The Truest Verse in the Bible

A quick caveat: the whole Bible is breathed out by God and therefore true. I mean something different, I hope you see that.

Do you spend energy to hear the other side of someone’s story? You should. I often find that one person, through no fault of their own, will tell a very different story than another person. Sometimes there’s dishonesty, but not all the time. People really do see things differently than others.

As a result, we come to the truest verse in the Bible. Proverbs 18:17:

“The first to plead his case seems right,
Until another comes and examines him.”

In short, there are two sides to every story. It happens time and time again that the wife and I think “Oh, what injustice this person went through!” only to find out: it’s not that simple. Hence, my calling this the truest verse in the Bible. It’s truest because it’s most neglected.

There’s another application as well. You will be told things in life, let’s say about Baptism. What you hear first will sound very good to you. It will make sense! Everything clicks! Then you’ll hear the other side. Shocker: the other side has some pretty good points. I won’t say in this post where I’ve landed on that issue. But I will say that hearing both sides of the issue really helped me come to a decisive conclusion in my own thinking.

Now, don’t let Proverbs 18:17 lead you to postmodernism. There is always God’s perfect perspective. Until heaven, we won’t know for sure who was telling us the truth, or what we’re wrong about in our theology.

But most importantly, for the application for you, dear reader. While you’re listening to your friend describe their injustices to you at length, do keep it in the back of your mind that it’s only one side of the story. Someone else will see it differently. If you are caught in the middle of something, please make sure to hear both sides.