Sunday 1 November 2015

A question of trust

Trust is one of those things that are hard to build and easy to shatter.

As I have said in a previous article I have written, Too many times have we all engaged in a false charge, but what takes courage is humility in taking it back and apologizing to the individual. Any charge is serious and in order for us to be truth seekers, any charge we make against a man must be backed up with evidence, otherwise we could end up believing any old "truth" that is spouted.

While Christians are not under the TANAKH and that they needn't be put to death, there are the consequences of our actions leading to us being discredited and needing to rebuild the trust that has ultimately been destroyed. A building that has to be rebuilt may take time to rebuild, but in the end, the result is a strong building again, so it is with building trust, it's rebuilding the bridge to put it a certain way.

But more than that, If we have gained the trust of an individual in our lives, we mustn't do anything to violate that trust. Once broken, it is hard to rebuild it. Trust is not something that is given to you, it is something that is earned.

Even in the case of friends, you don't back bite them and slander them if you are a true friend. That is not something one should ever do.

In the work place it is also important to demonstrate to your boss truthfully that you can be trustworthy and he can potentially put your in charge of many tasks itself. Being honest in your work and not stealing from the workplace but being a useful servant is vital and why should your boss trust you if you slack in your job?

Regarding our own ability to trust others, there are contexts where we need to be careful not to trust everything and everyone, there is a time and a place where we need to be cautious.

For example, children tend to be rather trusting of others and it is very easy for adults to manipulate and abuse the trust of a child. We need to train our children to realise that not everyone in the world is reliable or even worthy of trust, especially if the person has had a track record of killing children or doing some wicked sin to them.

The world is a wicked place and children need to understand that.

A false teacher is not to be trusted at all and that is a given. They may be harmless sheep on the outside but they are wolves that are ready to pounce on you if you let your guard down.

That's not to say we immediately know who is a wolf when we first encounter them, the wolf doesn't explicitly say he or she are such, it is revealed in their action and their doctrine, it may take some time but eventually we will know who they are. False teachers can be incredibly influential and will lead many to hell and will need to be warned about once their false doctrine comes to light.

One thing we need to do is be wary of the person, not in the sense of paranoia, but in the sense of having sensible collected calm caution. Don't panic, but rather deal with the situation appropriately and warn the flock.

We need to earn the trust of individuals, while at the same be careful whom we trust, lest we fall into an inescapable trap at worst or a heavily damaging trap at best. A duplicitous is often a dangerous one.

Let us test everything, hold to what is good and reject all evil (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22).

Answering Judaism.

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