Reality and Truth: Is There a Difference?

Quiet week on the blog... Was the Ninth Word that straight forward?  :)


I came across an interesting distinction in a book that I was reading this morning.  Marva Dawn references a French dude, Jacques Ellul (could the guy's name be any more French?), who describes a difference between reality and truth.*

She says that reality is what we see on the surface.  Truth is what is really going on in a certain situation.

Dawn, then uses this example: The reality is that our world is full of economic chaos and political craziness; the truth is that Jesus Christ is still Lord of the cosmos and everything. 

So the question for us becomes, do we organize our finances and our hopes for the future around the "reality" of what is around us?  Or do our lives, economics, and hopes for the world rest in and reflect the TRUTH that Jesus Christ is Lord of all? 

Is this distinction between reality and truth helpful
?  How do you see it played out in your life? 

How do we orient our lives around what is true?

Feel free one and all to jump into the mix... hopefully, this is the place each week where we can begin to see how God's words might take on flesh in our lives.

*Marva Dawn with Eugene Peterson in "The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call."