Tuesday, June 16
Read James 4:6-10; 2 Chronicles 7:14; and Zephaniah 3:12. Why is humility important when we try to tackle difficult passages in Scripture?
Many people have come to the amazing realization and humbling insight that they are dependent upon something and someone outside of themselves. They have realized that they are not the measure of all things. These people value truth over their ego’s need to be right, and they are aware that truth is not of their own making but, rather, what they confront. Perhaps the greatest truth that these people understand is just how little they really know of truth. They know, as Paul wrote, that they “see through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
The benefits of this humility in thinking are manifold: the habit of humble inquiry is the foundation of all growth in knowledge, for it generates a freedom that naturally produces a teachable spirit. This does not mean that humble people are often necessarily wrong, or that they will always change their minds and will never have a firm conviction. It means only that they are submissive to biblical truth. They are aware of the limitations of their knowledge and, therefore, are capable of expanding their knowledge and understanding of God’s Word in a way that the intellectual person, arrogant and proud, won’t do.
“All who will come to the Word of God for guidance, with humble, inquiring minds, determined to know the terms of salvation, will understand what saith the Scripture. But those who bring to the investigation of the Word a spirit which it does not approve will take away from the search a spirit which it has not imparted. The Lord will not speak to a mind that is unconcerned. He wastes not his instruction on one who is willingly irreverent or polluted. But the tempter educates every mind that yields itself to his suggestions and is willing to make of none effect God’s holy law. We need to humble our hearts, and with sincerity and reverence search the Word of life; for that mind alone that is humble and contrite can see light.” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, August 22, 1907
How do you strike the right balance between humility and certainty? For example, how would you answer the charge, How can you Seventh-day Adventists be so certain that you are right about the Sabbath and that almost everyone else is wrong?
