Opinions

We all have opinions, probably based and formed over many years in the furnace of life, and so they can become hardened, like any metal in the blacksmith’s hands as he forms red hot material and plunges the finished item into the cooling water. The metal is hardened, and I feel that is a good place to start with our opinions. They can become hardened.

I quite like open discussions, whether in person or online. Done properly, and with others who are open minded, it can be an informative and learning experience. The trouble is, we soon find that we are not all as open minded as we think we are. I know this will come as a surprise, but that includes me. Don’t you love it when the ‘open minded’ one suddenly shows clearly some of the ‘hardened’ characteristics which have been formed over the years? Then the line between ‘opinion’ and ‘fact’ becomes hazy and blurred.

Opinions are expressed everywhere, by everyone, and often. It will be in family circumstances, age, politics, and yes, even in faith circles. We all seem to get the lines blurry between where our opinion ends and truth starts, because we are passionate. Passion does not mean truth. Passion can be an opinion. I think this is where we get into trouble when we discuss our own firm beliefs with other people’s firm beliefs, and within the church family where ‘our’ opinion must be true because we have always done it this way. It worked in the past, so it must be truth! NO!! Truth is not an opinion, it is a person in the form of Jesus Christ, and His Word. So next time you and I have a strong, and possibly differing opinion, let’s measure them up against the only yardstick we can trust, and only then can we have some certainty that it can be trusted as dependable fact! I hope we can agree on that.

Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’. John 14:6 and ‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.’ John 17:17