Opus 2025-453: So Few Gurus

There have been three people that I can think of that I used to be able to take at face value.  I could listen to what they said, fill out my deposit slip, and take it to the bank.  It was very helpful to know that other people had done their homework and thought issues through.

Today as I sit and contemplate life, two of those voices have been silenced.  Rush died several years ago.  I always believe that if he said something, then he had done his due diligence and what he said would be true.  It was always possible that I might disagree with his interpretation, but even that was a rare event.  Then they took Charlie.  I hadn’t listened to him as much as I listened to Rush, but I had the same feeling of incorruptibility.  He did his research.  He consulted the information on both sides.  He knew the biblical truth and he came to conclusions.  The third person is still alive and I’m still listening, but I’m noticing that age is taking its toll.  Memory isn’t what it used to be.  Discernment is being watered down.  He still is a fountain of information, and I listen.  It’s just that I can’t accept everything as being well thought out.

So I am forced back to doing my own research.  I always did it to a degree anyway, but there’s a point where you can’t research everything.  There’s a point where you have to take people’s word for things that you don’t have time to track through the weeds.  Those trustworthy voices are getting scarce.  I’m already finding that in my understanding of the Bible more and more of what I thought I believed is tradition and the Bible is very clear that those traditions are not dead center.  So I am having a great time researching different things, seeing verses that had skipped my attention before, rejoicing in the fact that God is still leading me and that I am still growing.

When it comes to other areas, politics, economics, science, and such I have to take other people‘s words for it.  I recently reread a book by a guy named Kuhn who talked about the development of science and the keyword he had was “paradigm”.  It was my second reading.  It had a lot of great ideas in it.  Ultimately, though, he dealt into things that were beyond my current understanding, and I’m not willing to spend the time trying to research it.  I run into this more and more.

As my ignorance quotient ratchets higher I find that knowing the basics is always more important.  If I know the basics of biblical truth, and what God has already made clear it puts me in a position to have an effective baloney meter.  So I keep reading, contemplating, praying and trusting that God will make me an effective servant.  The same sense of seeking overflows into other disciplines and make growth almost a guarantee if we keep thinking.

May today bring something new into your world.

homo unius libri