The Pundits

Have you ever met someone three or four times and then on the fifth time…you just can’t recall her name and… you really should know it by now…but you just DON’T? And you're just too embarrassed to ask (I mean how many times do we need to over this?!)

Well, it’s like this in the spiritual life. We’ve been introduced to certain words and realities…and the people around us often USE these words and ideas and “by THIS time I ought to know what they mean so I CAN’T ask…but truth is: I’m not really sure.”

We can act as if we all understand what they mean when, in reality, we’re kind of fuzzy… But with these ideas it’s not just a definition of a word that we need… not even a correct definition – we need the reality of the idea, an experiential encounter with what the words represent… Just as to simply KNOW a person’s name is not the same as knowing that person…so with these words: to define the word is good…but that’s NOT the whole thing.

And the three words that are going to be clarified are faith, love and goodness. When you see their opposites (in contrast), these ideas stand out much more clearly. So, what we’ll do is: #1 – See John setting up the whole contrast thing and #2 – See how he uses contrasts to clarify these three BIG IDEAS:
a) faith
b) love and
c) goodness.