Confidence and Arrogance

Holding our interpretations with appropriate humility

I confess that when it comes to my own personal shortcomings, arrogance is near the top of the list.

There are things that seem to come easily to me that others find difficult. There are things that feel natural to me that others find entirely foreign. It can become easy for me to look down on people. I’m not proud of it, but I have to say it if I’m going to have any credibility in the other things I want to say today, because what I have to say goes to the question of being confident, rather than arrogant.

One of the things that amazed people about the first Christians was their bold confidence in their proclamation of the risen king Jesus: “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4.13). That word, “bold,” comes from the Greek word parrēsia, meaning openness, courage, boldness, assurance, or confidence. Jesus’ disciples were not afraid to confidently proclaim what they believed, and we shouldn’t be, either.

But where is the line between confidence and arrogance? I ask myself that question constantly, because I’ve been on the wrong side of the line all too often in my life. What is it that separates confident proclamation from arrogant declamation?*

I suppose one place to start would be to examine our own motives. Am I saying things out of love and concern for the other person? Or am I trying to show that I’m right and they’re wrong? Do I want them to change their mind so that they can come to a deeper appreciation of the truth? Or do I crave the sense of validation that comes when someone changes their mind in my favor? If we followers of Jesus are supposed to “do everything for mutual building up” (1 Corinthians 14.26) then that seems like it would rule out speech that just builds me up.

Perhaps a second thing would be to ask ourselves what result we’re hoping for. If we are hoping that the other person will finally abandon their stupid, backwards ways, then our basic stance to the other is contempt. We look down on their benighted, unenlightened beliefs. If, instead, we believe that we have knowledge that would lead to the growth of a person, a group, or an organization, then we have their good in mind. We are hoping that their exposure to new ideas will lead to the flourishing of their life or ministry.

I would say, too, that confidence and certainty aren’t the same thing. When I say that the Bible teaches that Jesus literally, bodily rose from the dead, I say that based not just on my own reading of the text, but in line with two millennia of Christian interpreters. Some people disagree, and say that that’s not what the Bible says—but they are a small minority among a throng of witnesses to the contrary. So when I proclaim the literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus, I am very confident that I am following along with what the Bible itself is trying to put across.

On the other hand, if I say that the Bible teaches that the consumption of alcoholic beverages is categorically forbidden, and I will not even consider arguments to the contrary, then I’m pursuing certainty, not confidence. If someone asserts something that I disagree with and I won’t even listen to what they have to say—well; that’s not confidence. That’s arrogance. If I can’t even countenance the possibility that my views are incorrect, then I’m not holding up the Bible as the guide for truth, but my own interpretation of the Bible.

The upshot of all this, I think, is that people have been reading the Bible (the Old and New Testaments) for two thousand years. No interpretation of mine can make the claim to be inarguably correct, or just self-evidently The Way, full stop. God’s revelation maybe be perfect, but our interpretation will always be tainted by our own limitations. I will always miss things I should have seen, or interpret things the way I want them to be (instead of the way they are). I will always have a single, limited, temporal, and subjective understanding of the truth. This should chasten my impulse toward arrogance.

If I posture myself as a perpetual learner, always growing closer to a knowledge of the truth, then I will be open to the new, the different, the challenging—even if I don’t ultimately accept those things. But if I posture myself as The One who comes bearing The Truth, so that people can see The Way, then my beliefs are brittle, and my motives are arrogant.

Let’s hope that we can be confident, but not prideful. Then our proclamation of the resurrected, redeeming King Jesus will be made with winsome, persuasive love, rather than off-putting, self-serving pride.

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* Proclaim means to “declare something one considers important with due emphasis.” Declaim, on the other hand, means to “utter or deliver words or a speech in a rhetorical or impassioned way, as if to an audience.” The difference, in my mind, is that the former is a matter of conviction relative to the message, whereas the latter is performative or highflown.