wisdom like lightning...

I ran across this quote from Benjamin Franklin today, and it struck me how often I violate these simple principles:

The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said and to answer to the purpose. (1.)

I have often considered the art of conversation, and sometimes felt as though I were a hacker at it. While I am seldom at a loss for words, it is often the art of soliloquy that I embody. I have on more than one occasion found myself apologizing and recommending those objects of my verbosity with the misfortune to be standing around me to that support group for loved ones of preachers: On-and-onAnon. I was, honestly, convicted in every turn by Ben. Allow me to take him point by point:

To admire little, to hear much—which is to say I must not be enamored of my own thoughts and words nor necessarily of those around me simply because I may admire or respect them. It is easy for me to fall in love with my own ideas; but it is also easy for me to make the mistake of not thinking critically about the ideas of others in whom I invest high praise. The best prevention, as Franklin notes, is to listen before assessing, to get all the information possible.

Always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends—it is nearly impossible to see around our own paradigm, to escape our own worldview. And those with whom we share fellowship most readily are likely to be, at least in part, within that same paradigm. It is well that we let our friends speak into our lives, but we need to apply the same critical thinking to their ideas that we apply to strangers or mere acquaintances.

Never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can—one of my professors at seminary was an absolute master at this. I always walked away from a conversation with him feeling like he felt I was the smartest guy in the room. It was not that he was without wit; quite the contrary. But he was never concerned with making everybody else realize that he was brilliant and clever. He drew it out of everyone with whom he spoke. We were all giants with him. And in the process, he formed our minds and our theology. May I someday attain to such wit.

To harken to what is said and to answer to the purpose—how many times do I listen with half an ear while preparing in my mind what I am going to say next? More than I care to admit. Or, if I'm not thinking about what I will say, I'm thinking about how the other party could better have said what it was she is saying. Rude! I find that when I focus on the other person's words and do my best to understand the underlying thoughts of what he is saying, then give myself some space before responding, that conversations are much more meaningful and engaging.

For me, this boils down to St. Paul's letter to the Philippians: Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves [Philippians 2.3 ESV].
______________________

(1.) The_great_secret_of_succeeding_in_conversation_is. (n.d.). Columbia World of Quotations. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from Dictionary.com website:http://quotes.dictionary.com/The_great_secret_of_succeeding_in_conversation_is

why not?

One of my readers... or perhaps I should better say "my one reader"... asked me to blog an answer to a posting at aish.com entitled Why Jews Don't Believe in Jesus. I don't really see myself as an apologist, except insofar as we each of us need always to be "prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3.15). But as we interact with the culture around us, I think it is important that we understand the issues others might raise in contradiction to the truth of God. So, here is my thinking on the question.

First of all, the statement is a false generalization. While the argument could be made otherwise, a more honest name for the article might be: Why You Can't Believe in Jesus and Be a Jew. The subtle distinction here is one of dogmatic belief, to wit: "if you really were a Jew, or if you were a true Jew, you would not believe in such heresy." So, by argument, no true or real Jew believes Jesus is the Messiah. While this would be a more honest title, it still is false. We have historical evidence to the contrary.

Nick at Night...

First, in the Gospels, we have the stories of Nicodemus in the Gospel of John. And then we have the evidence of one of the great Pharisees of all time, Saul of Tarsus. Saul, by then known as Paul, gives his pedigree in Philippians 3, and also Acts 22. These two Pharisees, at minimum, prove that the generalization is false.

But there are also hundreds of thousands of Jews—one source says over a million—who have come to believe that Jesus, or Yeshua, to use the transliteration of His Hebrew name, is indeed the promised Messiah.

Even this, however, is not the linchpin of the argument against Jews believing in Jesus. The truth of the matter is that every one of Jesus' first disciples was a Jew. And this highlights a certain fact: there are very seldom any "pure" arguments for or against something. It is difficult to escape one's own paradigm and take a position based solely on dispassionate evidence. If I am setting out to prove that Jews don't believe in Jesus, I will likely fail to take into account evidence contradicting my premise. This is why it is vitally important that we listen to one another, and do not make our judgments in the vacuum of our own thoughts. And it is why Jesus told us, His disciples, not to meditate on what to say in defense of our position, but to trust the Holy Spirit to bring to mind what He would have us to say.

I expect that I will further fisk this article in future posts... stay tuned!