The One and the Many

"I delight to do Your will, O my God" (Psalm 40:8).

I recall an occasion many years ago when Ray Stedman walked into a staff meeting holding an object behind his back. “I have a crooked stick behind my back,” he said. “Tell me what it looks like."

We couldn’t, of course, because a crooked stick has many “looks.” Had he said, “The stick is straight,” we could have described it with no trouble at all.

Vice has many "looks." Virtue is simple. “Vice forsakes the one for the many.” Aquinas said. “Virtue moves from the many to the one.” Some folks, like Legion, are “many”; others move toward David’s simplification: “I delight to do your will, O my God.” (Psalm 40:8).

"Purity of heart is to will one thing," Søren Kierkegaard said. What a marvelous simplification!

David Roper

2.24.17