Friends,

I am currently reading Eugene Peterson’s newest spiritual theology Tell It Slant. Peterson is full of wisdom and his insight into Scripture is masterful. He has a way of cutting to the quick and laying out his argument with short, terse, and dead-on statements.You should read Eugene Peterson–a lot.

In the threads here, we often find ourselves in ‘conversations’ that devolve into ‘arguments.’ One person says something, another responds. Back and forth it goes. Someone is then called out and then they begin the justification of their statements. Threads are often derailed in this fashion. Peterson has fine words for this in commenting on Luke 10:25-37, and especially the scholar’s need to ‘justify himself’:

We feel the need for justification only when we sense that we are not quite in the right. Maybe there is more to life than orthodoxy. Self-justification is a verbal device for restoring the appearance of rightness without doing anything about the substance…We don’t like being thought bad or inadequate or stupid. (39)

Well, these are short thoughts, so that’s all I’ll give you. It’s just something to think about on your journey and in your conversations and in your interactions with those of Christ and those not.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Tags: Eugene Peterson, self-justification