world of Postmodernism that has taken away the concept of absolute truth and sees dogma as arrogance. Diversity, pluralism and tolerance are the goal, not truth. We just witnessed firsthand that our culture does not even care if the candidates battling out for political office lies, that really just doesn’t matter anymore. But Christianity is absolutely exclusive and for that reason our faith is being assaulted in America because we believe in absolute truth. The goal of Postmodernism is acceptance no matter what (the "COEXIST" sticker). This bad philosophy has not only crept into our culture but has also affected the church and in an effort to “make peace” we have downplayed doctrine because well - let's face it doctrine many times divides us. But this approach does not line up with the text of scripture. The church is the Bride of Christ and She must be pure and protected from deception and the encroachment of Satan. Distinguishing truth from error is essential. Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 says "we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God". In Luke 20:45-47 we see Jesus publically rebuking the false teachers, again in John 8. 2 Peter 2 is an entire chapter dedicated to false teachers who introduce "destructive heresies". Paul in Acts 20 calls the false teachers "savage wolves who will not spare the flock". Any idea of philosophy, religion, theology, psychology, really anything that is contrary to the true knowledge of God must be confronted. If we do not confront, those people who have been deceived will die captive to that lie. Jesus said in John 8, “Because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.” We do speak the truth, but they don’t believe, and many times hate our message (Matt 10.22). Our “rightness” comes only from the complete truth that is the Word of God which we must be diligent to handle properly, but at the same time not be ashamed to proclaim as absolute truth (2 Tim 2:15).
ReplyDeletePete,
ReplyDeleteThere will be more people in heaven with errors in their doctrine than there are people in heaven without love.
I still think truth in and of itself is not our goal. Think about this, which truth? Any truth? All truth? Truth itself? When you say that it is our goal, what are you really talking about? Even theologians categorize doctrine into essentials and areas where some disagreement is possible. You might need to be specific on what you think is non-negotiable. The way you write this suggests that we must defend any and all truth.
Perhaps this example will illustrate how why priorities matter: Jesus himself was wrongly accused, tried, convicted, sentenced and executed in what can only be described as a travesty of justice. I have been taught, but can't even detail all of the ways in which what happened to him was unfair. If his ultimate goal was truth, he would have defended himself. But he didn't; he bore the injustice without offering a defense, because he had another goal. He was not defending truth, because his goal was to save people. For love, he bore lies. I never said truth was unimportant, just not ultimate.
But also note that, in my theory, the two are not in conflict. I said, “You cannot have love without truth.”
Another problem I have with making truth the ultimate is our human limitations. Remember: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
You and I can both believe in an absolute truth, and not agree on what that truth is. This can (and does) happen within groups, even Bible believing, born again types. No two people have exactly the same doctrine in their heads. Even when they say the same words, it does not guarantee that they mean the same thing.
So my concern is that if we make correct doctrine the be all and end all, we sow the seeds of division unnecessarily. I’m sure you would agree that you and I do not have to agree on everything.
Paul has a whole section in Romans about this where he talks about how to deal with the weaker brother. In that section he says, "Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters" (Romans 14). The "disputable matters" he goes on to talk about were pretty serious at the time.
Even the Peacemaker series, "Resolving Everyday Conflicts," says to put relationships over positions. Consider this: If you love on someone, they might be willing to hear the truth. If you hear second hand that someone is making a huge life mistake, and you go to that person and “correct” them, their response will be, “Who the heck are you?” But if you have established that you love someone (you're committed to their best interests), they might actually listen to what you have to say.
May I also point out that all of the verses you use are internal to the church. The matter is different for those outside the church. The order of operations is not truth first, then relationship. It is relationship first. “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” (John 16:13) You don’t have to know a lot, you just have to know Him. Know Him first (relationship), then He will lead you into truth.
We have to define what truth is. The Bible alone is the revealed Word of the living God, and it is the only source of certain truth (spiritually), and we affirm it to be without error. The truth that is contained within convicts us of sin, it warns us about judgment, it saves sinners, it purifies us, and it gives the hope of heaven and promises eternal life with God. Because God’s Word is the revelation of God, it is the priority for every believer to point people to this truth, and when necessary stand up and defend this truth which is God’s Word. The Bible and these truths will always be attacked by Satan. There is a trend in some main line denominations that are questioning doctrinal beliefs that have stood for many centuries. They are softening and changing their theology to better align themselves with the culture. It’s the idea of “give people what they want” and they let the culture define instead of God’s Word. The result is 2 Timothy 4:3-4 playing out “for there will come a time when people will not put up with sound doctrine”. This movement makes claims like “I am too humble to say that I know 100% for sure what the Bible actually means”. They see this as humility and a noble thing, but all this does is rob the absolute authority of God’s Word. It is a big issue because if you take away the Bible’s authority then basically every doctrine is up for “discussion”. The Bible though is not ambiguous, it is very clear, it is not a puzzle, there are no secret codes, it is not mystical, it is the truth of God that has been clearly revealed to us. It’s message is rejected because it conflicts with culture and it challenges lifestyles and social views. Canada and Sweeden have already outlawed publically preaching Romans chapter 1 as it has been deemed “hate speech”, pastors have been arrested. To avoid such controversy here we see churches just avoid difficult passages altogether so we do not offend and we “embrace the culture”. They preach all good news, no bad news – but this is an incomplete gospel. Paul said “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ”, but today many Christians are ashamed and so they have replaced right and wrong with “we really aren’t sure”. I will admit that there are some passages that can be harder to understand than others, but scripture calls us to study and understand these things (2 Tim 2:15). This is where the gift of the Holy Spirit comes in and guides us. He alone can bring clarity and certainty when we read God’s Word and He is the one who enlightens the eyes to the truth contained within the pages of Scripture. To say that scripture is ambiguous and the complete and true message of God’s Word is somehow unattainable and impossible to achieve is really a statement that denies the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit which helps us discern the truth of God’s Word from heretical teachings. Our job is to declare truth and let the Holy Spirit do His work. He calls and convicts and those who hear & respond can enter into relationship with God. But it all starts with the unbeliever hearing the Truth of the gospel.
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