One Thing I Know Is All the Testimony a Man Needs

A man told me he has heard the same introduction for nine years and that the person giving it means it warmly every single time.

It goes: this is him, he is the one who, and then the thing, and then something generous about how far he has come.

He said the generous part is the worst part. He said if it were said cruelly he could object to it. Said warmly, with a hand on his shoulder, in front of somebody new, it is a kindness and he cannot do anything with it except smile.

He said the sentence has become his name. He gets it at church, at family things, and once, memorably, at a funeral.

There is a scene in John where a man who had been defined by a condition his entire life is interrogated about it, and what he ends up saying is the shortest and best answer in the gospels.

They will not stop asking him about it

The man born blind gets questioned by neighbors, then by the authorities, then by the authorities again, and then his parents get dragged in.

Every conversation is about the same subject. Nobody in the chapter asks him anything else. He is a case, and everybody wants to establish something about the case, and he is standing in the middle of it.

And eventually he gives up on the theology and says this:

He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25, King James Version)

One thing I know. He grants everything he cannot answer. He does not pretend to have a position on the argument they are having.

Whereas I was blind, now I see. Two clauses, both about him, both first hand, and neither one requiring anybody else's agreement.

That is the whole answer, and it holds, and nobody in the chapter can do anything with it.

You are allowed to stand on one sentence you can actually verify. John 9:25 has a man granting everything he cannot answer and holding one thing he can. It is the Spirit of God, Romans 8:16 bearing witness with our spirit, who does the confirming that no interrogation can overturn.

The room throws him out anyway

I am not going to pretend the sentence fixed his situation, because the chapter says plainly what happened next.

They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out. (John 9:34)

Thou wast altogether born in sins. They introduce him by his history, to his face, as the closing argument.

And they throw him out.

So the man does everything right, says the true thing plainly, and is expelled from his own religious community for it. That is in the record and it is not tidied up.

But read the next verse, because it is the reason the whole chapter is worth reading: Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?

He goes and finds him. The expulsion is the thing that puts them in the same place, and the conversation the man gets afterward is better than the one he was thrown out of.

You are found by Somebody after a room has finished with you. John 9:35 says Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, and it is His Spirit, John 16:13 who guides into all truth, who does the finding that a community's verdict cannot prevent.

And if the introduction has begun to weigh more than nine years of anything should, say it out loud to a person: a doctor, a counselor, a pastor you trust, or the 988 crisis line, which answers every hour there is. Being your own worst season out loud in front of strangers is a real weight and it is not one to carry politely and alone.

Paul does the same thing in one sentence

Paul had a version of this and he had it for the rest of his life. He was the man who had done that, and people said so, and he says so himself.

But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

Read the sentence he lands on: by the grace of God I am what I am.

He does not argue with his history. In the verse just before it he calls himself the least of the apostles and says he is not fit to be called one, and he does it in writing.

And then he sets a sentence beside that history rather than in place of it. Both are in the same paragraph. He does not choose.

That is what a person needs when the introduction will not change. Not a denial of the sentence they use, and not a defense. A second sentence, true, that he says himself.

You are able to hold a second sentence beside the one other people use. 1 Corinthians 15:10 says by the grace of God I am what I am in the same paragraph as the least of the apostles. It is the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6:11 named in ye are justified by the Spirit of our God, who is credited with the making rather than the arguing.

Where an accusation actually loses

And there is a line in Revelation about how the accuser is beaten, and the second half is a surprise.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. (Revelation 12:11)

By the word of their testimony. A spoken account, in a person's own mouth, about what happened and what was done about it.

Which means the story is used rather than avoided. It stops being the thing other people hold about you and becomes the thing you hold.

Nothing there says a person has to make an announcement anywhere, and anybody in a live legal or family situation should take advice before saying anything publicly. What it says is where the account belongs, and it belongs in the mouth of the one it happened to.

You are holding an account that is described as a weapon rather than a wound. Revelation 12:11 puts the word of their testimony beside the blood of the Lamb. It is the same Spirit, John 15:26 who shall testify of me, who testifies alongside anybody who speaks.