Skip to main content

Contend for the faith

"Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.  For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." Jude 3-4

Suppose I have a friend Jill who told me she has a sister. I believe my friend since she has never lied to me. However, another friend of mine, Erin, insists that Jill does not have a sister. Since I have reason to believe that Jill is telling the truth, I have to disagree with Erin. While I respect that Erin has her own reason(s) to believe otherwise, I cannot - with honesty and integrity - agree with her.

The bottom line is, Jill either has a sister or she does not. Whichever it is, my friend Erin and I cannot both be right. There are various ways to find out and verify the truth. At the end of the day, the truth exists independently from what we believe. Whether Jill has a sister or not does not depend on what we believe.

Such is the case with God of the Bible. God is God. He is who He is. He has revealed Himself through His words (bible) and in nature so we could learn about Him, and we cannot just pick, choose, and make up who He is.  The problem I have with inclusiveness is that it contradicts the very nature of truth. Truth is exclusive. It is either true, or untrue. Jill either has a sister or she doesn't. If inclusiveness means saying everyone is right, i.e. both Jill and I are right, then inclusiveness is just non-sense. It is not acceptance, or love, or something to celebrate about. It's nothing more than throwing a blanket over the good, bad, and ugly and pretend they don't exist.

Perhaps one could argue that one does not believe a God exists to begin with. I respect that. However, s/he has other questions to answer to. Like how does one explain immaterial entities like love, goodness, and purpose?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WV Trilogy - Part 2

(If you haven't read Part 1, it's here .) (Sat) Oct 13 -  Sunrise at Spruce Knob 6 a.m. start in the dark. My legs surprised me by being happier than yesterday. My heart is in better place as well. The first 6.7 mile goes up to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. Part of this section was on fire road and I welcomed the faster miles. Steady progress was made in the first 20 miles or so until the long, long descent into Aid Station 3. As I have decided yesterday, I'd start the race, go from aid station to aid station, and re-evaluate my condition at each. I left Aid station 2 feeling good but then the long descent once again put doubts in my mind. Running reduced to little steps on jello-legs. Compression socks helped to contain the injury and pain, but the strength to support the pounding was still lacking. Soon, my knees started to hurt as well. At aid station 3, they told me I had 2:45 to make it to the next aid station before the cut-off. At the pace I...

New Year's resolution

Nine days into 2012 and a day before entering into a new age group is an opportune time to nail down some New Year's resolutions. 2011 was a good year, one that filled with transitions and norming --  be it moving from California to Charlotte, from being a student back to an architect, or starting fresh in a new territory to establishing roots and relationships. My new running and swimming communities had made the transition easy and welcoming, and partly because of that, much of my attention in the past year was on either sports, like running my first 50k and participating in my first swim meet. Having just graduated from seminary was probably the other half of the reason why I had been keeping a distance from structured studies / reading in 2011. With that said, my 2012 focus will be on balanced growth. While I still have a long list of goals in swimming and running, I need to make sure I allocate enough time and attention to spiritual and intellectual grow...

Blue Ridge Marathon

Bill Rodgers After reading so many people's blog on their experience of America's toughest road marathon, the Blue Ridge Marathon, I'm starting to lose my own chain of thought/memory. Bottom line is I had a lot of fun and surprised myself with a sub-4 finish. My estimate was around five hours, or maybe even 5:30 if condition was tough like last year's monsoon. Here's my account of it: Three and a half hour drive from Charlotte straight to packet pickup at Roanoke's Taubman Museum of Art, a modern and iconic building in contrast with the rest of the historical railroad downtown. It was Friday evening and the streets were lively. People were on the patio and on the street with live music playing. I strolled around a little but not too much since I wanted to save my legs. My hotel was only about a mile away. I contemplated on just walking there from the hotel, but ended up driving half a mile or so to park at the Civic Center. Half a mile could be a haul af...