It helps to keep going over this. How should we think (and respond) when we (as Christians) are accused of being arrogant for thinking we can know that we have the one truth everyone needs? Is that lacking humility? Is it…un-Christlike? (Since, so many would say, Jesus’ #1 quality was humility…)
Helpful thoughts from Michael Kruger:
Christians believe that God has revealed himself clearly in his Word. Thus, when it comes to key historical questions (Who was Jesus? What did he say? What did he do?) or key theological questions (Who is God? What is Heaven? How does one get there?), Christians believe they have a basis on which they can claim certainty: God’s revelation. Indeed, to claim we don’t know the truth about such matters would be to deny God, and to deny his Word. (This doesn’t mean, of course, that Christians are certain about everything; but there can be certainty about these basic Christian truths).
Thus, for Christians, humility and uncertainty are not synonymous. One can be certain and humble at the same time. How? For this simple reason: Christians believe that they understand truth only because God has revealed it to them (1 Cor 1:26-30). In other words, Christians are humble because their understanding of truth is not based on their own intelligence, their own research, their own acumen. Rather, it is 100% dependent on the grace of God. Christian knowledge is a dependent knowledge. And that leads to humility (1 Cor 1:31). This obviously doesn’t mean all Christians are personally humble. But, it does mean they should be, and have adequate grounds to be.
This is very helpful and worth the reminder and something that I pray is deeply engrained in my memory. When talking to people they so readily use this to argue which is no more than a debate tactic to attack the person and ignore what they are saying and whether or not it is true. So when faced with a situation like this I can remember that humility and uncertainty are not synonymous and that certainity does not mean arrogance!
Thx Brian for the reminder
Thx Michael Kruger