Ubiquity

Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings. – Proverbs 1:20-21

A man lived his entire life in one house. He was born, raised, and educated there. He ate all his meals inside and worked from his home. He was not agoraphobic, because he would work in the yard and would leave from time to time to go grocery shopping. But he was never gone for more than a few hours; never left the city limits; never traveled or vacationed.

When a friend asked why he never left his house, his astonishing reply was, “I never leave because I must have water.”

The friend, trying to understand, asked “Surely you can get water anywhere?”

“Oh no!” The man exclaimed. “Only the water from my kitchen faucet is pure.”

Obviously, we would think the man had developed some kind of mental defect and needed psychological counseling. But religious people are often just as crazy. We each believe that our religion is absolutely right and that everyone else’s is completely wrong.

Notice that I used the word religion. I did that very deliberately because God’s revealed Truth is very clear and absolutely correct. But the assumptions we develop about Him and about worship always have some degree of error.

I’m not spouting some kind of compromising pluralistic blather here - so, Christian, you can calm down. I absolutely believe the Master when He said, “I am THE Way, THE Truth and THE life.” I’m simply taking for granted that Solomon knew what he was talking about when he said that some wisdom can be found anywhere. Just because someone is wrong, maybe almost completely wrong, doesn’t mean that they haven’t discovered some piece of truth. Even if they are so completely off-track that they don’t have a single thought in common with reality, we can still learn from that, can’t we?

I have read the Koran very carefully. I have also read the Tao Te Ching, Kabbalah, Way of a Pilgrim, Tibetan Book of the Dead, Bhagavad Gita, Book of Mormon and even the Satanic Bible. Each said something that was true.

Without question, the ultimate standard must be God’s revealed truth – the Bible. It is spiritual super-food having everything we need in one place. The parts of these other religions that are wise are all parts that agree with the Scriptures. The wicked parts are all missing from the Bible’s message.

But when you encounter someone who believes differently, give them some credit for brains. Try to find areas where you can build bridges they can cross to meet you and hopefully, grow to love Christ. Like Paul, introduce them to the “unknown God.” Learn what you can, teach what you can, and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit. There’s a deep dark theological word for that concept. It’s called “humility.”