If you are thinking "The Office" right now... then good for you! But, this will likely go in a different direction then it does on that show.
I was thinking recently of the phenomenon that occurs when an "expert" says something. I don't read a ton of blogs, but I peruse some of the big ones every so often. And, I have found that many of them say the same things. Even more interesting is that normal people I meet who don't write blogs say the same things as the big important guys do. Sometimes, though, people just like to hear something from an expert, or an "unbiased" source (that just means not you :) in order to believe it.
I have been on both sides of this equation, as the "expert" and the "biased source". I have learned (at least) two things from my experience.
1. Truth is truth no matter who says it. If you can learn to listen for truth regardless of who is speaking, you will begin to discover more truth then you previously had. There are times when it pays to listen to people with proven track records (which is how you should define "expert"), but it also pays to listen to your co-worker who has watched your life for the last 5 years.
2. Truth is valuable even if I don't get credit for it. Don't you love those days when a new person enters into a conversation you have been having with a friend and says exactly what you have been saying for... years!, and the friend just "gets it" all of a sudden? I think we have all been there, and wanted to scream out, "That is exactly what I have been saying!" But, if I believe that Truth is more important than Me, then I am not so worried about who gets the credit for steering my friend in the right direction.
Jesus tells us that He is truth. The important thing is that He becomes known in this world. Whoever He chooses to reveal Himself through, and whoever gets the credit for making Him known... the most important thing is to keep Him as the most important thing.
2 comments:
My conflict has always been with the fact that I believe everyone is biased. The only way for one to not be biased is for one to speak truth inspired from scripture. The debate around sources of divine truth is a debate for another day. However, if it is not a divine truth it must be biased. The hard thing for me to get through is not knowing enough.
G. Rutledge
I suppose going from the angle that everyone is biased is probably safe... but it does not preclude them from speaking truth every so often :). It is one of those cool things about Creation... that God left His fingerprints all over the place, and even people who do not believe in Him stumble across them, and talk about it.
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