What sort of people are we with truth, with facts, with the doctrines of God's word, with an understanding of the ways of life? Well, we are supposed to be people who, recognising that we are lost and limited sinners saved by grace alone, are dependent upon truth, upon God's words and God's teaching and we are to be people who are always ready to see that we may have things wrong. Always ready to learn. Always ready to absorb more and to know how things should be done and what should be said, and what is the correct understanding of a particular Scripture, or a particular doctrine. The moment we become proud - Oh, but my opinion is such and such a thing, and if this is called into question, somebody is saying, well, what he is really calling into question is my intelligence. As soon as we become foolishly proud and we make every matter of fact a point of honour, then, of course, we are in no condition to increase our knowledge of truth and therefore we will be quite hopeless in any ministry of words. So this is really the point of this illustration, I am sure. How do we put ourselves in the way of increasing in knowledge and having a great stewardship of words in our lives?
Remember that we are supposed to be learners. Don't get into foolish arguments, always defending your position as a matter of pride, always clinging on to what you think you know, especially in the area of spiritual things and truth. Don’t see it as a matter of pride that you cannot give it up, or alter your view in any way. It is essential to the ministry of words that we are great learners and we do not do the foolish thing and take up a fixed, rigid position on something we scarcely understand.