Blogging in Christ — Issue 7

Prove the Piece

A piece is not finished when the writer stops writing. It is finished when it has been proved. The last draft feels complete because the writer has lived inside it. He knows what he meant, and his own voice flatters him. That feeling is no test. A piece that has only pleased its maker has not yet been examined, and a word that has not been examined should not be sent.

The apostle gives the order, and he gives it first to the writer himself. "Examine your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don’t you know about your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified." (2 Cor 13:5) The testing begins not with the paragraph but with the man. Before the piece is judged, the writer is judged, by the same question the piece must answer: is Christ in this, or only the writer? A herald who has not examined himself will examine his work with a partial eye. Self-examination is the first item on the finishing list, and it cannot be delegated.

From the man the test moves to the work. "But let each man examine his own work, and then he will have reason to boast in himself, and not in someone else." (Gal 6:4) Examine his own work — not another writer's, not the audience's response, not the piece he wishes he had written. The examination, not the mood, decides.

The standard is stated plainly: "Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good." (1 Thess 5:21) Test all things. Every claim. Every quotation. Every connection between one passage and the next. Every sentence that sounds true because it sounds well. Hold firmly only what survives. The rest is let go, however finely written. This is the difference between a finishing checklist and a polishing pass. Polishing makes a false sentence shine. Testing asks whether the sentence is true, and discards it if it is not.

The first test is the text itself. The herald handles a Word that is not his own, and handling it carelessly is not a small fault. "Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth." (2 Tim 2:15) Properly handling means, at the least, this: every quotation verified against the text, not remembered; every reference checked, not trusted to memory; every passage read in its own place, not bent to serve the paragraph. A quotation remembered wrongly is a false witness in small print. Diligence opens the book again, even for the verse he has quoted a hundred times.

Therefore the finishing work includes a plain discipline: read the piece backward from its quotations. Take each verse cited, open it, and compare word for word. Scripture supplies the purpose of this severity: "Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:16-17) Reproof and correction belong inside the craft, not after it. A piece that cannot bear reproof from the text under it has no business reproving anyone else.

The second test is brevity, and it is a moral test before it is a stylistic one. Words will be weighed. "I tell you that every idle word that men speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matt 12:36-37) Idle does not mean merely frivolous. It means unexamined, unnecessary, spoken without weight. The question is whether each sentence earns its place, whether each paragraph advances the witness or merely repeats it, whether each flourish serves the truth or serves the writer. "In the multitude of words there is no lack of disobedience, but he who restrains his lips does wisely." (Prov 10:19) Cutting is therefore not tidying. It is repentance in editorial form: the removal of words that would otherwise stand against their author.

The third test is the one the writer cannot perform alone. "He who pleads his cause first seems right— until another comes and questions him." (Prov 18:17) Every first draft pleads its own cause, and it pleads it well, because the writer is both advocate and judge. The remedy is another voice, invited before publication, not after. "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who is wise listens to counsel." (Prov 12:15) The fool is not the man who writes badly. The fool is the man who cannot hear that he has written badly. The wise writer seeks counsel precisely where his own eyes are blind, which is everywhere he is most pleased with himself.

Yet counsel must be of the right kind. Flattery is not counsel, and applause is not examination. The friend who only praises has done the writer no service. The faithful friend wounds, and the wound is the service. "The wounds of a friend are faithful, although the kisses of an enemy are profuse." (Prov 27:6) A faithful wound names the error, points to the sentence, and says plainly that it will not stand. It hurts in the moment, and it heals the piece. An enemy's kiss costs nothing and proves nothing. It tells the writer his work is wonderful, and sends a false word out with his blessing on it.

This is why the sharpening image matters. "Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens his friend’s countenance." (Prov 27:17) Sharpening is friction. It removes metal. A piece that has never met friction has never been sharpened; it has only been admired. The writer should send the near-finished piece to a friend who will strike it, and receive the striking as the work itself. Correction in gentleness is part of the craft: "Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted." (Gal 6:1) The corrector, too, is under examination. Gentleness does not soften the truth. It keeps the truth from becoming a weapon in the hand of a man who has forgotten his own beam.

For the writer's own heart is the final, quiet test, and it is the one most easily skipped. A piece may be accurate, tightly cut, and honestly corrected, and still be written from a heart that has not been searched. The psalmist prays the prayer the finishing writer should pray: "Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way." (Ps 139:23-24) Hidden ways enter a piece through its motives: the sentence written to be admired, the sharpness written to settle a score, the truth withheld because it would cost the writer something. No checklist catches these. Only searching prayer does. With it belongs the companion prayer: "Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I will be upright. I will be blameless and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Yahweh, my rock, and my redeemer." (Ps 19:12-14) Hidden errors first, then presumptuous sins, then the words themselves, laid before the Lord for acceptance.

Only after these tests does the piece go out, and it goes out without the writer's claim upon its result. What remains is not his to guarantee. He planted and watered in the writing. God gives the increase, if He wills, where He wills. A proved piece is therefore a freed piece. It no longer needs the writer's defense, because it has already survived his examination, his friend's wound, and the text's own reproof. And if an error still surfaces, the same discipline receives it: acknowledge it, correct it, and let the correction stand as plainly as the piece once stood. The herald who proves his piece before he sends it can bear to be proved wrong after he sends it, because his trust was never in his own perfection. It was in the Word that survives every test, including his own.