Intellectual Humility: Giving Away the Need to Always Have the Right Answer

Lisa Harper's Back Porch Theology

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During today’s episode on Back Porch Theology, we’re talking about intellectual humility, which could be loosely described as giving away the need to always have the right answer. I spent way too many years afraid that someone would look under the hood of my life and discover everything I was ashamed of. During those years that I was consumed with shame, I used what modest intellect I have as a deflector shield. And posing behind my need to be perceived as always having the right answer robbed so much of my peace as a young Bible teacher. I was scared that making a public mistake regarding the WORD OF GOD would brand me as a fraudulent heretic forever. Here’s the deal y’all, as Christ-followers of course it behooves us to imitate those ancient Bereans from the book of Acts, who received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. However, it also behooves us to remember that when you filter the divinely inspired and inscripturated Word of God through the finite minds of men and women, it’s bound to be distorted at some level. Now please hear me, I’m not at all saying we have a license to be irresponsible – anything but – however, as a sixty-year-old, mistake-prone Bible teacher I’ve learned that intellect without humility equals insufferable arrogance, which is the antithesis of Christoformity – of having a Jesus-shaped life! Speaking of Jesus-shaped living and intellectual humility, if you haven’t already please check out our upcoming Kerygma Summit April 25-27, here in Franklin, TN. It’s a curated, 3-day intensive – basically a Bible study boot camp saturated with belly laughs – where a whole bunch of us from all over gather together and learn from a dream team of seminary professors, theologians, and ministry leaders so that we can better understand, emulate and communicate God’s Word. I don’t have time to tell you everyone who’s on the teaching team for this third Kerygma Summit but y’all it is a veritable Who’s-Who of modern-day theological heroes and heroines, among them they’ve published something like 300 books, Bible studies, and commentaries. Several of...