His Holiness Pope Shenouda III speaks about the cause of many intellectual deviations: the existence of two methods in teaching — a method based on pride and a method based on humility — and he focuses on the effect of this choice in interpreting the Holy Book and the behavior of believers.

Pride versus humility in teaching
He clarifies that pride is not merely arrogance before people, but appears in the method of teaching and interpretation when it is declared that man must be deified or become a partner in divinity in a way that exceeds true humility. He warns against claims of boldness to approach God or claiming excessive holiness without blame.

Rights and inheritances in Christ
He explains that what we have before God are not rights earned by our works but gifts and grants recorded for us in the kingdom because we are in Christ: our entrance to God and our standing holy and blameless is a right given to us by faith, baptism, and acceptance of the Holy Spirit, not the result of works we deserve.

Filled with all the fullness of God — a warning against misunderstanding
He deals with the verse about being filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians) and warns against interpreting it literally that we are filled with divinity so that we become equal to God. He explains that the meaning is being filled with what God allows for our nature: God’s love, His knowledge, His grace and virtues, not God’s divinity itself.

Spirit of humility and church teaching
He explains that the church’s teaching always cultivates humility: confession of sin, asking for purification, and reliance on God’s mercy, with an emphasis that spiritual fruits are given to us without payment as divine gifts that call for the struggle of faith to claim the divine inheritances.

Spiritual conclusion
The call is that we hold to humility in prayer and life, and that we know our rights as gifts in Christ not as claims, and that we ask to be filled with God’s love and knowledge and grace according to the limits of our human nature, with ongoing struggle to claim the inheritances God prepared for us.

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