The Spiritual Discipline of Food and Diet

One of the first things that comes to mind when thinking of differing cultures is eating; various types of food and cookery. Every people group has its own local diet, its own cuisine, even its own idea of what constitutes healthy nutrition. When we travel with the intent to learn about other people, food is one of the first things we want to experience and experiment with.

Seventh-day Adventists have had their own subculture when it comes to this subject, although our ideas about plant-based, low-fat, low-sugar, low-additive foods have now been widely accepted in the world around us. It’s easier than ever in Western societies to be vegetarian or vegan without facing so much as a lifted eyebrow.

What did Jesus do? Again, He chose an observant Jewish home, and He centered His ministry where the diet laws given in the Torah were accepted as conventional wisdom, “what we do.” But beyond that, He seems to have eaten what was put in front of Him. He certainly ate lamb at the Passover, and is shown to have killed, cleaned, cooked, and eaten fish even after His resurrection, in His glorified body! That seems so strange to some of us. And He did not follow the detailed washing rituals the various sects prescribed for before meals, though no doubt He was clean. His culture ate what we today would call a “Mediterranean diet,” that is, lean meats and fish, legumes, lots of fresh, in-season produce, a variety of fresh, whole grain breads, and olive oil. He is never shown as being present at a gathering where anything particularly decadent would have been served.

Questions to ask: What are the customs where I live? What are the moral issues, if any, of eating? Do they include sustainable agriculture practices and ways of supporting local growers? How can I use my eating habits as a way of building bridges to those around me, rather than as a wall? How can I use food as a way of being teachable and allowing others to teach me, too, rather than always being in the teaching position?

Popular Culture

What do we mean by “popular culture?” Here is the definition from the Wikipedia:

Popular culture (or pop culture) is the culture—patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance—which are popular, well-liked or common. This is often defined or determined by the mass media. Popular culture is deemed as what is popular within the social context. … Popular culture is also suggested to be the widespread cultural elements in any given society that are perpetuated through that society’s vernacular language or lingua franca. It comprises the daily interactions, needs and desires and cultural ‘moments’ that make up the everyday lives of the mainstream. It can include any number of practices, including those pertaining to cooking, clothing, consumption and mass media, and the many facets of entertainment such as sport and theater. … Popular culture often contrasts with a more exclusive, even elitist “high culture,” that is, the culture of ruling social groups. The earliest use of “popular” in English was during the fifteenth century in law and politics, meaning “low … base … vulgar” and “of the common people” until the late eighteenth century by which time it began to mean “widespread” and gain in positive connotation. (Williams 1985)

Pop culture finds its expression in the mass circulation of items from areas such as fashion, music, sport and film. The world of pop culture has had a particular influence on art from the early 1960s on, through Pop Art. When modern pop culture began during the early 1950s, it made it harder for adults to participate. Today, most adults, their kids and grandchildren “participate” in pop culture directly or indirectly.

If “popular culture” is defined as those elements of culture that are widespread and accepted by the majority of any given society, then we can see immediately a striking and enormously definitive difference between the cultures of Jesus’ day and our own. We call it the “global village.” When life all over the planet moved no faster than the pace of a fast horse, and most often at the pace of a person, a people group could be almost completely isolated even from other groups that were geographically quite nearby. Someone in a village in China knew little about what went on even in the next valley, and nothing at all about what went on in a village in Guatemala, or even that such a place existed. Culture, art, and religion moved with trade and exploration, so Italy heard about Asia only a few decades after Marco Polo traveled there, and Galilee and Judea knew something about Egypt, the near East, and the eastern Mediterranean because they were centered in the intersection of many trade routes. But you could have an alien place called Samaria right between the two. “We don’t associate with those people.” We may not know much, but we know they’re different, and different is bad.

Human nature is what it is, and there are still enclaves and prejudice and us/them ways of thinking. There are still valleys in Appalachia or Quebec or maybe even neighborhoods in New York City or San Francisco, where people do things “the way they’ve always been done” and look with deep suspicion and mistrust on Outsiders. Only today, they have televisions and computers and cell phones in those valleys, and the world has shrunk mightily.

So now we can talk about “pop culture” and mean a kind of people group so huge it would have been unimaginable in Jesus’ day. Now you can see Bantu and Brazilian, Indonesian and Inuit, Mongolian and Manx teenagers wearing blue jeans and little white earbuds created by North American pop culture and made in Asia. And they’re all texting each other about the latest episodes of television programs their parents never heard of.

Is it possible to figure out how Jesus wants us to live in this world, but not of it? How on earth can we even talk the same language as these millennial children, let alone reach them with the Everlasting Gospel that’s supposed to go to all tribes and kindred’s and nations? Perhaps we can list some of those cultural elements mentioned above, as well as others that we have concerns and quandaries about, look at them each in the life of Christ, and then formulate some questions we can ask ourselves when trying to make wise decisions.

The Greatest Example

There is much we can learn from fellow human beings. Yet they are, after all, sinful, faulty mortals like ourselves. We can argue whether Moses and Joseph were placed where they were—Moses with the sheep, Joseph in Egyptian slavery—in part because of their own prior attitudes and actions. We may insist that Esther didn’t do the right thing by not openly living her Jewishness. How can she have kept Sabbaths or festivals or maintained a kosher diet, if she was supposed to keep her faith and ethnicity a secret? Perhaps God made good even of their mistakes. Perhaps we would have done entirely differently in their places. We can suppose so, anyway.

But we do have a perfect example. Just one. And that one is enough. When God saw the time was right, that is to say, the world was at its lowest ebb, which seems an odd time to choose, He “loved the world” so much He sent His Son, not to conquer the planet, knock us into shape, and reestablish His rule (all of which He could have done and had the right to do), but to enter right into this sinful, dangerous, chaotic world as a baby! Kosmos, by the way, means an ordering, or even a decoration. It represents the beauty, symmetry, and divine order of the universe. It’s arguable whether this world still belonged to that divine order, once Satan had held sway here for even a short time. By the time Jesus came, there wasn’t much left to display what God had originally intended.

But there He was, Creator of the universe, wearing our clothes, eating our food, speaking our degraded language, living in a body that was a paltry shadow of the ones He’d designed, growing up, “learning obedience by the things which He suffered,” (Hebrews 5:8). Whatever that means! It can’t mean what it means to us, suffering because of disobedience and slowly learning better. After He’d been here for three long decades, He “started His ministry.” As if He hadn’t been ministering all along. . . For three and a half years, He continued to walk in the world, eating the food, talking the language, being accused of gluttony and drunkardness, teaching His upside-down Way.

In what ways was Jesus selective about the aspects of the culture into which He (unlike us) chose to be born?

First, and no doubt very importantly, Jesus chose to be born into an observant Jewish home. In fact, Joseph was so observant he nearly didn’t marry his fiancée when it turned out she was pregnant. He was going to “put her away quietly.” We learn two things about Joseph here. First, that he did do his best to observe the Law, and second, that he understood the spirit of the Law better than, for example, those who later brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus to be stoned. Joseph could have demanded that Mary be stoned. But he knew more about love, and the God of love, than that. He also listened when he had his own dream. Perhaps he had not been able to bring himself to believe Mary’s story, but he did believe when he had a dream of an angel himself. How many men in that day and that society would have?

Mary and Joseph took the prescribed offering to the temple when Jesus was born, and took Him to the temple Himself when He reached the required age. Clearly, they were faithful Jews who did their best to follow God’s teachings and who knew that His foremost teaching is love. This is the sort of family God chose to raise His Son on earth. We can’t choose what family we grew up in, but we can choose to center our adult homes and families on the God of love.

Second, He did choose a humble home and an agricultural society where he would be able to get into nature. It is obvious in all the gospels that Jesus loved being out by Himself in nature to  pray and meditate. He clearly considered this a good way to regain His perspective. For example, after the feeding of the multitude, when they tried to crown Him king, Jesus sent the disciples off across the lake on their own, going “up on the mountain by Himself to pray.” (Matthew 14:23) At other times He called His disciples to go apart with Him for a while, whether in the hills or on the water. Can we assume that a connection with nature is important to all of us, no matter how our personalities differ?

It seems that these two factors were the most overarching aspects of Jesus’ lifestyle, and have the most universal application to us today, living in a world so different it would hardly seem the same planet to someone transplanted from the first century. If we have those two down—Love God first, last, and always; and take time to rest and meditate, preferably out in fresh air and greenery—the rest of the world that surrounds us may be easier to sort out. Maybe, when it comes to realizing and regularly reloading our connectedness to the rest of creation, we are supposed to be both in and of the world—the natural world, that is.

The Spiritual Discipline of Selectivity Concerning Popular Culture

When one begins to delve into the question of how to live as a follower of Christ in this world while keeping oneself “unspotted,” the waters get very murky very fast. Here are just a few texts which are downright confusing, not to say contradictory!

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27) “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” (James 1:17) “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” (1 John 2:16) “For the world is Mine, and all it contains.” (Psalm 50:12) Well, which is it? The world and all it contains belongs to God, or “all” that is in the world is not from God?

Or how about this pair? “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16, emphasis supplied) “Do not love the world nor the things in the world.” (1 John 2:15, emphasis supplied) John even goes on to say, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

How can all this fit together? Checking the Greek doesn’t help much. There is only one word used for “world” in the New Testament, except in places which also mean “age” or “era.” The word is kosmos, which seems pretty all-inclusive even if one doesn’t read Greek. It means the people, the physical creation, the order of the universe, the human system, just like the English “world” or even “universe,” kosmos covers it all. So is it good, or is it bad? We know God made the world, and “saw that it was very good.” (Genesis 1) We also know the children He made to be His own chose their selfish interests ahead of their love for Him, and the world became a very different place than God had planned. So far, it’s clear. There were physical changes, thorns and unruly weeds, storms and seasons, dangerous animals; and there were spiritual changes in the hearts of human beings, leading all the way to murder within the first generation of humans. (Genesis 3 and 4) None of this was from God, yet this changed the world He loved and immediately began to work to save.

From then on, there were choices to be made. There were “sons of God,” and “daughters of men.” (Genesis 6) Of course both those phrases include both genders. There were people who chose to follow God, even though He was invisible and no longer walked with them in “the cool of the evening,” and there were people who chose to follow their own erratic desires.

What did it mean for them to be human beings living in a sinful world, but having their citizenship in a different place, desiring “a better country, that is, a heavenly one?” (Hebrews 11:16) We can learn a lot from the examples set for us in the early stories of our faith. And the first thing that becomes obvious is that the definition of “not of the world” is not a static one, but varies drastically from person to person and from one situation to another.

Abraham: In Genesis 12, we have God calling Abram out of “his father’s land”—a very important and unsettling move in those times—to “a place I will show you.” Obediently, Abram and his household move, and keep on moving. They are taken away from the powerful center of learning that Ur of the Chaldees was, with its libraries and temples and architectural wonders. Out in the quiet places of nature, Abram and Sarai learn about God and His true worship. They receive promises, visits from God, and even new names. They are made the progenitors of a whole new nation, chosen to be priests for God to the world.

Moses: First raised in a humble home, Moses by God’s miraculous intervention became part of the first family of the nation. Then, when he has received a palace education, he is taken away from it all and retrained by forty years of shepherding. It is in the wilderness that God speaks, even naming Himself to Moses, and calling him to become one of the greatest leaders and lawgivers of all time.

Ruth: A Moabitess who was presumably raised in an idolatrous home, Ruth is called to leave her homeland and go to the small town of Bethlehem, where amid scenes of the simple duties of home, she will learn to love the one true God—and, little though she knows it, will become an ancestor of the Messiah!

Elijah and Elisha: By and large all the prophets, including Elijah and Elisha, are called to live simple lives, moving from town to town giving whatever message God has entrusted to them. Elijah even lives by a brook for an extended period, fed by wild ravens. In the wilderness, he learns to hear the voice of God, and nearing the end of his work, when he becomes burned out and discouraged, the lesson is impressed on him even more firmly than before—God’s voice is still and small, and best heard in the quiet places.

Preliminary Conclusion: Clearly, following God and being “not of this world” means going out, away, living alone or possibly in a small, likeminded community. Over the centuries, thousands of God’s earnest followers have done, and still do, just that. But, there are exceptions.

Joseph: Here is a boy who was raised in the time-honored nomad tents and then picked up and dropped in Egypt, of all places, the most decadent of the ancient societies—so degraded its name became a byword for sin, just as Babylon’s later did. Joseph is not only taken away from his quiet outdoor life, he is immediately transplanted into the home of a high official, and subjected to temptations which could have cost him his life whether he gave in or not! From being Potiphar’s most trusted steward, he goes to prison. But again, he rises to the notice of high officials. Now he’s the steward on the Inside! And next thing you know, Joseph is a kind of Deputy Pharaoh, in charge of the whole department of agriculture, and married to the daughter of an idolatrous priest?

Does Joseph feel he is placed in a position that is incompatible with his faith? No, in Genesis 45:5-8 and again in 50:20, Joseph says God sent him to Egypt, to save lives, and that even though others mean something for evil, God can mean it for good, anyway. And God wins.

Daniel: It is one of the low spots of the Old Testament. The people of God have been so rebelliously determined to worship their own gods their own way, and refusing to obey their Creator, that they are about to find out what happens when God’s patience comes to an end. Teenaged Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, are captured and borne off to Babylon and a genteel sort of slavery, probably as eunuchs. In some ways, Daniel’s story parallels Joseph’s. Both are among the few Bible characters for whom no sin is recorded, (which is not to say they were sinless.) Both are imprisoned, one with lions, for adhering to their faith even in adversity and temptation. Each becomes assistant governor of a major ungodly nation. Daniel’s story doesn’t have the kind of exciting finale where he saves his nation. (Although he was certainly highly instrumental in what is probably the greatest recorded change of heart in a pagan king.) He, in fact, has to live through the conquest of the nation he’s been serving his whole life by the next nation on the prophetic chart, as he is in a unique position to recognize. Daniel has already retired by this time, but is brought back into the public eye to serve the next administration with the same kind of unswerving righteousness.

This is no wilderness sojourn! Apparently one can serve God just as well in the bustle of high civic life as in the desert. And apparently, He sometimes asks someone to do just that.

Esther: If ever a person in the Bible is placed in a questionable position, it is Hadassah, the niece of Mordecai, whom we refer to by her Gentile name, Esther. The seventy years Jeremiah had promised are long over, and many refugees have returned with joy and singing to the Promised Land. They are rebuilding and facing the trials of inhospitable neighbors, learning and relearning new lessons about how to worship. Yet many have stayed. Why did Mordecai stay? We are not privileged to know. Does he wish he hadn’t, when Ahasuerus makes the decree demanding that all beautiful virgins be brought to his harem? Surely Mordecai is horrified and wishing he and Hadassah were far away and out of reach. He may even try to hide her. We don’t know that either.

What we do know is that every virgin that the overseers think worthy of the king’s notice, including Hadassah, is collected and taken into the custody of Hegai, at the royal harem. For twelve months, they are given beauty treatments and possibly trained in ways of being pleasing concubines. Then they each have one night with the king. At the end of the night, that girl is taken to the “second harem,” to the custody of Shaashgaz, who has charge of the concubines (Esther 2:8, 14). She will never be called to the king again unless she “delighted” him. Her dreams of a husband and family of her own are over forever. She is now a concubine of the king, imprisoned inside the petty life of a harem, for life. Esther does delight this jaded king, and is chosen as his queen. Most startling of all, she is cautioned by Mordecai not to let on that she is a Jew.

Do Mordecai and Esther, separated, they believe, forever, walk the floor and mourn? Can this possibly have been God’s plan? No matter. There is no escape. And yet the day comes when Mordecai tells Esther she might have been brought to this place “for such a time as this,” and that the fate of her entire nation is in her hands. Once again, God brings human plans for evil to good, though there is still sin and ugliness and bloodshed in the end of this story. And once again He does it right in the palace of the king.

What, then, can we say? Some followers of God have been called out of the world and into a simple life, learning to be faithful and true in the company of nature and nature’s God. Others have been called into the world, learning to be faithful and true while also being faithful to high-status business and politics, though these always remain second place to God. What does it mean to be “in the world, but not of the world”?

Humility - Practical Application

We live in a time of extreme individualism. To a greater degree than at any other time in human history, North American society today values individual rights and responsibility over all other values. “To your own self be true.” The concept of “the greatest love” being love of self. Hyper concern about individual freedom and responsibility, and a growing belief that responsibility for others is a suspect category. These are all indicators of how emphasis on self has become more pronounced in contemporary society than ever before.

The spiritual discipline of humility is a call for Christians to stand against this trend in our society today. Christians are called to put less emphasis on self, to work to become less self-centered than the average person in our society. Christians should be the first to question our opinions instead of insisting on them. Christians should be the first to take responsibility for others in need and put aside concerns about enforcing personal responsibility on others in order to reduce expenditures or for other economic or political reasons. Christians should be the first to defer to others in public debate or disagreements—not to let go of their hold on truth, but to publicly allow for the possibility that their interpretation, their opinion might be wrong, even if they hold to it completely.

When Christians insist on strongly holding their own in an individualistic world, “standing up for truth,” they actually run the risk of bearing a false witness in the eyes of nonbelievers. The Barna Research Group has documented this problem in contemporary surveys. See the book unChristian. The lack of humility may cause Christians to think they are conveying a message for God when, in fact, they are presenting a false image of God’s character. Remember the Pharisees thought they were doing God’s holy will when they crucified the Messiah. When devout people ignore the discipline of humility, they set themselves up for the worst kind of spiritual failure.

The blog “Be Inspired Every Day” suggests the following steps in the practice of Christian humility:

1. Be grateful for your assets. In humility, we recognize the great qualities and assets that we have, but we don’t boast about them. Instead, we are grateful for them as gifts we have been given. Think about all the things you like about yourself and those things others like about you. Do you have intelligence, motivation, charm or some other great qualities? Express gratitude for those qualities and you will find humility.

2. Be grateful for your challenges and shortcomings. If you struggle with feeling that you are less motivated, less attractive or less intelligent than others, be grateful for the perspective and learning experience that apparent shortcoming offers you. Life is about growth and change. Every challenge we face builds our character and our assets. When we express gratitude for the challenges we face, those challenges lose their power over our perception of ourselves and become building blocks we can grow on.

3. Do not compare yourself with others. Human beings are the most diverse and variable creatures on the planet. Comparing one person to another is like comparing apples to green beans. It is this uniqueness that allows us to learn and grow from one another. You were created like no one else in the universe. You were created with a purpose that is shared with no one else. When you compare yourself with someone else, you could not possibly see what God sees in you.

4. Be teachable. The key to wisdom is to be teachable, to realize that you do not know everything, that many things you believe to be true may be false, and that you have much to learn from others.

5. Practice kindness anonymously. When you practice kindness, you transcend the high-anxiety world of selfishness and experiencing the fulfilling sense of oneness with others. When you practice kindness anonymously, you share the vision of your kindness only with God without the distractions of pride and self-importance which may result from sharing your kindness publicly.

6. Loosen your expectations. No matter how good you are at making plans or predicting outcomes, no matter how strong your belief is that something should be a certain way, life will often produce results you did not expect or did not want. When we hold tight to expectations, we become easily frustrated, disappointed, angry and humiliated. When we take ourselves and our expectations less seriously, we can more easily handle what life hands us and move out of God’s way as we are guided on our unique life journey.

The Rewards of Humility 1 Peter 5:5-7:

1 Peter 5:5-7: Peter knew about paradigm shifts. Did he ever! He knew about brashness and conceit, and he knew about pride going before a fall, and he knew about humbling himself. Peter could have taught Judas a thing or two, if Judas had been disposed to learn. On the night they both betrayed their Lord, Judas gave up. Peter flung himself headlong on the ground where Jesus had humbled himself, and did likewise. After that, he learned to feed lambs.

Peter’s letters to the church are powerful examples of the fine art of humble leadership. At the end of the first one, in 1 Peter 5:5, 6a we already read one of his exhortations to humility. Now let’s read the rewards, in verses 6 and 7. “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

Now, at first, this may seem yet another repetition of what is apparently one of the guiding principles of God’s New World Order; nice guys and gals will finish first!

“At the proper time” indicates that sometimes there are rewards right here and now, such as the immediate uplift of sharing giggles with a child, and sometimes we have to wait for blessings. And one blessing in particular, we know we have to keep waiting for. Peter may be speaking, at least

in part, of the indescribable uplift we’ll receive when Jesus comes back for us. Then, the humble will really be exalted, to their own amazement, because truly humble people have learned to know themselves very well. They know they are in God’s kingdom at all entirely because of His grace, and not because they played the humble game best. That’s when the crown-tossing and the falling on faces and the crying will begin. Or continue. It may take a while for God to dry every tear. . .

But the next verse is a surprise. We’ve all heard it a million times—“Casting all your cares on Him, for He cares for you,” is probably the most familiar rendition. Have we realized that beloved verse was in this context? It’s part of the same sentence! “Humble yourselves under that mighty, tender hand, and cast your anxieties and worries on Him, knowing He’ll lift you up.” He’ll lift us up in His hand the minute we do that, but we might have to wait for uplifting in the eyes of others. That’s OK. We won’t mind what anyone else thinks of us if we can learn to live our lives under that hand, like a sleeping baby.

The Rewards of Humility Matthew 18:4:

Matthew 18:4: Jesus knew we understand best with good audio-visual helps. When He wanted to be sure His disciples understood what true humility was, He called a child to Him. The Greek word is a neuter-gender term, so it could have been either a boy or a girl. It is translated in Strong’s Concordance as a “childling” or infant. (“Infant” did not mean baby in arms, as we use it in North America. As recently as the late 19th century the term meant a small child. And in Europe today infant schools, for example, include preschools and primary schools, and the term may be used for children up to seven or eight years old.) It was a little one. Why is this important?

When Jesus said, “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven,” English doesn’t make it clear enough that He meant a small child. Our children are born into a sinful world, and it is a shockingly short time before they begin to display tendencies that are anything but humble. But a little one who has been loved and cared for, who still trusts that the world is going to be a good place, a toddler who smiles the grumpies out of every tired adult in the grocery store, a preschooler whose hug makes the cares of the world melt away, that’s an example worth emulating.

The problem is, we know better. We haven’t always been loved and cared for. We know very well the world is often not a good place at all. We even know what this same child looks like when she’s tired and cross, when she doesn’t get her way, when she doesn’t feel like sharing. Where, then, do we get smiles and hugs that banish grumpies and melt the cares of the world?

It seems that the concept of humbling oneself “as this child,” might begin with forgetting what we know. Go back. Turn back the pages, look under all the practical things we learned on the way to adulthood. Remember what we knew before that. Remember when we were certain that we had come from God and were going to God, and He always, always loved us, no matter what. Look at the world as a new and exciting place, full of adventure and mystery. Look into the faces of the other dwellers here and watch for the twinkle that gives away that deep inside, they know, too. Smile. Wait your turn. Hug people. Share. Then, believe it or not, God will treat us as “the greatest in the kingdom.” This is the way Kingdom Citizens act, He says. They love. Because humility equals love. And then the promises start to come true, right before your eyes.

The Rewards of Humility Isaiah 57:15:

Isaiah 57:15: This is a beautiful passage. “For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy, ‘I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” It’s amazing, when you think about it. The unimaginably great God, the “high and exalted One,” who dwells in a place we can’t begin to imagine, in “light unapproachable,” (1 Tim. 6:16) humbles Himself to come and live with the lowly, or humble ones, the contrite, or repentant ones. Why? So that He can revive our hearts and spirits. What more is there to say?

The Rewards of Humility Proverbs 22:4 and 29:23:

Proverbs 22:4 and 29:23: “The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor and life.” “A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor.” It is a truism, even in contemporary society, that being humble will actually bring honor. That’s where much false humility comes from: “Oh, no, you shouldn’t have. … It was nothing. … No problem.”

 “I didn’t do much,” we say, hoping to be contradicted. James says to choose the lower seat, and the host will give you a better one. It’s doubtful that he meant we should do it for that reason. Hang back, waiting for someone to notice and draw you forward. People can usually tell when we have that attitude. If we do succeed in fooling them, it won’t be for long, and it won’t happen next time. In fact, it’s likely to backfire.

That said, this is a promise of God. Jesus, the Bible teaches, gained even more honor and exaltation than He already had, if that’s possible, because He willingly reduced Himself to the lowest of the low in order to save us.

Humility, with reverence for God, brings “riches, honor and life.” This is one of those texts that’s a little confusing on first sight. Most of the truly humble people we know are not, in fact, rich. They don’t necessarily live longer, and their faces aren’t in the news. What kind of riches, honor, and life? This must be the treasure one stores in heaven, the abundant life Jesus promises, the honor of knowing one’s name is in the Book of Life. As for long life? Well, you can’t beat eternity!

The Rewards of Humility Psalm 34:2-3:

Psalm 34:2-3: “My soul will make its boast in the Lord; the humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.” So humility does have something to brag about, God! This time, David is pointing out that other humble people may be blessed by one’s humility. The blessings will spread around. In other places, such as Psalm 69:32, he praises God for some delivery or mercy, and says “the humble have seen it and are glad.” Humility shares the blessing.

There is a story about the popular personality types, choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholy. It says if someone is standing on a bridge contemplating suicide, the laidback phlegmatic will walk on by, the forceful choleric will order him to “Snap out of it!” the lively sanguine will try—for a few minutes, anyway—to cheer him up, and the sympathetic melancholy will listen to his story and then jump off with him!

Of course, this story intends, in a tongue-in-cheek way, to show what these personality types might do if they are not in connection with their Creator. What if the redeemed phlegmatic, naturally calm, tried to pour oil on troubled waters; the choleric, naturally strong, offered some practical help; the melancholy, naturally sensitive, listened lovingly to his story; and the sanguine, naturally cheerful, started a praise service? If they worked together in Spirit-led community, and if they praised God together, sharing times He’d gotten them through some hard spot, then, according to the rest of Psalm 69:32, the lonely heart would revive. Now there’s a reward for some humble, shared praising of the God who is bigger than all of us, but near enough to hold us!

The Rewards of Humility Job 22:21-29

Job 22:21-29: Here is quite a treatise on humility and its rewards. In this case, the context is Job’s friend Eliphaz, insisting that Job would not be in trouble if he hadn’t somehow deserved it. We know from God’s response at the end of the book that Eliphaz was wrong in his estimation of Job’s guilt (speaking of well-meaning judgmentalism and lack of humility,) but there are still some very comforting principles in this passage.

First, verse 21 says, “Yield now and be at peace with Him; thereby good will come to you.” There are two rewards here. First and most important, humility brings peace with God. As noted yesterday, being out of step with God is the worst feeling there is. And it’s true Job was in some very deep trouble, and certainly did not feel understanding of or understood by God. That’s another way of being out of step. In the end, even though he knew, and God agreed, that there was no open sin in his life, Job did, in fact, humble himself and thereby gain peace. “I retract,” he said, “I repent in dust and ashes.” (42:6)

Secondly, peace brings “good.” This is a pretty broad term. The good that comes into our lives as a result of humbling ourselves before God may be visibly wonderful things like Job getting all his riches back and having more children. Not that more children can ever replace the loss of those that are gone. But they are a blessing. Or the good that comes may be in new spiritual strength, and not as visible, except to others. But good will come.

One of the most surprising rewards of humility is found in verse 29: “When you are cast down, you will speak with confidence, and the humble person He will save.” Interesting! When you are cast down, you will speak with confidence? This is even more definitely stated than the principle we drew from Christ’s life, that a humble person can still speak with confidence. It doesn’t seem to us as if the two go together at all, and yet in this verse, it’s as if they have a cause and effect relationship. How can this be?

Is it possible that having a “modest estimate” of our own worth makes it easier to recognize the immense value God puts on us (more valuable than His own life!) and gives us more confidence than we would have if we valued ourselves in the usual way, by counting money or achievements or looks or power or whatever? It does clearly have to do with salvation: “The humble person He will save.”

In the midst of all his anguish, loss, confusion, and anger, we do know Job could still say, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (13:15), and “I know that my redeemer lives” (19:25). That is a picture of godly humility. And it includes the confidence to argue, even with God. Just look at the rest of 13:15: “Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.” Godly humility bows before God’s greatness, but also trusts enough to draw close as a loved child and tell God the whole truth, knowing He will listen and understand.

The Rewards of Humility 2 Chronicles 7:14:

There are more passages in the Bible which promise rich rewards to the humble than there are admonitions to be humble. We’ll look at eight of them over the next few days, moving more or less in order through the Bible. The promise phrases in each passage will be highlighted. 

2 Chronicles 7:14: “If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” This is arguably one of the most famous Bible passages on humility. It brings up a subject we have not yet addressed – humility as repentance.

In context, this verse is talking about people who have rebelled against God and are now facing painful consequences. Frequently, texts which speak of “humbling oneself” are talking about recognizing sin, confessing it, accepting the responsibility for it, and submitting to both the consequences and God’s authority. This is indeed a “lowering of the eyes,” even a downcast face. “I was wrong. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” These are some of the most important words in the world. They are important between people, but even more so between a person and God. Nothing hurts so badly as being out of step with one’s Creator. That’s precisely why so many people in this world hurt so badly. Most of them don’t even know why.

Then a Christian comes and tries to tell them why, and makes things worse than ever because he forgot he too, like every human, is out of step with God. Maybe not so badly, right now. Maybe right now he can see well enough to recognize the dissonance, the out-of-balance, irregular rhythm of his friend’s life. If he humbly remembered his own irregularities, he could probably would make a connection with his friend and help bring a reconciliation without causing even deeper wounds. Maybe together they could go to the throne of mercy, cast down their eyes and the crowns of their self-consequence, humble themselves, and pray. Seek God’s face together, and ask the Spirit for power to recognize and turn from their wicked ways.

Because, if they do, the promises are amazing. “I will hear.” Not “I might hear,” or “I’ll think about it.” Not “You had it coming, don’t come crawling to Me!” “I will hear, I will forgive.” And not only that, “I will heal their land!” This is surprising, and easily open to misinterpretation. Without a clear view of Bible prophecies, or for that matter, a careful reading of the context, there are many who believe this means God will turn a particular nation into a moral, peaceful kingdom of God on earth. Remember, the context is a drought. God is saying He will heal the land, not the political entity. We should also bear in mind that as we near the end and the earth wears out “like a garment” (Heb. 1:11), as those who “destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:18) continue their selfish pillaging, God will be less able to make this a reality globally. He does promise that His followers’ bread and water will be sure, (Isa. 33:1) and if we are careful stewards, He will preserve and restore the health of our land as long as possible.

Humility - Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mils (pt5)

Lesson Number Five: Humility equals love! Love to the thousandth power, love carried to its furthest, highest limit. “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:9-11)

Humility – Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild (pt4)

Lesson Number 4: Humility can lead and teach with authority.

This seems counterintuitive. We know that a leader ought to be humble, that Jesus even said the one who would be leader must be servant of all. It’s tricky to put that together with strong leadership or authority. In fact, the only way to manage it at all is to keep watching Jesus. There

was a tenderness about His authority. The implication, when Matthew says He spoke with authority, is that the people loved that—yearned toward it, warmed themselves in it. It would not have had such an effect on them if it had had even a hint of lordliness or tyranny in it. It must have been like the tender authority of a mom or dad, gentle and calm, who is patiently keeping a toddler out of mischief. The baby may sometimes feel thwarted, and may show its frustration, too, but clearly it feels safe.

There were times when Jesus’ authority was of a sterner variety. When He made a whip of cords, there probably wasn’t much humility in His voice or face. When, near the end of His life, in utter despair at ever reaching the priests and rabbis He loved so much, He uttered the “Woes,” there were tears in His voice, but they weren’t humble ones. So the most humble person on earth was not necessarily always humble. The question to ask ourselves is, When we sometimes lay aside humility, is it for our own sake, or for love of someone else?

During the last week of His life, Jesus grew more and more forceful. He cursed the unfruitful fig tree, rebuked the leaders, refused to answer lawyers’ questions, and dealt out some stern warnings. Then came the climax the universe had been waiting for, the series of events we have come to call The Passion. Why that particular word?

Would you believe that our meaning for it today, of strong emotion or obsession, is only a few centuries old? It actually comes from the Latin passus, past participle of pat, to suffer, and originally meant “an undergoing,” or “the state of being acted upon or affected by something external.” (Webster’s) Passive, in other words. A passion was the opposite of an action. Eventually, it was used in the sense of giving up one’s control to an emotion, “flying into a passion,” and from there it became what it is today.

Once upon a time, on a certain night, in a certain geographical spot that we can mark fairly precisely today, a man fought a superhuman struggle against his own will, his own longing for survival. Unbelievably, this Man was God. He fought between the two horns of His own particular dilemma, His survival or ours. Incomprehensibly, He chose us.

“Thy will, not Mine, be done,” He gasped, and gave Himself up to go passively to slaughter, meek and silent as a sheep. From that moment on, humble was all Jesus was. He let Judas kiss Him, let the soldiers take Him, let Herod mock Him. He didn’t answer the priests or Pilate or the false charges. He didn’t fight the cross or the thorns or the nails. He accepted the humiliation (a different thing entirely), and drank shame to the bottom of the cup. He submitted His soul to God. He died. “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:8)

M. Scott Peck, in The Road Less Traveled, offered a very interesting definition of love. Love, he said, is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” (p. 81)

Humility - Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild (pt3)

Lesson Number Three: Humility is willing to go above and beyond what is expected, and follows the leading of the Spirit.

From these humble beginnings, Jesus went on to lead a life in what we would call “humble circumstances.” He didn’t have a home of His own, He depended on the generosity of His friends for the food He ate, and He never appears to have worried at all about money. These things all fit well with what we tend to think of as humble. Yet it’s interesting to consider the leadership of Jesus.

The Bible says that one of the things that amazed the people about Jesus was that He taught with authority, unlike the scribes. (Matt. 7:29.) The custom among rabbis, then and now, was to carry a debate, say about a particular Bible passage, by saying, “Rabbi So-and-So says this, but Rabbi Thus-and-Such says that. Then again, it might mean the other thing.” Through many centuries, the Talmud and other writings have kept a faithful record of this ongoing conversation. The purpose was, in fact, humility. No rabbi wanted to put his own opinion above that of the others, particularly above that of a well-respected sage of days gone by. But he could state his own opinion. So the attempt was to keep all these ideas and insights on as level a ground as possible and give everyone a respectful hearing. This is a good example of humility.

Jesus, however, talked like someone who knew what He was talking about.

He insisted He had come from heaven and knew the Father personally. He said without roundaboutation that He was the Messiah, the Bread of heaven, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. “If you won’t believe me about earthly things, how can you believe me about heavenly ones?” He asked Nicodemus. (John 3:12) If these things had not been true, they certainly could not have been seen as humble in any way, shape, or form! And, by the way, one who does not believe these things has to either believe that Jesus was not at all humble, (was, in fact, insane or criminal) or that His disciples made this all up and He never said any of it.

Humility – Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild (pt2)

So Lesson Number Two must be that: Humility can speak confidently, without fear. Those suggested synonyms we saw were never seen in the life of the Son of God. He spoke the truth. A humble person doesn’t have to be hesitant or mealy-mouthed. He did so gently, though. Mary might have been a little taken aback by her Son’s question, but we can be sure her face didn’t turn red with embarrassment because of His tone.

When Jesus finally did leave home, the first official thing He did was to go to John to be baptized. John thought this might be taking humility a little too far. “Lord, You’re kidding! You should be baptizing me!” Jesus said it was fitting, and would “fulfill all righteousness.” (Matt 3:15.) There has been a great deal of commentary on all that He might have meant, but one of the things He seemed to mean was that He wanted to be a good example. Then He promptly went out to the wilderness to be tormented by an enemy who used to be His best friend, because the Holy Spirit led Him there.

Humility - Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild (pt.1)

Whenever we have trouble understanding some facet of Christian life, it always behooves us to go straight to the source. What can we learn about humility from Jesus? Obviously, the ultimate demonstration of humility was Jesus’ incarnation itself. Jesus  “although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6-7) We will never, not in millions of years, be able to really get our minds around what it meant for the Creator to become small enough, concrete enough to become the created. It’s impossible. It’s one of those things that can’t happen, but did. Once upon a time, on a certain day, in a certain geographical place, a newborn crinkled a damp face and made funny little squeaks and jerky motions with tiny hands, as all newborns do, only this one was God.

How can we possibly relate to this? Well, we could ask ourselves, when was the last time we stepped out of our comfort zone and became something that felt somehow “less,” for the sake of someone else?

This is Lesson Number One of five lessons: Humility is being willing to be smaller, less smart, less able, less beautiful than we really are, so that someone else may be bigger, smarter, capable, and beautiful.

As if that were not enough, the Creator then lived three long decades, long after He became officially and legally a man and a “son of Israel,” at home, “in subjection to” His parents.(Luke 2:51) We have just the one story, also there in Luke 2, of the time, at twelve, He began to grasp His identity and mission. He asked His parents, “Didn’t you know I would be doing My Father’s business?” Was this humble? It must have been, because then He went back home and back to being a dutiful son. 

Humility - The Two Extremes

Perhaps it will be easier to see what humility is not. As with most things, one can go off the road in either direction, and the extremes on either side of humility are easier to see. To the one side, we have conceit in all its snobbishness. We know for sure God doesn’t want us to go around considering ourselves lords of humanity. In fact, more than one text above speaks of false pride as well. Proverbs 16:18 says famously, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling.” Phil. 2:3 has it right there in the verse: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit.” The ellipse left in the middle of the 1 Peter 5:5, 6 passage left out “for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” And several different texts promise the proud that if they don’t humble themselves, God will do it for them. So in one direction, humility is not arrogance, false pride, and conceit.

In the other direction, things get a little murkier. There is such a thing as false humility, too. It’s hinted at in Col. 2:18, 23. Verse 18 talks of “delighting in self-abasement.” Verse 23 admits that such things as self-abasement and “severe treatment of the body” have “the appearance of wisdom.” But they are only “self-made religion,” and “of no value against fleshly indulgence.” In Martin Luther’s time, and in some places still today, it’s considered pleasing to God (or the gods) to beat oneself, lie on nails, cut the flesh, and so on. We’re more enlightened than that, right? Yet there are some beloved children of God among us that appear to believe that God is pleased when they deny their bodies by being so unbendingly strict about dietary laws and restrictions that they look thin and unhealthy to everyone but themselves. Jesus, by contrast, was forever being called a drunkard and a glutton. We know He was never guilty of license or fleshly indulgence. Yet His lifestyle looked that way to some. Note His comments in Luke 7:33-35.

There is another region of what humility is not: the martyr. It’s easy to mock and make jokes about the “doormat” or “Mr. Milktoast” who mopes through his life letting everyone walk all over him and never stands up for himself. But this is a real, painful issue for far too many Christians. They’ve been taught that Paul told the Corinthians to always consider others more important, to look out only for others’ interests and never stand up for their own.

The ugliest version of this is the abused wife who believes, and may even be told by her pastor, that if she can only hang in there and be a good enough, loving enough wife, things will change. The unexpected thing is, learning to respect ourselves can actually be the key to others’ learning to respect themselves, as well as us. A question to ask an abuse victim: Who is the abuser hurting worse, you or himself? If the victim can see that the abuser is damaging his own soul as much as he is damaging those he abuses, she may be able to see that the most loving, self-denying thing she can do is to stop enabling him to continue that pattern another minute. Her standing up for herself, leaving the situation, may be the only chance the abuser, who is still a beloved child of God and for whom Jesus died, will ever have to see the truth and get the help he needs to change. But is this humility? Where, in the middle of all this confusion, is the genuine article that God wants each of us to have?