Intro. - What is it that interests you in discussions of scriptural relevance? What is it that compels you to reason with others about theological positions? Why do you engage in doctrinal dialogue on any given occasion? Our interest in any conversation or debate of biblical import must be to convince and persuade the other/s of what we maintain as biblically true not to prove that we are right.
1) To begin with it is a rudimentary truth that any form of apologia is about God and His truth. It is not about us. We must strip our dialogue of self-interest, egoism, and the like. In any scriptural debate or conversation we have; in every one of our apologetic enterprises and attempts at theodicy(though God does not need to justify himself for anything) we must first acknowledge that what we are striving to establish is God's truth and not our own. "A person who is a good and true Christian should realize that truth belongs to his Lord," as Augustine posited (On Christian Teaching II.75).
Whenever we place ourselves in a position that the triune God alone occupies in relation to truth our discourses are reduced to exercises of self interest, self defense, self promotion and vain glorious pedantics . Our reputation becomes the trophy of pursuit instead of the glory of God. (II Cor.10:12) It is true, conversely, that God can sovereignly use any argumentation or dialogue concerning His truth as an effectual means to achieve His purposes. Paul certainly concedes that it is still advantageous for those with self-serving motives to circulate the gospel. (Phil.1) However,that was a concession for Paul or a general commentary on that reality though and not a posture he was instructing anyone to pursue. And he certainly wasn't commending such as a methodology.
That being said we are to posture ourselves as messengers of God's truth or as "stewards" of that truth. Paul particularly speaks to this throughout II Corinthians 3-5 wherein he acutely reminds his readers that he and his company aren't interested in 'commending' themselves (3:1, 4:5, 5:12) for they have been given the 'ministry' and the 'message' (3:5,6; 4:1-2; 5:18-20). As we position ourselves as purveyors of God's truth who have received that truth in contradistinction to being originator's of that truth a biblically healthy position is established and the less likely we are to govern our theological conversations by attitudes, emotions, and vices that do not compliment biblical truth which invariably repel and mislead those we are trying to persuade or convince. To act or comport ourselves otherwise is to in effect "tamper with God's word" (II Cor. 4:2)
Whenever vainglory of the self is injected into our variegated theological conversations, whatever the form they may take, we fail to establish the glory of God aright. " As Sinclair Ferguson has commented, "If we act in a wrong spirit, we shall bring little glory to God" and again, "The rubric 'for the glory of God' must transform how Christians respond to controversy."
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