Learning to Listen Without Taking Sides
What Paul saw in Corinth, and what we still struggle with
I’ve been thinking about how easily we start to treat faith like something that needs defending.
It can happen online fairly easily, but it is often more subtle than that.
A kind of narrowing.
We choose who we listen to. We notice which voices feel safe, which ones feel slightly off, and which ones we dismiss without really engaging. Over time, those choices begin to feel like discernment or wisdom.
But if I’m honest, they sometimes feel a bit more like self-protection.
It’s as if truth might run out if we’re not careful.
That feels like an odd assumption to write, but it shows up more often than we may like to admit. Not just in religion, but everywhere. Politics, culture, social media. We gather around familiar voices and begin to measure everything else against them.
When something thoughtful comes from outside that circle, the instinct isn’t always curiosity.
It’s caution.
Where did that come from?
Can I trust it?
Does it belong to “us”?
And slowly, almost without noticing, the world gets smaller.
