He charges the church to submit to God, resist the devil, and draw near to God (James 4:7–8). James reminds them not only that they are “sinners” and “double-minded” but he also reminds them of Proverbs 3:34. It serves as a test of pride, and humility.
(James 4:1–2)Ĭonflict among those claiming the name of Christ humbles the church. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. James refers to quarrels and fights within the church: Humbling from Withinįor our purposes here, observe that both calls to self-humbling come in response to trials. But before we run off to create our own program for self-humbling, we should consider the context in both passages. In the immediate context of instructing us to humble ourselves, both quote the Greek translation of Proverbs 3:34 (“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble,” James 4:6 1 Peter 5:5). So far as we can tell, James and Peter haven’t been inspired by each other on this point, but by the Old Testament. “When trials come, will we bow up with pride, or bow down in humility?” Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. And both do so in strikingly similar ways, adding the promise that God will exalt us on the other side: In particular, two apostles tell us to humble ourselves. Make no mistake, we do have a part to play in humility. Genuine humility, as with true faith, is not self-help or a life hack, but a response to divine initiative and help. In other words, humble yourself by your own bootstraps.īut if we come to the Scriptures with such a mindset, we find ourselves in a different world. Grab the bull by the horns and be humble. We might consider it quintessentially American to think we could. Humility is not something we can achieve.
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