Love rejoices with the truth
1 Corinthians 13:6
Truth is a fundamental state. It can and does exist inside (and indeed outside) a vacuum. It is not reliant on your ascent to be brought into existence. It is self validating.
Because of this, we understand that the truth is not contextual. There is not a requirement on it for a variety of qualifying contexts to be present. It is true in any context. This also leads us to a realization that truth is not subject to relativity (the modal form, not the Einsteinian concept). It does not become more or less true in a given circumstance or a given application. In a time where relativity is almost a given (see – moral relativity) this can be a particularly difficult concept to settle at.
Understanding that the truth is not relative helps us navigate the reality that the truth is not beholden to a feeling, nor is it constructed from one. The expression “it feels true” particularly as a hedge against the awareness that even the most cursory of glances would reveal it to be patently untrue, is a falsehood.
It also leads us to this; All truth is fact but not all facts are truth. It is an observable fact is that the sky is blue, the truth is that the sky is without color, it is merely particle refraction of the sun’s lightwaves. A phrase like “the truth as I see it” is indeed a misnomer. They are the facts as you see them with an attempt to rationalize what underpins them. This is not an issue except that we would confuse the two.
The truth is not a skewer, nor a hammer, nor is it license.
The application of truth is nearly as important as the awareness of it. To be aware of the truth and to stumble in the application of it, robs the truth of its possibility. Not that it becomes any less true but it is beholden on us to deliver it carefully, lest we deafen the hearers ears to the truth with our carelessness. It is not license to say, whatever, whenever we choose.
If we attempt to beat people over the head with the truth, long and loud as a hammer, they become so bludgeoned by it they cannot hear it. And when we are so committed to “being right”, we skewer people on the truth, puncturing holes in them as we attempt to puncture their argument. People will guard themselves against this mistreatment making themselves near impenetrable. If that happens, we make our cause, the cause of love, approaching impossible.
Wisdom dictates love and truth in equal measure.
This then is the character of love and truth, church. They each stand independently strong but their application is better when they are applied jointly. For the cause of truth is love. And the cause of love is truth. Which is indeed why love rejoices with the truth . Let us be a people that rejoice in both love and truth. People who are given wholeheatedly to the truth and people that understand that there is a reason for the truth and love, to connect God and man.
Praying that the love of God is on you and in you
Stephen