The literature on corporate leadership says that one of the most important characteristics of an executive is the ability to be comfortable in ambiguity. Does that make sense to you? The point is that picking a business path in an uncertain world often involves balancing competing and seemingly contradictory influences but which both have value.

I’d like to suggest that being a wise and knowledgeable biblical Christian means you sometimes have to embrace two seemingly contradictory ideas but both of which are true. For instance, we need to live and work and build the church as though it will have to last ten thousand years, but we also live as though judgment day could come today. 

The greatest of all the scriptural paradoxes is law and gospel. The seventh century b.c. prophet Nahum offers this insight about the very nature of God: “The Lord is slow to anger but great in power; the Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished” (Nahum 1:3).  So which is it? Is God a severe judge who will let no sinner slide? Or is he kind and gracious and forgiving? The answer is Yes. They are both true.

The only place where these two parallel railroad tracks come together is at the cross of Christ and through the work of the Spirit to help you believe. On the cross God punished all sin by punishing his Son. From the cross God had mercy on the whole human race. 

Those who believe it have it.