Start with our agreement, primarily in the person and work of Jesus Christ, in our common relationship to God and to one another. When we start with our agreement we can recognize that most of our disagreements are insignificant compared to the greatness and immensity of our agreements.
(1) The Spirit guides us into Truth:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, bu whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16.13)
But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:9-16)
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 1:6)
“Truth without love is legalism; love without truth is libertarianism.” This has been my hope and prayer for me and my students – that we might speak the truth with a tear in our eyes, with a lump in our throat, but without a hole in our heads.
After reading it I thought a word about our blog title is in order. We seek the truth, and when we find it, we discover that it is a truth that loves. There are two traps the religious fall into. One is not liking or pursuing truth. Perhaps one refuses to think through what one believes and challenge it. The other trap, though, is to go crazy about truth and be proud about it. Real Christianity cuts a middle (narrow) path between these two ditches. It loves truth, and it loves to be questioned, researched, probed, debated, pursued. And the truth that it holds to is a truth that loves. It is a truth that moves us to help people, put others first and sacrifice for others in this world of six billion Me-Firsts (me too). I am too much aware of my shortcomings and selfishness in this regard, but incidentally, it is the truth of Jesus that motivates us to Ukraine.
