May 14, 2010
Speak Up
I keep finding myself in situations where someone will make a statement that’s incorrect or misleading. I can remember similar situations when I was raising my children. If I speak up it’s like throwing cold water on the discussion, but if I keep quiet invariably someone will later say, ‘But you didn’t say anything. Why didn’t you weigh in or object at the time?’ When I do give my reality check people often think of me as a spoiler. “Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Cor 4:2 NIV)
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Gail;
-----Perception is everything. The more a person ponders the answer to the old question, “Who is to say what’s true,” the more this saying is confirmed. Truth resides in a situation, and it needs no man’s mind to be what it is. It is inherent in reality itself. The only person who can say the full truth about any situation is the person who knows every fact and circumstance of it and reasons about those facts and circumstances with strict obedience to the principles of logic. But few, if any, of us accurately know every fact and circumstance of any given situation. Most of the time we only have a sampling of them from which to draw our conclusions. And even if that sample is nearly complete regarding one situation, we probably have a more incomplete sample of the facts and circumstances about the various other situations that bear a significant effect upon the one at hand. Therefore the statements we make about ideas and situations generally extend less from exacting knowledge, and more from simple perception.
-----This is the first difficulty about correcting a perceived misstatement made by another. That misstatement may truly be due to the speaker’s error. But it also may be due to the listener’s failure to recognize the context from which the speaker presents the statement. Especially, in the worlds of religion and politics, simple statements can be true in one context, but entirely inaccurate in a different one. Moreover, due to the tremendous complexity of situations and ideas in all their interrelationships with other ones, and due to their own construction of intricate facts and circumstances, different minds are going to have different misconstructions about a topic, to one degree or another, simply because they each construe their perception from an incomplete and unique set of knowledge. This isn’t to say everyone has their own truth. Only the situation itself has the undeniable truth. It is to say that everyone has their own error.
-----But say we have carefully reasoned with complete enough knowledge to know the actual truth. Then we hear someone make a misstatement. The second difficulty is assessing the level of significance to which the misstatement may rise, and the proper time for correction. I have heard preachers make absolute misstatements from the pulpit. And some were significant ones. Most often, that is not a venue open to standing up, interrupting the sermon, and correcting the error (although a couple times I almost irresistibly felt the urge to do so.) In other situations, the dignity of what is being said overall is too important to afford the indignity of correcting what might be a minor supporting point. And yet, other times the error may rise to the level which demands correction, but for the social courtesy developed from the recognition of all of the above, no one will actually interject the correction.
-----Paul tells us we are to grow up into Christ in every way speaking the truth in love. Malachi 3:16 tells us God heeded and heard those who feared His name and who spoke to one another. Speaking the truth provides the urge to correct the actual errors we hear. “In love,” tempers the urge so the correction can be given in its proper time, place, and manner. And I believe God can make use of that.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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