We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

4759637652_f57f736573_z

I Don’t Know

It’s a peculiar thing about evangelical culture that so many of us feel like we’re supposed to have an answer to everything. It’s become our favorite idol: certainty. Maybe it’s a vestige of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that we want to be like God in this way. In fact, no one can possibly have all the answers. Frank Viola shares some thoughts on the three words that we should probably reacquaint ourselves with: I don’t know.

From his blog post:

Taking a position and pontificating on it when you’ve not done the necessary home work to come to a thoughtful conclusion, or before you’ve received insight from the Holy Spirit on a matter, is just plain reckless. And bluffing (which young men are especially prone to do) is never a wise thing.

So don’t buy into the lie. Just because you may be in ministry doesn’t mean that you have to know all things under the sun or form a conclusion on every topic under heaven (or in the pages between the black leather cover.)

Image by Courtney Carmody. Sourced via Flickr.

Category:
Tags:

Related Reading

Christena Cleveland on Practices for Sociological Imagination

Christena Cleveland recently sat down with Tod Bolsinger (Vice President for Formation and Vocation at Fuller Theological Seminary) to discuss the intersection of privilege and leadership. You can find a series of short videos capturing different aspects of this conversation here. Today we wanted to share one of these videos with you. We hope you’ll take the time to…

What the Resurrection Says About the Cross

As with every other aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry, even the resurrection must be understood in light of the cross. This event was not just the resuscitation of a random corpse. It was the resurrection of the Incarnate Son of God who had fulfilled the human side of the God-human covenant by living a sinless…

Inconceivable!

Though it’s now thirty-one years old, I’m willing to bet that the majority of you have watched the Princess Bride at least once. In fact, I’m willing to bet that a lot of you have seen it multiple times (I’ve seen at least parts of it dozens of times). It is truly one of the…

The Gift of Smallness

ram reddy via Compfight Jonathan Martin wrote this piece entitled Feeling at home in my smallness a couple of weeks ago. If you’ve been feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders and it’s up to you to do something amazing or if you’ve been taking yourself a little too seriously, you…

Listen and Learn: A First Step Toward Reconciliation

Jesus Christ is not just the Lord, Savior and Messiah of the Jews: he is the Lord, Savior and Messiah of all people. Through Christ a kingdom is being established that tears down tribal walls between races and re-unites and reconciles people together in the love God. Paul makes the point most forcefully. In Ephesians…

Listening with Humility and Love

Bindaas Madhavi via Compfight Robert Martin over at Abnormal Anabaptist published an article today concerning the recent post by the Gospel Coalition. The Gospel Coalition seems to be humbly acknowledging that maybe they have something to learn from Anabaptists. Martin notes that many Anabaptists have responded with something along the lines of “Yay! It’s about…