I listened to Steve Brown’s discourse titled “Truth with Tears.” He was my homiletics professor in the early 90’s and I have listened to him often since that time.  He has a heart and passion for God and has the gift to express it with winsome and persuasive words.  He has always caused me to muse over issues that other people seem to grasp without any effort. 

I listened to “Truth with Tears” yesterday afternoon.  I began my journey to discover the proximity of love to truth and mercy to reality.  First, I realize that one has to love to demonstrate mercy.  Mercy without love is a mere abstraction of, to use Steve’s words, “do-goodism”.   It is merely to satisfy the ego of pride.  I also realize that truth is not merely proximate to reality, but is necessary for ascending into reality.  So far easy stuff; now for the final exam.  How close is love and mercy to truth and reality?  Steve says, “truth without love is arrogance.”  True!  Now how does it all work out in real time and space?

Obviously my predicament arises from my understanding of concepts that are expressed with single words like love, mercy, truth and reality.   The dilemma is further complicated by the communication of these concepts.  I remember one my seminary professors telling me that he believed, the single most contributing factor for the lack of theological discussion is a lack of adequate personal vocabulary thus making communication skills difficult at the best.  (For clarification, love, truth, mercy, and reality are words that describe concepts.)  He went on to say that memorizing words was not the solution; it takes a mastery of the concepts described by those words.  Love, mercy, truth, and reality have a certain “isness” about them that ought to be expressed.  Listen to “Truth with Tears” and tell me what you think.  Now to muse a bit over my musing.

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/steve.mcgee3