God keep me from being a religious dogmatist, as Job’s well-meaning friend, Eliaphaz. But sad to say, how much like him we all are—flaunting our spiritual superiority, while we declare the cause of other’s misfortunes. What we say is often true—even eloquent, at times—but we do it with a harsh and hard spirit.
Webster’s definition for dogmatic is, “asserting opinion in a dictatorial way; opinionated.” I’m afraid this has been a picture of my life on many occasions. What an ugly one it is. Even now I am ashamed and embarrassed to think about it. We can tell people why their children go wrong, what is the cause of their sickness, the reason for their trials, and where they’re doctrinally wrong, etc, etc. We dogmatists have a hypocritical and pharisaical opinion on just about everything.
We can explain it all...till it happens to us. Isn’t it strange that when bad things happen in the lives of others, it’s because of something wrong they did; but, when it touches us, it surely must be for our benefit, to make us a better Christian. If we could (or would) only see ourselves as others do, we would keep a permanent black veil over that portrait.
May we stop trying to play God in everyone’s life. Let us be careful of being too dogmatic on minor doctrinal issues, and, by all means, stop interpreting events in the lives of others. It never occurs to a dogmatist that he could possibly be wrong. I cannot tell you how many times I have been.
As a dogmatist, I’ve spent a lot of time in the dog-house.
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