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Truth is relative!
4 commentsin: Living in exile..29/10/07, 01:48:50 PM
I believe that truth is relative! In many Christian circles, making a statement like this would be considered false teaching. However, before you start gathering a ‘burn the heretic’ mob against me, let me explain what I mean. I come from a Christianity that puts all its value in things that don`t seem tangible. The focus is on getting to heaven, learning theological statements about God, or the pursuit of knowing God through participating in church worship services. But as I said in a previous post, I never learned how to live. Somehow the truth that I learned didn`t translate well into everyday life. God was in one box and the rest of my life seemed void of God. This disconnect led me to search for God in life itself. God shows different parts of Himself through different circumstances. Truth is intimately tied to experience. When I say that ‘truth is relative,’ I don`t mean that there is a different truth for each person, but that there is truth for each season.
The third chapter of Ecclesiastes goes along these lines. There, it talks about the complementary seasons of life. On one hand, as humans, we experience seasons that we would call ‘good times.’ On the other hand, we also endure times of great difficulty and trial. The writer of Ecclesiastes so poetically describes how there is a time to live and a time to die; a time for love and a time for hate; a time for peace and a time for war; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to build and a time to break down; and the list continues like this at length. After this detailed description of the contrasting ups and downs of life, the writer pens these remarkable words: Everything is beautiful in its time. There is beauty in every season of life. There is something to know about God in each experience, whether we perceive that experience as good or bad. If we can learn how to acknowledge the beauty in every season that we find ourselves in, we would be learning a secret to life. There is truth that belongs to suffering and other truth that belongs to prosperity. There is truth to embrace when you loose someone you love and other truth to guide you when you are succeeding. In this way, truth is relative to the season that you are in.
The problem occurs when people pull truth out of its context and try to apply it to a different context. The beauty to be seen in the valley is much different than the beauty in the mountains. Where are you? What season are you in? This is a critical question in knowing what truth is most important for you to know right now!
Knowing the season that you are in brings peace and understanding. I hope my blog posts this week can be helpful to you. I have a good feeling that many of you are in a similar season. Perhaps the things that I`m learning about this season I call ‘the exile,’ will bring clarity to some of you. Let`s begin to talk about it tomorrow. Please stay tuned.
Comments
“There are millions of Christians all over the world doing the corporate thing on Sundays and then also through their daily lives. Why are you so hard on those of us that enjoy it? You must really be hurt by the body! Who hasn't? I think that both should be done. Maybe after you get healed you'll return and be part of all of us again. The eye needs the foot and the foot the eye. We are all the body of Christ and we need you in order for us to be complete. Are you going to give your children an opportunity to decide what form of church they choose or are you also going to cloud their eyes twoards all of us that enjoy the corporate worship. „
“Joe,
I have very good friends who go to church. It's easy for you to disqualify what I'm saying by putting me in the category of "he's hurt and bitter." Once in a while I get some one who leaves a comment like you just left. Every time, it's a person who hasn't read my book and they think they know what I'm all about. You are missing the message of what I'm saying only because you are too busy defending something you think I'm attacking. I'm on a real honest journey. I'm past feeling hurt. I'm not there anymore. I am where I am today because God has led me here, and I will continue to follow Him. I don't condone being out of fellowship with other believers and if you would have read my book, you would have known that.
There is no need to bring my children into this. I could ask the same question of you, if you are clouding your children's eyes with your form of church? Where exactly is this all going? This feels like one of those poisonous aspects of institutional church that I've detoxed from, this constant need to judge others and fight over all kinds of issues. I'm not picking any fights here. This is a real journey for me. I'm asking important questions for my own spiritual health and walk with God. Well, enough of all this.
There are plenty of other blogs out there to help you feel good about organized church. Perhaps, this is not the right one for you.„
“I'd just like to follow up on your comments also Joe and perhaps I'll preface them by saying that I have no relationship with Paul apart from occasionally reading his blog.
There are literally millions of people who have an authentic and ongoing relationship with God who have decided that an institutional framework for expressing their faith is not for them. My wife and I have been in that category for some 2 years now. Our reasons for leaving were not based on hurt of or any sort of disagreement but on exploring a faith that works for us. We are still very much a part of the church but just not part of anything that has a name to it. Does that make us better than anyone else? Definitely not. Does that make us any less than those who decide to stay? I don't think so.
In making the move I have a 20 year old daughter who continues to donate 1/2 her time to the church that she attends and loves most things about the body of believers that she lives relationally with. I have a 16 year old daughter who has decided that approach is not for her and is exploring authentic relationships outside of any religious framework. For her attending the very same church just didn't work and was full of contradictions.
I would encourage you to enjoy all of the expressions of faith that people have as they work out their relationship with God and each other.
„
“Hmm... well, I do know Paul, and he's just not a bitter man. He comes across as a man vibrantly in love with Jesus, honest in his relationships with both Him, and with others.
Like Paul, I'm also outsidse of institutional Christianity. I was once very much IN it -- my husband was trained in seminary, and we were a "clergy family" ... I saw the system from the inside-out, and I could no longer pretend that the Emporer is wearing clothing...
Sure, I was hurt - who hasn't been? And, conversely, who hasn't been an insitgator of hurting others? We humans do that. I've also been hurt by others in a simple/home church setting. People are people, and we bring our junk into living rooms as easily as into sanctuaries.
But it's plain ol' small-minded to dismiss all of us who Jesus has led outside of the system, as "wounded". Yeah, we got wounded, but He wouldn't let us nurse those wounds too long before He convicted us to forgive, and move on. We were in the middle of a search for a "healthy church home", when He called us to open our own home, & He drew in others, to be like an extended family to one another.
Read Paul's book. Find out what the guy is saying before you go and dismiss him. There are a lot of good books out there -- don't be afraid to read them either. And, don't be afraid to ask questions, rather than making assumptions.
Blessings to you and yours on your journey ever more toward Him..!
"The unanswered questions aren't nearly as dangerous as the unquestioned answers."„