Greg Koukl and Amy Hall urge believers to examine themselves honestly without allowing false accusations of arrogance or legalism to derail discussion. Such charges frequently function as ad hominem attacks rather than serious engagement with an issue.
Transcript
Question: I do my best to be humble, fair, and gentle when I share the gospel and defend the faith, but I’m still frequently accused of being prideful and legalistic. That’s painful because I actually care very much about people’s souls. Surely you have similar experiences. How do you cope with them?
Greg: Well, I have. I’ve been accused of being prideful. Now, sometimes that was an accurate accusation. So, I’m not disparaging here. I understand that when you are principled and virtuous, people respond with this kind of response, which is really nothing more than an ad hominem attacking the person rather than dealing with the issue. And sometimes it can be painful. And I understand that, especially if the people are close to you. But it’s nothing more than an ad hominem in many cases.
Now, of course, whenever this happens, I guess it’s fair, if you are being accused of being arrogant or legalistic, this sounds like an accusation coming from another Christian. A non-Christian would not be concerned about legalism, per se. It’s a religious category kind of thing. But then if you’re being accused of that, it’s fair to take personal stock and see if those are accurate descriptions—if there’s arrogance, you know?
Sometimes—and I think maybe in some of the cases in the past for me—people mistake confidence for arrogance. And if you’re a very confident person and come across aggressively confident because you have reasons to be confident in what you’re saying, that might be dismissed as arrogance, which doesn’t change the nature of the discussion itself in terms of the merits. You could be very confident and right, and you could even be very arrogant and still right. And so, if the attempt is to dismiss the point that’s being made, then that’s a mistake on the other person’s side.
Sometimes, especially in religious circles… Christian circles—and I owe this insight to Frank Beckwith, the philosopher over at Baylor, and I wrote a book with him. And Frank said, when other people are losing a religious argument, they often trump you with spirituality: “I’m more spiritual than you are.” So, you’re trying to figure out a problem. He said, “Well, I don’t put God in a box. You’re putting God in a box. I’m not going to do that.” “Oh, so you’re more spiritual than I am.” Notice they’re not addressing whatever challenge or issue that’s under discussion. And maybe this is what’s going on here. Oh, that’s arrogant and legalistic. Okay? So, I don’t have to listen to your point.
Now, legalism is one of two things, characteristically, just FYI. One of them is seeking to be justified by law. And this is condemned in the New Testament, especially by Paul in Galatians chapter 5: “You who are seeking to be justified by law, circumcision is of no use to you. You’ve been separated from Christ. You’ve fallen from grace.” Okay? That’s Paul.
Now, there’s another type of legalism, and Jesus addressed that, and that is when we take human rules and we make them equal with God’s law. Okay? Here’s the rule. You can’t watch TV. Nope. That’s our rule for our congregation. No TV watching. Well, the Bible doesn’t say no TV watching or anything akin to that. We should be careful, arguably, but the point is this is a rule that they’ve set up, and then you’re measured by their rule rather than by God’s rule. That’s another kind of legalism.
So, if somebody says you’re being legalistic, then the question is, am I guilty of either of those two errors? Sometimes when you are expressing the biblical requirement for holiness, people think you’re being legalistic, and in that situation, you need to be careful. We are to be holy as God is holy. That’s a verse. That doesn’t mean that our salvation is earned by our holiness. It means that the appropriate behavior or lifestyle of somebody who says they follow Jesus is to follow him. “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don’t do what I say to do?” So, occasionally the legalistic label would be pinned on somebody when they’re just saying, this is what God wants for any Christian. And then, “Oh, you’re being legalistic.”
So, I just wanted to make those distinctions here. And one has to figure out, are any of those legitimate challenges or criticisms that are being laid on me? And if not, then understand that. It doesn’t mean people aren’t going to call you names, essentially, is what it amounts to, to dismiss you. But that’ll happen in the church just as much as outside of the church.
Amy: Yeah. I see two aspects to the answer to this question, and one of them is how, kind of, to interact with it when it happens, and the other is how to cope with it, and they kind of play with each other, I think. But in terms of how to interact, I think you’re exactly right, Greg. It’s a chance to humble you and to consider if it’s accurate. So, this would be a good chance to maybe step away from the actual argument that you’re having and say, “You know, it’s really important to me that I not be arrogant and legalistic, but I’m not really sure what you mean by those terms. So, can you explain to me more what you mean by that and what I’m doing? Because it’s important to me to be like Jesus, so I don’t want to be those things. But I want to understand what you mean by that.”
Greg: Sure. Excellent.
Amy: And then you can have a conversation about it, because I suspect what you said about being confident will be interpreted as arrogance because this is a relativistic society. So, if you’re saying things are true, then that’s going to be understood as arrogance. So, if they say you’re saying you’re right, then you can have a discussion about, you know, truth and objective truth and reality, and the claim you’re making is that things are true about spiritual things. So, it just means you have to start farther back in your arguments, all the way to objective truth about spiritual things, rather than whatever it is you’re discussing. So, that’s an opportunity to move that conversation back there. So, that might help. So, “What do you mean by that?” is the key question there.
Greg: Back to basics.
Amy: So, now the question is, how do you cope with people being angry at you and coming back at you? And honestly, I get asking that question. I totally get that. It wears on you to have people constantly calling you names or being angry at you. So, this is a really good question, and I think it’s something we all need to think about a little bit more.
And one of them—the first answer—is, just keep reminding yourself of the truth. You know? What’s the truth here? The truth is their whole worldview is being threatened here. But what you’re saying, you’re convinced it’s true. And if what they’re saying is false, you can at least take comfort in that. You can at least take comfort in the fact that their assessment of you is not correct.
And one thing you need to remember is that when people do this to you, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wrong. And we know this is true because this is how they treated Jesus and all the prophets. So, if they’re treating you that way, don’t automatically assume that what you’re saying is false or that it’s ugly or hateful or whatever it is they’re charging you with, because they said the same to Jesus. So, you can expect that this will happen. So, kind of expecting it to happen in the future and not being naive about that, that can help you go into this with your eyes open and ready to face these things.
So, I think, even further, you can look at this as an opportunity to do two things. And the first thing it’s an opportunity to do is to be a parable of the gospel to others and to show them who Jesus is. As you mentioned, Greg, you respond as Jesus responded. You don’t respond in kind. You respond with grace. And this is actually revealing who Jesus is. And this is what Peter says in 1 Peter. He talks about how we’re to imitate Jesus, who did not respond to reviling by reviling others. And it says he kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. So, Jesus continued to be good. He continued to do what’s right. He continued to be gracious, regardless of how he was being treated, because he was entrusting himself to the judge who is good and just.
Titus 3 also talks about how we are supposed to respond to those who are reviling us with grace because that’s how Jesus responded to us. That’s how he saved us. So, we’re to imitate him in that. So, this is the opportunity you have in this situation to be a parable of the gospel.
And secondly, it’s an opportunity to show people Jesus’ value, because no matter how much they malign you, if you don’t give up Jesus, you’re saying that he’s more valuable to you than the opposition is painful and more valuable than their approval. That’s also true. So, you’re showing his value to others. So, you’re showing who he is to others. You’re showing his value to others. So, if you can look at this in terms of having a purpose—because clearly Peter says this has a purpose. You’re going through this for a reason. It’s not something crazy when people are in opposition to you. It has a purpose. So, if you can keep that purpose in mind, that can help you to endure.
And then finally, I think you can leave the justice in God’s hands. And as I mentioned, Jesus kept entrusting himself to the judge who does what’s right. In the same way, Romans 12 says the reason why we can give food to our enemy when he’s hungry, we can give him drink when he’s thirsty, is because God said, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay.” So, by responding well with grace, you’re not letting them off the hook. You don’t have to worry about injustice being done. Justice will be done. You don’t have to worry about that. So, because we can leave that in God’s hands, we are free to show grace.
So, all of these things—remembering that God will be just, remembering that this is an opportunity to show who Jesus is and to show his value to others—we can get through this a lot better.
Now, long ago, I wanted to understand, because I was feeling this because I was moderating comments on the Stand to Reason blog, and it got pretty dicey at times. So, I was reading all of these different books and stories about Christians who persevered in the past through all sorts of things.
Greg: To help you answer the blog.
Amy: I wanted to know, how do they keep going? How do they not give up? How do they not get discouraged? And the one common thing that I found among all of them was their love for Jesus. And I honestly think that is what will keep you going. I don’t think anything else is going to be strong enough. If you have a love for the lost, eventually you’re going to get angry at them. You’re not going to care. If you love truth, eventually you’re going to get tired of saying the truth. You have to love Jesus more than anything else. And so, to increase your love for him, you need to see who he is. You need to be reading your Bible. You need to be reading about him. You need to be thinking about him. You need to be praying. You need to be focusing your attention on him so that you are willing to suffer for him. Because remember, one of the earlier things was you’re showing his value. Well, if you don’t see his value, it’s really hard to reveal his value when people are being mean to you. So, all of this, I think, comes down to knowing Jesus.
I’ve thought a lot about this because—you know what’s funny? I was reading 1 Peter just this morning, and I was thinking, the way Peter responds to persecution and the way Paul responds to persecution is so different. So, the ideas are the same, but Paul will give the truth, and then he moves on. And Peter—it’s like Peter understands the pain more of being opposed. And we see this in his life. We see that he turned away from Jesus because the pressure was so much. We see that he gave in to the Judaizers who were adding Law, and Paul had to say, “Don’t do that.”
Greg: Yeah. Publicly rebuke him. Right.
Amy: So, I suspect Peter probably was—I’m trying to think of the word—maybe he was more empathetic. Maybe he saw things through other people’s eyes a little more, and it was harder for him to do this. So, he had to really think about it and to think about what would motivate us to keep going, for those of us who maybe take it more personally. So, this is why I love 1 Peter, because I think he really goes into all of this so clearly, and it’s so helpful, which is, of course, what Jesus asked him to do. He says, “When you come back, strengthen your brothers.” And I think that’s what this is. So, I recommend, if you’re having trouble, memorize 1 Peter so you’re thinking about it a lot. And I think that will help. I hope that will help.