Tonight, we at CHBC did our own little bit to encourage Bible reading--we read the entire book of I Corinthians out loud!  It took about 45 minutes, and it was really encouraging and powerful to hear the message of the book as a whole.  This was done as an introduction to a regular series of Wednesday night studies in the book of I Corinthians.  (CJ, who knows what will happen with CHBC studying I Corinthians!  And Lig, we'll make sure and pay special attention to 7:14--that paedobaptistic text than which there is no better!!)

Anyway, I think that such reading encourages the right kind of humility.  How can we as Christians be humbled without hearing the Word to which we should submit?  How can we be humbled apart from hearing and heeding the Word of God?  How will our churches ever be the truly humble assemblies we want them to be if they do not hear and submit themselves to God's Word?

What we need is humble theology--theology which submits itself to the truth of God's Word. "Liberal" theology--theology which does not view Scripture as finally trustworthy and authoritative--is not humble before the Word.  Churches which are tentative and decry dogmatism may sound humble, but it is not truly humble to do anything other than to submit to God's Word.  Christian humility is to simply accept whatever God has revealed in His Word. Humility is following God's Word wherever it goes, as far as it goes, not either going beyond it or stopping short of it.

Bertrand Russell, the late, well-known, British philosopher wrote in 1950 that “The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology," (in “Philosophy and Politics,” in Unpopular Essays, [1950] p. 15). These days, I guess many are holding theological conclusions in such a "scientific" manner.  But such hestitancy is not humility.  The humility we want in our churches is to read the Bible and believe it--everything God has said, dogmatically, and humbly!  It is not humble to be hesitant where God has been clear and plain.