One of our church members, Amanda Losee, is a student at Baptist Bible College (Clarks Summit, PA). Recently, Amanda posted a note on facebook, and she has granted me permission to post it here at TruthWalk.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about theology. On a college campus it is not unlikely to run across people who have different views than the ones that you personally hold. It is easy to find people with whom you agree and those with whom you disagree. As I study the Scriptures for myself and seek counsel from the spiritual mentors in my life it is encouraging to see that I am being pushed to look first to the Word of God and to remember that my theology does not save me. While having Biblical theology is highly important, I have discovered that having a "humble theology" is equally important. It is so easy to dismiss our common ground as brothers and sisters in Christ and to argue over what may be minor differences. We tend to try to put God in a box and believe that we have Him all figured out. Our minds are such finite things. While we were created to know God, I believe it is extremely dangerous to claim to have the "perfect theology." We serve a God who is infinitely greater than we are, who is sovereign over all creation and over all events, and whose divine plan is far greater than any scheme of man. Yes, we do need to seek truth, but we need to be humble enough to admit that our theology may be incorrect and that perhaps we do not have God all figured out. In a 2006 blog posting Mark Dever stated,
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.
As I listened to these words on my ride home I could not get over how true they are. Dogmatism is a dangerous road to travel. Yet, it is an easy trap to fall into. We must examine ourselves and ask, "Are we being dogmatic?"