I want to be right. Who doesn't? In a debate you rarely see one side say "That was a great point that challenges my view and makes me rethink my position." It's laughable. No one does that. And in the age of the internet, the fight to be right can get downright ugly sometimes.
When being right is the goal, we leave casualties behind. We aren't sensitive to others viewpoints, opinions, or life experiences. We aren't interested in open dialogue because we're right and they're wrong and we want them to say we're right. Even if they don't think we're right, we'll just keep yelling louder and louder that we're right.
But as I reflect on 1 Corinthians 13 I can't help but wonder if being right shouldn't be our aim.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)
If this verse is true, nothing trumps love. Our knowledge, giving, faith, all mean nothing without love.
The great thing about the internet is everyone can communicate with everyone. The problem with the internet is everyone can communicate with everyone. And we're all trying to have the loudest voice or the bigger platform to communicate to the world about how right we are and how wrong they are. We fight to bridge this gap, eliminating us and them, only to create new us vs them parameters. I see people whose work I like take to twitter to speak out against fellow believers who are "wrong" only to see those fellow believers strike back. We defame and defraud people we've never met, never read their work, haven't talked to in the name of being right. Isn't the best way to speak truth into someone's life is to be in relationship with them? Isn't someone you know and who knows that you genuinely love them going to be more open to accepting truth and rebuke in their life than someone whose blog you skimmed and decided they were wrong?
In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul says we are one body with many parts. What if we could see those who we don't agree with or understand as a foot or a pinky finger? And what if we choose to walk in "the most excellent way" of love?
Paul closes 1 Corinthians by saying Faith, Hope, and Love will remain. Not our books, podcasts, blog posts, opinions, or knowledge, but faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.
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