Musing 22

Building off of yesterday’s thoughts, one of the things I think one of the next Christian doctrines relevant to a discussion of our relationship with politics is that of “of whom much is given, must is required”.

While I certainly could write of how to apply many other doctrines here, I think this is oft overlooked, in part because there are so many points more immediately applicable but also because of how convicting it is.

We live in an age of unparalleled access to information and the wisdom of our forebears. Yet we seem to be hell-bent on either learning only to hone the worst elements of our forebears or twisting data to fit our conclusions regardless if the larger context supports it.

And so when go before the throne of God to give account, will we be people who demanded truth from our leaders, or will we be people who are satisfied with the half-truths of the party line on a given issue? Will we demand of ourselves that we handle the truth carefully and competently even when it means we need to change in the light of hard truths , or will we intentionally embrace lies?

Recognizing that God is a God of truth has a lot of depth to it, and so it is very easy to let this argument be a slippery slope to “one small slip off the path and you’ve completely lost the plot and are now the most terrible and horrible person”. Which isn’t the intention here.

Seeking to hold to the One who is true simply means that we recognize that all truth is God’s truth and that we are to live in light of truth and to reject lies. One of those truths is that because of sin we are imperfect in our understanding of the truth, our ability to ascertain the truth and our ability to introspect and call out where we have blind spots and so fail to challenge a lie we hold on to. The beautiful thing is that we are not alone in this fight. THe Holy Spirit has been given to us to help us navigate this world of deceit. And we have our brothers in the fellowship to lean on and help us see where we have ignored sin in our lives.

And so as we pursue the One who is True, let us not despair at our insufficiency, but rejoice that God is not just the God of Truth, but also a God of perfect love and in whom, perfect love casts out fear. Let not a fear of being wrong drive us away from pursuing truth because it’s hard. There may be much we have to lean on others to rightly ascertain. But we have been given much, and so we must expect to have much required of us.