Men's Bible Study 10/11/2010: We Humbly Digress

This past Monday, we looked at James 4. There is a ton of stuff in this passage, and perhaps we were never going to get into everything it says in one sitting, but our conversation about it immediately focused on this:

James 4:10
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Our discussion focused on what humility means. Among the things that were brought up was the idea that humility involves submitting oneself in obedience, which does not merely involve intellectual agreement, but action as well. We went into a really detailed discussion about the nature of submission and "true" and "complete" humility. It was mentioned that humility does not require that we despise our own gifts and abilities, and that we should try to view ourselves with as much clarity and honesty as possible. Finally, there was the sense that it is entirely possible to be obedient in our actions, to submit to a request or a command, but to still not be humble.

If that sounds scattered, it's because we talked about so many different aspects of humility! It also gets more complicated anytime you add the words "true" and "complete" in front of anything you're talking about.

The Greek word for humility used in this passage is tapeinos, and has the following meanings:

1) not rising far from the ground
2) metaphor:
a) as a condition, lowly, of low degree
b) brought low with grief, depressed
c) lowly in spirit, humble
d) in a bad sense, deporting one's self abjectly, deferring servilely to others

The one time submission in servitude comes up, it is "in a bad sense". That's not to say James didn't mean it in this sense at all. After all, many his hearers would have focused on the "worse" meaning possible, and if, in the world, servitude "in a bad sense" is considered foolish, are we not supposed to be fools for Christ? However, when we look at the whole passage, it would seem that the "lowly in spirit" sense of the word is just as applicable to the situations he is talking about.

It could be said that pride is at the root of all the issues James addresses in this chapter. "Fights and quarrels" are usually started when someone's pride has been hurt, or in pride a hurtful thing is said, and in pride people choose not to seek clarity or common ground. In pride people slander one another, considering themselves good enough to be "judges". In pride we declare our plans and set the trajectories of our lives, instead of submitting them to God and saying "Your will be done". Perhaps a good discussion for next time is how being "lowly in spirit" may be practiced, and how they would apply to these situations James talks about?

Next week:
Chapter 4, or Chapter 5. I don't know! I'm not making any plans! (But that doesn't mean I'm humble)