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“I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).
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When you read “humbleness” did you automatically think “humiliated”? What’s the difference? To humiliate, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “to make someone feel ashamed and foolish by injuring their dignity and self-respect.”
Contrast that with these two views. According to C.S. Lewis, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.”
And Lewis Sperry Chafer wrote, “Humility is a divine characteristic to be found in human hearts only as inwrought by the Spirit of God. It is far removed from self-depreciation or an inferiority complex… ‘He who seeks not his own interest, but solely God`s interest, in time and eternity, he is humble’…” (Doctrinal Summarization; p. 190).[1]
The very simplest description of humbleness as found in the Bible is John 3:30: “He [God] must become greater, I must become less.”
Choose a few of the verses below to memorize so you will have them in mind when the time comes that you must “think of yourself less,” as Lewis put it (see above), and Jesus must be exalted in your life and in your actions.
Psalm 25:9 – He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.
Proverbs 11:2 – When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God.
Matthew 23:12 – for those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.
John 3:30 – He must become greater; I must become less.
Romans 12:3 – For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
Philippians 2:3-4 – Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
1 Peter 5:6 – Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.
Endnotes
- Quoted from https://e360bible.org/blog/humility-biblical-definition.↑
R.L. Wilson
R.L. Wilson has been on staff at the Ankerberg Theological Research Institute since 1982. Wilson’s articles draw from the perspective of someone who grew up in a multicultural environment, and who has been a follower of Christ for many decades.
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