The Humble Who Aren’t
Humility, and it’s antonym, arrogance are on the tongues of many a person today. Nobody likes dealing with a person who thinks too highly of themselves. The ironic thing about this, however, is that most people dislike arrogance because they, themselves, are offended that someone they view as lesser would dare to claim superiority!
It’s arrogance that offends the arrogant most of all. In a worldview where a person views themselves as supreme, there can be no greater offense than questioning that position. To those who think themselves a god, the arrogance of others is blasphemy. Therefore, people love the “humble”.
In this view, however, a humble person is simply one who always compliments the ego of others and avoids commenting upon the ways in which he considers himself better. This can include flattery and a false humility where a person speaks ill of himself in order to convince others to rush to build him up. Many will know this behavior as “compliment fishing”.
Moses’s Humility
Many a joke has been made about the following verse.
Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.
Numbers 12:3
Of course, the jokes are largely based upon the fact that Moses is the one who wrote Numbers and therefore you have a man seemingly bragging about being the most humble man on the planet! Most sermons on the verse are quick to follow it up with “but this is God’s inspired word, so it also must be true!”
It is certainly true but how can that be? It can be because our common sense of humility is flawed. We tend to think in terms of how a man weighs himself against another. In that view, anyone who admits to being better in any way than another person disqualifies himself from humility.
However, if that were true than anyone who records that they are more humble than everyone else on the whole planet is necessarily lying. If we’re to believe the Bible to include no falsehood, this cannot be our understanding of pride and humility.
David Was Also Humble
In Psalm 18, we can find a better view of humility and pride. These verses likely sound very proud to the common understanding:
The Lord dealt with me according to my righteousness;
Psalm 18 20-24
according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
and have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all his rules were before me,
and his statutes I did not put away from me.
I was blameless before him,
and I kept myself from my guilt.
So the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
How could this not be pride? No man is perfect and we know as well as David that he made mistakes in his life. While David was serious about keeping God’s laws before him, in temptation he did violate them anyway.
Leading up to these verses we have our answer.
I love you, O Lord, my strength.
Psalm 18:1-2
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
What follows between these verses is some of the most beautiful praise that can be found. David isn’t writing these verses to bring honor to himself. He’s honoring God. He’s pointing out how God dealt well with him because God is good. A few verses later he also rightly attributes even his goodness to God rather than himself.
For who is God, but the Lord?
Psalm 18:31-32
And who is a rock, except our God?—
the God who equipped me with strength
and made my way blameless.
It wasn’t David who made his own way blameless. It was God. All honor goes to God. Moses was the same. While he acknowledges his meekness, he doesn’t do so to glorify himself but rather the God who humbled him.
How to be Humble
The way most people think of humility, you would expect that God’s instruction to man when he considers himself would be to consider himself as worthless. However, while warning against arrogance, he instead encourages us to sober judgement.
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
Romans 12:3
We don’t need fake humility by pretending we’re worse in every way than we actually are or even worse than everyone else. Instead, we need true humility, which is an acknowledgement that the differences between one man and another are insignificant when compared to the gap between the perfection of God and the nature of any man. A humble man is one who gives all glory to God.
A person who refuses to acknowledge God is the height of arrogance. The one who acknowledges God in everything is humble. All the other flattery and false humility is just more reason why man must set themselves aside and come to Christ. Every good and perfect thing is from God, and the righteousness of Christ is the only way for goodness to be found among men.
