The Rev. Tim Nunez once saved my life.... on my first day at the School of Theology he stood in front of me, looked me square in the eye, and said, "David, you're going to be alright, calm down, God is in control."
Now read what else he has to say.
The Essential Truth
(The Living Church 7/16/2007)
One summer my brother and I came home from a day at play in the neighborhood. Our mother asked us where we had been. “Outside,” we answered. That was true. We had been outside. But it was not the entire truth. What our mother knew, and we slowly came to realize she knew, was that among our adventures that day we’d done something wrong.
We had been playing with friends in a wooded lot when one of us decided that a downspout on a nearby house would make an excellent chimney. We collected some dry sticks and leaves and stuffed them into the bottom of the downspout.
Someone sneaked home to get matches. We proceeded to start a small fire in that downspout.I don’t remember if we actually got to see the smoke rise from the top. Fortunately, our little scheme didn’t work too well. We did not, in fact, burn down the house, although we very well could have. I don’t know who saw us. But, boy, were we in trouble.
The partial truth that we had, in fact, been outside fell far short of the whole truth. In doing so it was wrong, even a lie. Had it been told in the context of getting to the full truth, it would have been fine. “We were outside, playing with the other boys, we started a fire...”
This is why courts swear us in with, “Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” Do they still add, “So help you God?” Well, we can and should here.
This issue of partial truth is important in our faith. If we take a partial truth about God and/or Jesus Christ and either stop there or elevate it as the full truth, then we have just asserted the theological equivalent of “We were outside.” The church calls such incomplete truth heresy.
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