Humility is Not the Same as Doubt

My friend, fellow-pastor and fellow-Na blogger, Thabiti Anyabwile, has written a very helpful post in response to a question about humble orthodoxy. The person basically asked if humility is best expressed by distrusting orthodoxy and your own ability to know truth with certainty. It's a fair question. Isn't it proud to think that anyone can define and establish orthodox belief? Thabiti shares how we can humbly approach orthodoxy. Here are three of the six points he shares...

Recognize the source of orthodoxy. It is the Word itself that establishes the orthodoxy, not our agreement with it. We're humble and orthodox if we realize that the truth doesn't depend upon our adherence to establish it. Neither does it depend on the thoughts of great Christians in the past. If we're humble, we learn from those who have gone before us. We study church history and the writings of previous saints. And we are helped, corrected, warned, encouraged, and instructed as we do so. And though our heroes may be champions of orthodoxy, the scripture provides the plumbline. Orthodoxy is not a democratically established idea. The Monarch, the King of kings, declares what is right thinking and belief in His Word. "Hear ye, Hear ye the King!" should bellow in our ears as we approach the Word. For in the scripture the One who determines what is orthodox speaks.

Recognize that "humility" is not the same as doubt or being non-committal. That's precisely what some people suggest--humility is questioning everything and holding to nothing. But biblically that's being "double-minded" and "unstable in all our ways," not humble (Jam. 1:6-8; 4:8). We receive the Word with meekness (Jam. 1:21), not with doubt. In other words, we joyfully accept what God reveals with the kind of lowliness that esteems the Word and the Lord as higher than ourselves.

Recognize that true humility requires a transformed mind. God's thoughts are not our thoughts. His thoughts and ways are higher than our thoughts and ways (Is. 55:8-9). That should make us flinch, pause, and reflect every time we encounter a passage of the scripture that we tend to explain away or disagree with. If God's Word is infallible and inerrant, and if the thoughts of God are higher than ours, then in humility, we question what we think in favor of the more sure word of prophecy revealed in the scripture. After all, whether we understand it or not, the scripture is entirely and always orthodox. Our minds need renewing (Rom. 12:2), not God's. "Let God be true and every man a liar" (Rom. 3:4) is our attitude before God's Word.