Last week, one of my co-workers were sharing her thoughts about integrity and righteousness during the morning devotions. Got me thinking a bit*:
1) Is integrity the same as consistency? Not exactly. Integrity comes from the root word "integral", which can be taken to mean "be a part of". A man is said to have integrity when he displays principles, conduct and speech along a same set of beliefs and faith consistently. The wholeness of the person's being that comes from a unified "thought, action and speech" - we call that unity integrity.
2) Why do we call integers integers? It's because they always display the same numerical properties. One" is "one" because of it make us think about one-ness; "two" is "two" because of "two-ness"... and so on, so forth.
Similarly, when we say a man has integrity, we are not commenting that he himself possess positive qualities such as righteousness, love, grace and mercy. Rather we are acknowledging that the man displays a "true to his word" mentality and conduct.
* that is to say, my mind went wandering around a bit... :P
I think you just said, "Integrity is when someone does what he says he will do. And he does this consistently." In a few more paragraphs or so... :P
ReplyDeletehaha, mebbe. My brains dun work too well in da morning before caffeine get a hold on it. :D
ReplyDelete