Thursday Thinking - About Humility

Richard Beck shares some helpful thoughts about humility on his Experimental Theology blog. He cautions against misunderstanding humility as a diminishing of the self and, instead, suggests that the Christian concept of humility is more about care and honor for the other.

He explores the meaning and translation of the Greek word hyperechontas in a number of New Testament passages, and concludes with his own rendering of Philippians 2:3 – "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility lift others up above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others."

I encourage you to take the time to visit Beck's blog and read his short and very readable post, "In Humility Hold Others above Yourself." He begins with this:

When it comes to humility I think a lot of Christians tend to work with the wrong idea.

The idea that many seem to have is that humility involves thinking less about yourself, to have a negative or even morbid self-concept. Justification for this sort of thing comes from texts like Philippians 2.3:

Philippians 2.3
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Humility, it seems, is considering others as "better" than yourself. And if others are better than you it stands to reason that you are "worse." Humility, in this view, is having that sort of morbid self-concept: Others are "better" than me.

But is that what Philippians 2.3 is saying?

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