Episode 52: Embodying Truth: The Relationship Between Big T and Little T
Engaging with the complexities of truth is the central theme of this episode of the Outpost podcast, hosted by Dr. Ray Mitsch. Through a thoughtful exploration of 'Big T truth' and 'Little T truth', Dr. Mitsch invites listeners to reflect on the ways in which these concepts intersect and influence our lives. Big T truth encompasses the enduring, universal principles found within scripture, which serve as a foundation for understanding divine reality. Little T truth, on the other hand, addresses the personal, often subjective experiences that shape our individual perspectives and emotional landscapes.
Dr. Mitsch's insights are particularly poignant as he draws upon his personal experiences to illustrate the significance of both forms of truth. He articulates that while Big T truth provides essential guidance and stability, Little T truth enables deeper connections among people by acknowledging the emotional and psychological realities they face. This episode is a call for listeners to engage with both truths, recognizing that they are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary in fostering authentic relationships.
Moreover, the podcast addresses the common tendency to apply Big T truths inappropriately to Little T experiences, often leading to disconnection and misunderstanding. Dr. Mitsch cautions against this pitfall and emphasizes the importance of listening and connecting with others before offering doctrinal corrections. By navigating the delicate balance between these two truths, listeners are encouraged to cultivate a community rooted in empathy and understanding, ultimately leading to a more enriching spiritual life.
Takeaways:
- In our discourse, it is imperative to differentiate between Big T truth, which encompasses universal and absolute principles, and little T truth, which reflects individual experiences and perceptions.
- Big T truth serves as an anchor in our lives, providing a solid foundation based on biblical teachings and the intrinsic nature of reality as understood through faith.
- Conversely, little T truth connects us with others by acknowledging their unique experiences, emotions, and struggles, fostering a deeper relational understanding.
- The intersection of Big T and little T truth is essential for authentic interactions, allowing for both correction and comfort in our relationships with others.
- An ill-timed assertion of truth can feel like a weapon, while a well-timed expression of truth offers life, hope, and encouragement to those we engage with.
- Ultimately, to embody faith effectively, we must prioritize connection over correction, ensuring that truth is conveyed within a context of understanding and compassion.
Links referenced in this episode:
- SGI-net.org
- instagram.com/@sgi_international
- facebook.com/StainedGlassInternational
- linkedin/stainedglassinternational
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Hello, everyone.
Speaker A:Welcome to another edition of the Outpost podcast.
Speaker A:I am Dr.
Speaker A:Ray Mitch, your host.
Speaker A:Thanks so much for joining me.
Speaker A:And you are joining me for a, what I want to say a memorable episode.
Speaker A:It's episode 52, which would be equivalent of having done this for a year.
Speaker A:We're trying to do this every week and that would put us there.
Speaker A:So what you're joining is the Outpost.
Speaker A:It's a digital place where we're trying to build bridges back to faith for people that are struggling to figure out where they're going to go or what they're thinking about in terms of is this as good as it gets or is there something else to living life and all that goes into it?
Speaker A:So there's a good bit of that and then also strengthening the bridges, that of faith that are built on four different pillars.
Speaker A:One is authenticity.
Speaker A:Being people that can be seen and known as they are.
Speaker A:Trust and not controlling behavior and controlling others and controlling people's appearance or my appearance, and controlling other people's perceptions of those things.
Speaker A:And grace and understanding what grace is.
Speaker A:It's not a past, it's not leniency.
Speaker A:It's nothing like that.
Speaker A:If anything, it empowers me to do far greater things than I could imagine because I'm getting something I am not getting something I deserve.
Speaker A:And I am getting a power and a acceptance that I oftentimes don't ever experience.
Speaker A:And then finally, some kind of commitment to intimacy.
Speaker A:Being known and knowing others is a big part of it.
Speaker A:I will say up front that in a lot of cases I have been slow to the party in a lot of these things.
Speaker A:I'm talking about things that I am still learning.
Speaker A:I have been down the road a good bit and there's plenty I have observed and seen and there's a lot about these podcasts that give me an opportunity to reflect and maybe help you, the listener, miss some potholes that I have fallen into or mistaken ways of thinking and framing the world and how things work.
Speaker A:And so what I want to do as a result of this podcast is somehow create a space where the doubters and the wounded and the confused and the beat up and beat down, the bent and bruised who feel like their lives are a disappointment to God, can feel accepted enough to know and be known and know others.
Speaker A:And it's going to be a place where we embody the truth rather than always speaking the truth.
Speaker A:I am often reminded I think this is attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi.
Speaker A:I don't know that if it's actually him.
Speaker A:You know how those things tend to go, right?
Speaker A:We quote somebody as having said something and it turns out that it's not them, but it's been passed down amongst enough speakers that you just assume it to be true.
Speaker A:But anyway, that's not what I was talking about.
Speaker A:But I'm reminded of the quote that is attributed to him that says evangelize to everyone and when necessary use words.
Speaker A:And we get so addicted and concerned about the words that we use and them having the power enough to stand in the gap actually for our willingness or unwillingness to actually be in relationship with someone.
Speaker A:Because me using words is in a lot of cases a distancing technique rather than a drawing close technique, if you want to use or talk about it that way.
Speaker A:So we want to be people that embody the truth and are winsome enough that Jesus would want to know more about why we are the way we are and who it is that we're patterning our lives off of.
Speaker A:And who, who are we aligning our hearts with?
Speaker A:Because we will align our hearts somewhere.
Speaker A:We always do.
Speaker A:It's not a matter of not ever aligning anything.
Speaker A:Ultimately we can look at things and make a conclusion about what we actually align our hearts to by looking at our schedule or how we spend our time or how we spend our money.
Speaker A:So with that, pull up a chair, get comfortable, relax, hopefully I can talk about the things that matter to you.
Speaker A:They matter.
Speaker A:Not that the.
Speaker A:The world revolves around me.
Speaker A:I know for sure that it doesn't.
Speaker A:I am reminded of that on a regular basis.
Speaker A:But it is talk about things that matter to living to relating to others, but also looking or reexamining our relationship with Jesus himself.
Speaker A:And so last week, or last two weeks ago or whenever it was, I did that.
Speaker A:The last episode I had started walking into a two part, two or three part series about the comfort of shame and how we get trapped within it and how much it's like the Matrix and we're in it, but we don't even know that we're in it and we're enslaved the way we are.
Speaker A:But I want to take, I want to go off road for a second from there and I'll come back to it.
Speaker A:I know nobody is sitting on the edge of their seat waiting for me to go on with that one.
Speaker A:So let me go off road for a second and talk a little bit about truth.
Speaker A:And the reason I'm doing that is partly because of.
Speaker A:I just this past Friday was talking to a men's ministry at ccu.
Speaker A:So it was all young men and, and I was talking about truth.
Speaker A:And what I began to realize is that we handle truth pretty loosely and we really haven't thought deeply enough about what I might call different kinds of truth.
Speaker A:Now, don't get me wrong, it's too easy to jump to conclusions and, and think that I'm somehow watering down truth, and I'm not.
Speaker A:But at the same time, I think it's important to make a useful distinction in the way that we handle truth, because we pound the table all the time about truth and how important it is and how absolute it is.
Speaker A:And it is, you know, it guides us through life, the truth that we discover in scripture, the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of the variety of biblical writers.
Speaker A:But what I want to do is just out of convenience.
Speaker A:It is not absolute.
Speaker A:It is just out of convenience to try to make a point.
Speaker A:And that is to think of truth as really being two different kinds of truth.
Speaker A:And the way that I'm going to suggest that we think about it tonight is Big T truth and Little T truth and Big T truth is the stuff that we often will spout.
Speaker A:And it is basic biblical principles.
Speaker A:It is doctrinal purity.
Speaker A:It is the body of knowledge that we hold true about God and us.
Speaker A:And ultimately, when it comes right down to it, it is reality.
Speaker A:It is what life is.
Speaker A:It is a description as close as we can get to it being that way.
Speaker A:And so if a friend of yours says that he or she is really very, very discouraged and they're feeling down on themselves and they really don't have anything to offer they the world or their friendship with you or whatever that is.
Speaker A:And you might be tempted to say, but that isn't true.
Speaker A:And you actually are talking about two different kinds of truth because the truth they are speaking from is something different than this big T truth that I'm talking about.
Speaker A:And the one thing I know about Big T truth is, is that there's a relationship between these two truths.
Speaker A:And I'll say it now and then I'll probably repeat it later, but big T truth anchors us and little T truth connects us.
Speaker A:And so truth, the big T truth, is universal.
Speaker A:It applies to everyone.
Speaker A:And it really is key to understand that we have something that actually anchors us.
Speaker A:The things that Scripture reveals to us about our own hearts, about the heart of man, man, about how the world works, about man's nature, about our fallenness, and also about our redemption that oftentimes we lose sight of very easily and fall into the trap of emphasizing only our fallenness and not our redemption and our process, if you will, of being redeemed.
Speaker A:And so big T truth is absolutely necessary, just like when you're sailing in a sailboat.
Speaker A:And I know a little bit about this because I used to do it in small amounts, not huge amounts, but I did it on the Great Lakes.
Speaker A:I also have done it on smaller lakes.
Speaker A:And the one thing I know is that the anchor, the kind of anchor you choose is important given the conditions you're in.
Speaker A:Because ultimately, there's an anchor for being anchored in a bay that anchors into the base of the water, underneath all of the water, so the base of the bay that you're in.
Speaker A:And then when you're out on the high seas and you're in the midst of a storm, a lot of big sailboats throw out what they call a sea anchor.
Speaker A:And the interesting thing about a sea anchor is it actually stabilizes the boat and allows its bow to point into the wind so that it can survive the storm.
Speaker A:And so anchor is important, and I'm not diminishing this.
Speaker A:The temptation is when I split these things up, there is an implied suggestion that one is better than another.
Speaker A:No, we need them both.
Speaker A:We ultimately need them both.
Speaker A:And big T truth is important because it helps us to understand the world as we know it, as God knows it, as we seek to try to understand it in all of the comprehensiveness that God does, which we're never gonna get there.
Speaker A:We're looking at life through a keyhole.
Speaker A:And so big T truth is important, but we've gotta understand the big T truth is universal.
Speaker A:It applies to everyone.
Speaker A:Now, classic example, easiest classic example is gravity.
Speaker A:And gravity is big T truth.
Speaker A:It is applicable to everyone.
Speaker A:I have yet to meet anyone that has defied gravity.
Speaker A:And that is a universal truth.
Speaker A:The truth that God sent Christ into humanity to give us the ultimate gift of redemption is a big T truth.
Speaker A:It is incontrovertible.
Speaker A:It is there for us to grab onto and stabilize our lives according to it.
Speaker A:And so big T truth is very important to understand.
Speaker A:And like I said, it anchors us, and it is applicable to everyone.
Speaker A:It's an anchor that anyone can grab onto.
Speaker A:Now, the second kind of truth is what I refer to as little T truth.
Speaker A:And this is the reality of who we are.
Speaker A:So when your friend says, I'm depressed and I feel awful about myself and I have nothing really to offer anyone, they are not talking about big T truth.
Speaker A:They are talking about little T truth.
Speaker A:It is the reality of how they see themselves and how they are in their own minds.
Speaker A:Our temptation is to use big T truth against their little T truths.
Speaker A:And when we do, it is in service to us, not in service to the person that we're doling it out to.
Speaker A:The challenge I think that we have is that we tend to rush to correct somebody before we ever take the time and the effort to connect with that person.
Speaker A:And so little T truth is where we are living.
Speaker A:It is the basis on which we connect.
Speaker A:It is not the big T truth that we connect.
Speaker A:Because how often have you been in the presence of someone that shared something of their own story and you have felt comforted that you're not alone?
Speaker A:And that's little T truth.
Speaker A:That is the power of little T truth.
Speaker A:So it includes confusion and fear and doubt and.
Speaker A:And disorientation and disillusionment and being encouraged and joy and excitement and all continuums of our emotions is part of that.
Speaker A:And our emotions are every bit as important of data for us to understand about ourselves and about God as the big T truth is.
Speaker A:Again, our tendency is to traffic in big T because it is so much simpler, it is so much clearer.
Speaker A:But little T isn't.
Speaker A:Little T truth is the stuff that makes us us.
Speaker A:And so if big T truth is universal to everyone, then little T truth is unique to us and it applies only to to us.
Speaker A:And like I said, if you think of a cross and the vertical beam of the cross is the big T truth, the truth that God has revealed to us not only in his son Jesus, but also in the teachings of the church within the Bible, not the church in general, because that can be every bit as flawed as we are.
Speaker A:But at the same time, there are things that are very much anchored and grounded in scripture that we can explore for ourselves and understand that it is true.
Speaker A:And it anchors us, and it gives us a safe harbor in which to operate.
Speaker A:Actually, it gives us a safe harbor in which to explore the little T part of us, because I've got that nailed down.
Speaker A:And now I have the freedom to embrace and understand the realities of who I am and where I've come from and the things that I have experienced.
Speaker A:And so little T and big T.
Speaker A:Big T is the vertical of the cross.
Speaker A:Little T is the horizontal of the cross.
Speaker A:And as I said, big T anchors us.
Speaker A:Little T connects us.
Speaker A:It is on this basis that we connect with one another.
Speaker A:We rush to one or the other and oftentimes emphasize one over the other.
Speaker A:You pick your poison, and in so doing, we miss each other.
Speaker A:Ultimately, we do.
Speaker A:And I would suggest that at the intersection between big T and little T is where life is lived.
Speaker A:When Jesus said that, he came to give us life and give it to us abundantly.
Speaker A:The abundant life is trusting him.
Speaker A:And that trust is built in the intersection of big T and little T truth.
Speaker A:And so the abundant life is not a life of ease or a life of all needs being met and everything else.
Speaker A:The abundant life is learning to live moment by moment, trusting God's heart for us and trying to live life the best way we know how in light of those things.
Speaker A:But we still have to confront and deal with the realities of our own fears and doubts and everything else that I mentioned before.
Speaker A:And so big T truth is important to understand.
Speaker A:Our temptation, like I said, is to yell down at the person on the horizontal and tell them what they should know.
Speaker A:And they say, yeah, but I don't feel that way.
Speaker A:And you say, well, that's irrelevant.
Speaker A:All you need is the big T truth.
Speaker A:Just hang onto it and everything will be fine.
Speaker A:And at that point they check out.
Speaker A:And the worst part about it is they check out and say, well, I guess I'll never be a good Christian.
Speaker A:I'll never be a good enough Christian, which is even more toxic.
Speaker A:And so when we get about think about truth and doling it out to somebody else, we get in big, big trouble.
Speaker A:Because we think it's really safe to give somebody some words of profundity of some sort that will benefit them and change their life forever.
Speaker A:We may not admit it, we may not even think about it that way.
Speaker A:But why is it that we quit listening to people and it's usually because we're trying to find the words to respond to.
Speaker A:And in so doing, we have just lost our connection with the person because now we have gone back looking at and exploring ourselves and what we can say that has some measure of profundity.
Speaker A:So there are two things that I don't want you to miss.
Speaker A:First of all, first of all, Big T truth applies to everyone.
Speaker A:It is what anchors us in life to understand is the plumb line for life.
Speaker A:And little T truth is what connects us.
Speaker A:The second issue is we need to focus on connecting before we ever try to correct somebody's thinking and they may not happen in the same conversation.
Speaker A:The connection provides the context for the big T truth to actually mean something.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean something on its own.
Speaker A:It means something within a context.
Speaker A:And all you have to do is look at how many intersections Jesus had with the significant people of broken people in the Bible and many of Them we find ourselves relating to because of the condition of not only physically but also heart wise.
Speaker A:And he made the intersection.
Speaker A:And his connection was first and foremost a connection of the heart.
Speaker A:And secondly, it was the declaration of truth to the person's head.
Speaker A:And we, I think we would benefit from emulating that same pattern.
Speaker A:I don't think we as Christians have to leave it to counselors to do that.
Speaker A:But we are so scared of moving into the mess and risking the intimate and getting uncomfortable and fearing that we might say something wrong.
Speaker A:And you might, you might.
Speaker A:There's no guarantee that you're going to come up with a perfect answer, but your greatest sentence and your greatest statement is the fact that you are there.
Speaker A:I oftentimes say that Job's counselors did their best work in the first seven days.
Speaker A:And if you know anything about the story of Job, the first seven days they sat shiva with their friend because of the tremendous amount of grief and sorrow he was experiencing by the loss of his health, the loss of his property, loss of his family, and the overwhelming grief he felt.
Speaker A:And we're told in that story that his friends saw him from a distance and didn't even recognize him.
Speaker A:And they sat shiva with him, which was to sit in silence with their friend.
Speaker A:It was only when they tried to dispense big T truth into his little T experiences that the battles broke out and he began to lean on the relationship he had with God.
Speaker A:And they were telling him that you must have done something wrong and think the right way and do it the right way and everything will be fine.
Speaker A:Now, let me introduce one last concept.
Speaker A:And actually it's three different words.
Speaker A:One is a word that you probably recognize.
Speaker A:It's called orthodoxy, which means right doctrine.
Speaker A:Essentially, we get so caught up in the big T truth of right doctrine, thinking rightly and doing things rightly, that we think that makes up for, or worse yet, it allows us to sidestep the humanity, the people that we're trying to connect with.
Speaker A:So orthodoxy is a part of how we relate.
Speaker A:And the second one is orthopraxis.
Speaker A:Orthopraxis is, as the name suggests, is right practice.
Speaker A:So not only do I believe things the right way, but then I do things the right way.
Speaker A:And most of the time, that's the end of the conversation about ortho, orthodoxy and orthopraxy.
Speaker A:There is one other one that I would suggest that would go to living in the intersection between big T and little T truth, and that is orthocardia, orthocardia means a right heart and our tendency.
Speaker A:And it's very.
Speaker A:And I say our because I mean it.
Speaker A:Our is the human tendency is, tell me what I need to do, I will do it, and everything will turn out okay.
Speaker A:I actually heard a sermon today that the person who was preaching said, just do it as Jesus did it and you will become like him.
Speaker A:And I wrote in my notes, therefore, what that means is we go back to the old adage, wwjd, what would Jesus do?
Speaker A:I would suggest that in order to grasp the understanding of orthocardia, we might want to answer the question, what would Jesus say or think?
Speaker A:Because that probably gets more to the heart of the matter than it does, what will I do?
Speaker A:Because that's easy.
Speaker A:I can have great success at doing that.
Speaker A:But when it comes to what would Jesus think?
Speaker A:How would he think about this?
Speaker A:And as a result, what would he say?
Speaker A:And the reality is, when we look at Scripture, we see plenty of examples of what he said, and it isn't what we expect.
Speaker A:That's what is so jarring.
Speaker A:When he meets the woman at the well, and he knows everything about her background, and yet he asked the question, you know, they have the interaction about the water that flows up from within that will never end versus the water she was going to draw from the well, which is a veiled response to him being the Messiah.
Speaker A:And he said, I'll be glad to tell you, just go get your husband to bring him back.
Speaker A:He wasn't saying, I know that you've been through five different men and you need to get your life straight.
Speaker A:And then I'll tell you, no, he didn't do that.
Speaker A:He followed the customs of the day.
Speaker A:And he also knew that one way to connect with her is to identify.
Speaker A:He didn't say it was okay.
Speaker A:He just said, this is the way it is.
Speaker A:That is the little T truth.
Speaker A:He got to the big T, obviously, because then he began to move into her world.
Speaker A:And once he had that standing, then he can be able to point out what the big T truth is, namely, him, because he was the walking, breathing embodiment of truth.
Speaker A:And so there are numerous examples in Scripture of Jesus crossing paths with people.
Speaker A:I think one of the most moving ones is probably the woman that had the flow of blood or a hemorrhage.
Speaker A:And Jesus says to her, and Scripture doesn't say it specifically, I think he did, but it was, look at me.
Speaker A:And then he refers to her as daughter.
Speaker A:And that is one of the most intimate terms to be used of someone who has been so ostracized, whether internally or externally, to say, you are part of my family, daughter.
Speaker A:And the moment that happened, everything changed in her and everything changed for her.
Speaker A:And so there are plenty of instances where we will have an intersection with someone and we will have a choice to make about how will we connect, Will we connect with an anchor or will we connect in being human just like them?
Speaker A:And that's the choice.
Speaker A:Ultimately we will have the tension that is part of living life in that place is where the abundant life can be found.
Speaker A:It is where intimacy can be found.
Speaker A:It is where connection can be found.
Speaker A:And that is what makes it so powerful.
Speaker A:That is exactly, I would suggest, looking at my own tendencies.
Speaker A:That is exactly why we flee from the intersection, because a lot of people have gotten mowed down in that intersection because they have been so bent on hanging on to one of the two truths rather than stopping and listening and connecting in the center where it is not clear, there is tension, there is ambiguity, and out of that comes ultimately I think, faith.
Speaker A:And so some words for consideration.
Speaker A:I have been mulling, mulling this over ever since I said it to the guys on Friday.
Speaker A:And the last thing I will mention to you before I end is just remember that an ill timed truth is experienced like a weapon.
Speaker A:A well timed truth brings life and hope and encouragement because it's speaking to the other person's heart.
Speaker A:And that's it for tonight.
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Speaker A:It is an exciting time of year for me because it is the beginning of March Madness and I can't wait to get all the fun started this Thursday to see who comes out on top.
Speaker A:I won't tip my hat to whomever that might be.
Speaker A:I have my own preferences.
Speaker A:I have had them for a long, long time.
Speaker A:But be that as it may, I love basketball.
Speaker A:I love watching basketball.
Speaker A:I grew up in Indiana where it is well nigh a religion and so it is a fun time of year to watch good basketball amongst college players that are not getting paid millions of dollars to do what they do.
Speaker A:They are, most of them engaged in it for the love of the game.
Speaker A:And thus ends my commentary on all that which you didn't ask for.
Speaker A:So that's it for tonight.
Speaker A:Thanks again for joining me.
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Speaker A:Later by SA.
