Blogging with Humility

Recently I've heard or read a number of different men I love and respect use the phrase, "Preaching the gospel to yourself." The idea is that the gospel is not only for those not following Jesus but also for those who are. We are in need of genuine, daily repentance and God-given grace just as much as anyone else. I've seen Tim Keller, C.J. Mahaney, Jerry Bridges, Mike Hsiu, Bart Moseman, Derek Webb, Francis Schaeffer and Martin Luther all use this phrase, or at least something similar to it, and it's challenged me to think more about following Jesus daily in all aspects of my life. I've especially been thinking about how preaching the Gospel to myself every day will affect my writing. I'm currently in three writing classes, writing a weekly column for the Daily Nebraskan (which is what I should probably be working on right now) as well as trying to maintain and establish this blog, so much of time is spent writing. The essential question is how does one write with humility? So many writers are so full of themselves and so confident in their own abilities that you feel as if you can't help them in any way because they already have everything figured out and unless you share their opinions and hold a position they respect they aren't going to listen to any of what you say. This is, of course, not a biblical way to approach writing. If we are preaching the gospel to ourselves daily and reminding ourselves daily of our own unworthiness and inability to please God and of our God's goodness to us in giving us grace then we can't possibly write with pride or arrogance. So the following are a few thoughts I've had as I've been thinking about how one can write (or in this case, blog) with humility.

First, there is no formula for humble writing. I used to have this idea that if I simply softened my statements with enough "I think"s, "I personally believe that"s, and "in my opinion"s
then my writing would be humble. But recently as I've read several extremely humble, God-centered authors I've been struck by the fact that they frequently use very strong language in expressing their beliefs. Francis Schaeffer, his wife Edith, John Piper, and C.S. Lewis all come to mind, I'm sure you can think of several others. Put shortly, soft writing does not equal humble writing.

Sometimes I think soft writing actually comes from pride. This is my main issue with pastor and author Brian McLaren. I love and respect Brian, however I think he sometimes falls prey to the sin of false humility that Chesterton warned of in Orthodoxy. He said that it's possible for men to have a misplaced humility. He warned of being humble about Scripture and church teachings and becoming proud of one's own intelligence or ability. I fear this is what McLaren has done as he approaches scripture with an extremely deconstructionist epistemology. I think his criticisms of fundamentalist pastors who read scripture with an excessively-modern epistemology is dead-on, however I fear he may be so repulsed by the excessive absoluteness of fundamentalists that he has simply gone to the opposite extreme. His writings are full of phrases that soften his opinions to make them more palatable and yet I'm not sure it's genuine humility that drives that but rather a misplaced humility.


Second, humble writing emerges (and I chose that word for a reason) from authentic communities made up of individuals who respect and care for each other and that submit to one another and, above all, to Jesus. I'm not saying that means everyone in the community is called to write just as not everyone is called to preach. Some are called to write but there are many others who would be of greater service in another ministry. However, just because they aren't writers doesn't mean they have no authority over the writer. Writers should find friends within their community whose character they respect and admire who will help them as they write.

Recently Mark Driscoll showed what this looks like as he responded to a controversy over some comments he had made about the Ted Haggard scandal. Long story short, he made comments that many perceived as being demeaning to Gayle Haggard and other pastor's wives and Driscoll responded by graciously apologizing and making the wise decision to have a deaconness at Mars Hill read all his blog posts before they are published.

There is great wisdom in submitting yourself to the authority of those in your community because they will help you to clarify and correct certain aspects of your thought as well as offering encouragement when itis needed. An isolated writer will have great struggles to be humble. A writer surrounded by community will constantly be reminded of their need for assistance and, due to this, will be less likely to write in a proud or arrogant way.

Thirdly, humble writing comes from prayer-saturated individuals. If you're regularly surrendering yourself to God in prayer by acknowledging your faults and need for Him then you will be constantly reminded of your need for God and it will be very difficult to develop an attitude of self-sufficiency or over-confidence in your ability as a writer. Kierkegaard said that, "Prayer doesn't change God, it changes me." Consistent prayer creates humble writers. Irregular, sporadic, haphazard prayer-lives create independent individuals who refuse to submit themselves to God or others and who write will often write with a very condescending, arrogant tone.

Fourth, humble writing is God-centered, biblical writing. I place these two together because I see them as a balance. Humble writing is primarily about honoring God by accurately expounding upon a certain truth about him revealed to us in scripture. This means that our primary motivation to write is the glory of god and our primary goal is to accurately express some truth about the triune God of scripture. Our goal is not the approval of others or that they think us to be intellectual, funny, or clever. The driving motivation behind our writing is to accurately describe a certain truth about God in a way that magnifies his greatness.

That said, if we're going to write in a consistently biblical way we must understand what the Bible is: It's a collection of many different types of writing which God uses to communicate to people in a way that is relevant and makes sense to them. So if we're going to be biblical we will take things like culture into account when writing. Mark Driscoll explained it by saying we aren't to be seeker-sensitive because that often involves changing the message to appease the audience, which shows that our motivation is not the glory of God but the approval of others. However, we should be seeker-sensible in that we do adapt our language and method in order to communicate most effectively. If we refuse to do that it only shows our pride by showing that we think our method of choice is more important than "becoming all things to all men so that I, by all means, might save some."