Christian Living

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Before I begin this note, I would like to ask you, as the reader, from this point on throughout the rest of this note, to keep your mind open to truths (might I add that truth is absolute, and unless you can prove something to be false either by flawless logic, by purely Biblical information, or by known fact (and I mean actual fact, not just something that you heard asserted as truth or fact), then you simply cannot rightfully disagree) that you may indeed be unaware of, and a mindset that might very well be different from your own, but that I assure you is rooted in nothing other than purely logical, Biblical, and factual standards.

There are a few things that I want to talk about in this note, but they all are in one way or another connected to each other, so for the sake of just getting to it, I will indeed do just that. I would assume that there are some of those who read my book “Poetry and Wisdom About Life, Love, and What Really Matters” who feel it inappropriate for me to quote myself as if I am someone “special.” Now, before I go any further, let me just point out that I am indeed someone “special.” We are all special in our own way. We all have unique qualities that make up who we are, at whatever point in our lives we are at. Having said that, let us now continue to move forward. To those who feel the way which I described above, I would like to bring to your attention a particular man, a man named Jesus. Now this man was clearly not an ordinary man. Nay, He was indeed God in the flesh. Now, since the vast majority of my friends on here are Christians, I do not feel the need to explain the life story of Jesus as we know it from the Bible. What I do wish to point out is this: One of the biggest issues people had with Jesus is that He spoke not on someone else’s authority (which was the norm during His time here on earth), but rather on His own authority. Now before I continue, let me go ahead and point out, for all of you who are reading this and thinking, “Hold up, did he just compare himself to Jesus?” Indeed, yes I did, but not at all in the divine sense, for clearly that would simply be foolish.

Jesus spoke on His own authority for several reasons, and yes, as previously stated, one of them was that He was God Himself. But what does that entail? Are there any characteristics in this situation (in which Jesus speaks on His own authority) that we can apply to us as humans. Indeed I truly believe there is. Let us briefly look at them.

Let us for the sake of time and repetition assume throughout the rest of this note that Jesus did indeed speak on His own authority because He was God.

First, Jesus spoke on His own authority because he knew that He was right. Now as humans, many of us in today’s world think it inappropriate to say that someone is right, or that someone else is wrong, but let me assure you that Jesus would without hesitation firmly and completely disagree with you. There are indeed things that we can know without a doubt to be true, such as 2+2=4, or that gravity, or what we call gravity, actually exists. It is not inappropriate to say that something which can be proven to be right is indeed right, and contrary to what most people today believe, everything, and I do mean everything, can be proven right or wrong in some form or fashion, at least from a Biblical world view. And, having pointed out that one can indeed be right, would it not be overwhelmingly inappropriate to disagree with, or get mad at someone who asserts something to be right? But herein lies a deeper issue, and that is that the person speaking, or writing, is asserting in and of themselves that they are right. To that I would simply say that if you have no actual evidence that they are, or might be, wrong, based on actual fact, then you simply have no right whatsoever to disagree with that person. This leads to the point of “doing your homework.” One cannot both truly be ignorant on a subject and at the same time make an assertion on or about that subject.

The second reason I wish to present that Jesus did indeed speak on His own authority is that He knew that He was intelligent. Now let’s say that someone with a PhD in Philosophy, such as Norman Geisler, made a statement about philosophy. You probably, as least not if you were in your right mind, would not tell him that he was wrong unless you had very sufficient evidence to show, and might I add prove, that he was indeed wrong. Now let’s look at another example. Let’s take someone who has an IQ that is around 130 (as I do), just 10 points shy of being classified as a genius by definition, who has done their research in all areas of which he speaks, who has a wealth of God given knowledge about life and a lot of other things, and who wishes to share it with others, but you only know of him as an ordinary person. Does that make him/her any less of an intelligent person? Does the fact that you do not know how intelligent they are take away from their actual intelligence? I would have to say absolutely not. We must remember that we do not know everything about everyone (I might also add that the people in Jesus’ day would have been very well advised to remember this as well), and we should not judge based on pure bias or speculation, and surely not out of ignorance. I must insert at this point that there is very much indeed a difference between our intelligence, however great it may be, and that of God’s, for His was and always will be completely flawless, which brings me to another point. Anyone, regardless of intelligence level, must be teachable, not to mention correctable. It is one thing to be confident, but quite another to maintain an assertion after being proved wrong. Assertions made through ignorance, after indeed having been proved ignorant, speaks volumes of one's character. If you assert something, and someone has legitimate (and I do emphasize legitimate, as in real, actual, and factual, and not just in their opinion or from their own personal view point.) evidence to prove that you are wrong, then you should, nay, you must, at least as a Christian, be open, willing, and determined, to change your assertion to fit the facts (let me also say that there is a right and a wrong way to go about proving someone wrong, but whatever the case, the responsibility of the one who has been proven wrong is still the same, and that is to “fit the facts.”).

The third reason I wish to present goes along with the other two (as I stated earlier, they all fit together in some way), and that is that Jesus knew what He was talking about. No one, and I mean no one, should be silenced simply because someone else “doesn’t want to hear it,” or “is offended,” especially when they are right. To those who think being offensive goes against Christianity I would say this, “TRUTH IS BY PURPOSE AND BY DEFINITION OFFENSIVE TO ALL NONTRUTHS.” I will put it this way, you would not, at least in good conscience, tell an electrician, who knew what he was talking about, that he was wrong, or that he has no right to tell you about electricity, and that he is simply showing off and stating that he is better than you, and that he is arrogant, for simply talking about something which he knows. Or for you military people out there, you would not tell an infantry CSM (Command Sergeant Major) that his battlefield strategy was wrong and that you aren’t going to listen because you don’t want to, unless he is truly and blatantly either acting out of selfishness with complete disregard for the other troops or he has missed something (which by the way should and more than likely would not ever happen at the rank of CSM, although they too are only human).

My point is simply this: too many people in this world do not have a broad enough view of reality. What I mean by that is that far too many of us as humans tend to look at life, and henceforth the things in that life, through a very narrow, and quite unrealistic lens. Now I am not referring to being narrow minded in terms of truth, for there is no other that is more narrow minded than truth indeed. What I am referring to is that most people seem to think that they know the truth and that everyone else does not, without being able to legitimately back up the assertions that they hold to be true. I will put it this way, everyone is a genius in his/her own mind. The problem with that is that it is simply and very obviously not true. Now let me say this as well, you do not need to be a genius to look at life in the right way and with the right perspective. There is only one person on the planet at any given time that is truly the smartest by measure of intelligence, which means that the odds of you being it are very, very slim. In other words, if you are not certain that you are that person, and you cannot prove such a claim, then you are indeed not that person. That is where humility comes in to the picture (another very prominent attribute of Jesus Christ). We must all, myself included, realize and hold dearly onto the fact that there are many, many things that we do not know. Even if you were the smartest person in the world, there would still be things that you did not know, books you have not read, perspectives you are not aware of (I am not at all saying that perspective can in any way altar truth, because surely it cannot). We must all learn and strive to be teachable, correctable, and humble, but only in the face of ACTUAL truth and no other.

Please feel free to check out my book "Poetry and Wisdom About Life, Love, and What Really Matters,"
which is for sale as of April 8,2010.

Just go to my website at trevorslone.com for details on how to purchase my book, or to learn more about me.

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