Once I had a 5 hour 1 to 1 Bible study from 10 pm to 3 am, where we were literally screaming at each other virtually the entire time. Then after 5 hours, we were still not finished answering Question 1 of the Bible study questions!

I am encouraged by your willingness to accept the possibility that you may be wrong and even commit heresies. It’s hard to hold that possibility regarding one’s Church. Most people put everything in to their Church and do not want to feel that they have invested themselves totally in a Church that teaches error in this or that. But I think you rightly point out that a Church can teach error in X or Y and we should be humble enough to admit that, but that initself doesnt justify the entire Church not being led by the Holy Spirit. Great point.  

Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said that we have an overabundance of applicants for the Popes office but none for the general priesthood. What he meant was that everyone thinks their view of the Faith is right and want to be placed on a pedestool but no one very few are willing to be obedient and live out their faith in daily acts of self sacrifice.

An interesting psychology related to this point is realted to cognitive dissonance. They had a group of people do a long boring task for about an hour. After the task, half of the people were offered $20.00 for their time and others were offered only $2.00. A week later, when both groups of participants were interviewed, guess who rated the experience as more enjoyable?

It was the group who only got paid $2.00. They didnt want to feel that they subjected themselves to a bad experience for nothing. They wanted to know that their effort was not in vain so they made themselves believe that the task was really enjoyable. Else, why would they do it for only $2.00?

My point is that, some people would rather convince themselves that their experience was enjoyable when it wasnt than to admit that perhaps it was not enjoyable and you waisted your time, or perhaps this aspect of it is no good but the rest of it was good.  

Again, great article.

But as I got older, I realize that “there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” and that Jesus likely did not adopt my threatening tactics. So, I stopped threatening my Bible students. But someone said to me, “But it worked,” implying that I had “gone soft” on my Bible students.

As you said, just because “something worked” doesn’t always mean that I did the right thing. And if something doesn’t work, it doesn’t always mean that I did something wrong.

Surely, we should always reasses and reevaluate ourselves and our ministry methods before God and before His Word.

I believe that he gained great wisdom from allowing others to challenge him and not being defensive. He learned a great deal from others, especially from those with whom he disagreed. Although he was a committed Calvinist, he maintained a good relationship with John Wesley, who was Arminian. I think the process of having his faith and practice challenged by others gave him humility and wisdom.

Regarding your words of carefully considering another perspective, basicly I agree. Just want to add that often we could not really ground – why do we feel something is really wrong, or something could be good. We just feel it, it tasted for us – as good or wrong, or even really wrong. And If I really feel – something is really wrong and I have to point it out, I try to do so even if later I would have to repent and ask forgiveness.

N.T. Wright said: “I frequently tell my students that quite a high proportion of what I say is probably wrong, or at least flawed or skewed in some way which I do not at the moment realize. The only problem is that I do not know which bits are wrong; if I did I might do something about it. … I make many mistakes in moral and practical matters, why should I imagine my thinking to be mysteriously exempt?”