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.
Mr. Klunick Tutoring 
i love this topic! i think it is very important to listen and not always be in the defense of always talking and being loud, one thing my mom taught me that stuck with me out of the million things shes taught me, shes always said ” you will always look smarter if you just listen and dont have something to say every time.” again, i think its important to listen with an open mind cause it may change your perspective on whatever it is. Great job once again with the topic mr. klunick! 🙂
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Every dimension of this article was well timed. It’s pretty funny.
1. I’ve been working a lot to be open minded lately. I know the term ‘open-minded’ carries a lot of baggage, but I think it’s healthy to “take every thought captive” and analyze it against the Bible and your reasoning. It’s been said that the mark of an intelligent person is the one who can entertain a thought without believing it. I think too often people approach a topic from their ‘gut feeling’ and then trying to prove their feeling. When they come from that position, all the data seems to line up because they are seeing what they want to see.
2. Furthermore, (I know this isn’t omnibus I should stop soon) I just wrote an essay for my Logic midterm regarding credo- versus paedo-baptism. After seeing both sides of the argument, it’s interesting to compare them. I personally fall on the credobaptist side because I see explicit Biblical proof for it while paedobaptism seems to rely on inference and possibility. That said, I still approach the topic with a desire to find out the truth regarding it, not to prove my point.
3. Lastly, I just happened to have gotten a 3 1/2 inch violin that plays “Hearts and Flowers” whenever I press the bow onto it. Let that suffice as sufficient evidence for how I approach other people’s problems, though I no doubt err on the ungracious side. 😀
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aside from the little jokes in your comment elijah lol i really like what you wrote! i think we all need the reminder to stay open minded and be open to hearing someone else’s side instead of always jumping to being defensive cause its gonna put a strain on what your trying to get across cause all the other person sees is that they are wrong and the other person is right and they should just shut off. be open to hearing both sides of the story like mr. klunick said 🙂 perfect example, my brother, brennan hes learning how to drive and i have to start soon but anyways, he asked my dad in the car yesterday ” if i get into a wreck hypothetically, and it wasn’t my fault would the insurance go up?'” ofc im sitting in the back with emma having no idea what they are talking about but my dad says well, if there’s evidence that you didn’t do it or witnesses then no but if there is no evidence its your word against the other guy and the officer isnt gonna just choose someone cause both people could be lying, so the officer has to HEAR BOTH SIDES OF THE STORY and listen and then take them both into custody if someone died, like elijah said this isn’t omnibus class i should hurry up but my point in saying all of this is next time conflict happens or something happens where you have to listen to the other side, really take the time and listen and be OPEN MINDED, it’ll help a lot, i have to do this a lot with my siblings and just be calm instead of always jumping to conclusions cause that’s how yelling and arguments happen. 🙂
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side note: i love how on almost every one of mr. klunicks blog posts theres at least 1 or 2 big comments like elijahs and mine i think thats wonderful to see.
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Indeed!
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