Humility and Anxiety Part 5 I Peter 5:5-7

1 Peter 5:5–7 (NASB95)  5 and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. 6 Therefore humble yourselves [Lit. be humbled] under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

Humility is important in the overcoming of anxiety, but I think most people misunderstand both.  Humility is not some idealistic state of being where as soon as you are conscious of it, you are proud and have lost it.  It is not thinking little of yourself, but thinking of others instead of yourself.  That does not mean that you don’t take care of yourself, because we are supposed to love others as ourselves.  That assumes that we love ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we are preoccupied with ourselves.

But you can’t really be humble before others without being humble before God.  The reason is that you can’t give your life to the needs and interests of others until or unless you can believe that God will take care of your needs and your interests.  And this is what we are anxious about.

The last verse of our text mentions anxiety.  It also mentions humility in the same sentence, but the connection is often lost, because there are too many other words between them in the text. 

But first we need to look at the word ‘casting’ in verse 7.  “casting all your anxiety on Him [God].” Casting is in the present tense, meaning that it views the action of casting as a process that has begun but has not yet finished.  It is either happening as we speak, or it is something that is a repeated action.

However, in the original Greek text, the word is in the aorist (air-ist) tense, which views the action as an event.  When used in a construction like this, you can think of it as a completed act.

Remember that we said the word commonly translated as ‘humble yourselves’ is actually passive in form: be humbled.

So take away all other words surrounding the verbs, and you get the result: be humbled, having cast.  You may need to say those words together a few times to see how they are related.  Having cast explains what being humbled involves.  This is what being humbled looks like.  Or, to put it another way, being humbled is to cast all your anxiety on God.

We talked before how that God is working in our lives to humble us.  Deuteronomy 8 shows us the how and why, but it didn’t really make clear what we are to do in response to God’s humbling work. What will it look like when we have been humbled, or, what is to be our response to God’s humbling work in our life.

Here Peter gives us the answer. 

Being humbled under the mighty hand of God means that we have cast all our anxiety on God, because we have learned that He cares for us.

Go back to Deuteronomy 8.  Moses is explaining God’s work on the lives of God’s people while they were in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.  Deuteronomy 8:2–3 (NASB95)

² “You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. ³ “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

So exactly how does God humble us?  He allows us to be hungry.  Then He fills our need.  In their case He gave them manna every day to feed them, to see whether they would do what He says or not. 

And why is that important?  Two reasons, but only one is given here in the text.  When we make decisions in life, we often will not have enough information to know the best course of action.  We talk about not judging a book by its cover or beauty being only skin deep.  These mean that it is easy to make wrong decisions, because we are basing our decisions on how things look on the surface but there are factors that we may miss because we don’t see them right away.  This is where obeying God means to do something that He says, because we believe He has all the information and that He has our own best interests at heart.

T

he second reason is found here in verse 3:  that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

Now what does that mean?  That means that your welfare in life is more dependent on your relationship with God than on the physical things around you that you might think you possess or need to gain. 

Some of the ways the Bible expresses this are:

Romans 8:31 (NASB95)  ³¹ If God is for us, who is against us?

Psalm 127:1 (NASB95)  ¹ Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.

Psalm 33:16–20 (NASB95)

¹⁶The king is not saved by a mighty army; a warrior is not delivered by great strength.

¹⁷A horse is a false hope for victory; nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.

¹⁸Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope for His lovingkindness,

¹⁹To deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine.

²⁰Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.

Proverbs 16:9 (NASB95)   ⁹ The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.

Proverbs 21:31 (NASB95)   ³¹ The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but victory belongs to the Lord.

So the humbling is to teach us this.  So since the outcomes in life depend more on God than on ourselves, we are to case our concerns on God.  Not every day, but when we finally realize this, once for all we rest in God’s care, knowing that He is looking out for us.

Having said that, remember that God gave them manna every day.  And every day they had to go out and gather it, otherwise it would be gone.  And Jesus told us to pray Give us our daily bread, so we need to pray that every day.

So we are not left without any responsibility or things to do, but our hearts should be at rest, because we have learned that God will take care of us.

There is, however, one more thing we need to talk about in this series.  I was going to skip it, but I see we need it.  Verse 6 says that God will exalt us in due time. 

Christians may believe that their lives are in God’s hands.  A common expression relating to this is the sovereignty of God.  However, it seems that this is not always a source of comfort, because it seems there is no limit to the kinds of things that God will allow His people to go through.  Anybody here heard of Job?

We are all familiar with the all the junk he went through, but we forget to read the end of the book.

Humility and Anxiety I Peter 5:5-7 Part 4

1 Peter 5:5–6 ⁵ all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. ⁶ Therefore be humbled under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,

So what does humility have to do with anxiety?  That was our original question, but there is one more thing we need to look at first.

We saw in the last article that God is actively working in our lives to humble us.   We saw why He was doing it, but we didn’t spend enough time explaining how He does it.    Deuteronomy 8, which we looked at last time, says that “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna (8:3).”

This process of humbling has two distinct but related aspects to it.  The first is the idea that God allows problems to surface in our lives that we then pray about and He fixes them.  He let them get hungry.  He didn’t preempt the situation, knowing that they would get hungry and provide the food before that happened. 

That specific time referred to here (Exodus 16) the people grumbled against Moses and Aaron, their leaders, and God started His program of providing manna every day for them.  God doesn’t provide manna anymore, but I believe the two principles remain.

The first is this pattern of God allowing problems that He fully intends to resolve in order that we might understand “that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:3).  Life is not a series of natural events, natural causes and natural effects, but God is active in the affairs of life, just not too obviously.

He wants this process of our praying for things and seeing answers as a normal part of the Christian life that we may begin to understand how much God is involved in our lives and how dependent we ultimately are on Him.

But that’s not the entire thing.  When Israel became hungry, as part of God’s humbling process, He gave them manna, which essentially meant they shouldn’t wonder again when they were going to eat, though this program of providing manna only lasted while they were in the wilderness.

But this whole program of providing manna is critical in understanding how God works in our lives today.  I have written elsewhere on the Lord’s Prayer (even a book on it), and I believe that when Jesus tells us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread”, He had manna in mind.

Notice that if we are praying for our daily bread, we will need to come back tomorrow and pray the same thing all over again.  And what if we don’t pray for our daily bread, will we still get it?  Perhaps, but don’t blame God if you don’t, because He told you to pray for it.

Exodus 16 has the story of the manna.  “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in My instruction” (Exodus 16:4). 

The test is that of obedience, whether the people will do what God says or not.  A lot of people have problems with this concept, because they feel like it makes them like slaves to a bully.  The real reason for learning obedience is that there are a lot of times when we won’t have enough information to make the right choices.  In fact, the right choice will often not seem to be the right choice at the time.  People in the habit of simply obeying will find that they made the right choice.  Not always immediately, not even necessarily soon.  But Christians need to learn that God is not a tyrant.  When He wants us to obey Him, it is actually for our sakes rather than His own.  But that was the last article, but being one of the hardest lessons to learn it bears repeating.

The manna appeared on the ground with the dew and remained after the dew evaporated.  The people were to gather a day’s portion of food every day.  Verse 18 makes the statement: “he who had gathered much had no excess, and he who had gathered little had no lack.”  The work of the weak was enough, and the work of the strong required his full effort. 

I see this as showing how God deals with us as individuals.  A mature believer doesn’t find the Christian life easier.  He just gets bigger problems to deal with.  And a new believer doesn’t need to envy people who have been Christians longer or feel that they can’t contribute, because he who gathered little had enough.  (I have a feeling some of you aren’t going to get what I am saying here.  I’m not sure how to explain it better.)

This reminds me of working out with weights.  One person can lift 400 pounds, and the next person can lift only 100 pounds.  But each person is working at his capacity.  So in the Kingdom of God, the efforts of a new believer, however small they may look to human eyes, are comparable to the exploits of a mature believer in God’s eyes.

Moses told them that they shouldn’t leave any of it until morning.  The manna would spoil.  This shows how God’s people have to go to God every day for their daily provision.  Like the Lord’s Prayer says: daily bread.

The manna melted when the sun got hot.  They had to gather their day’s provision in the morning.  If they didn’t go out and get it in the morning, it would be gone.  So if they didn’t have their daily provision, whose fault was it?  Was it God’s will that they didn’t have it?  No, because He told them what to do and when to do it.

We don’t have manna today, but we do have the Lord’s Prayer.  I know some Christians don’t believe the Lord’s Prayer applies for today, but why would the Bible include it if it doesn’t?  A lot of things changed after Pentecost where the law had been fulfilled and a New Covenant established, but the gospels weren’t written until sometime after this.  It would make no sense to record a conversation the disciples had with Jesus asking Him to teach them to pray if this has no bearing on the Christian life today.

On the sixth day, they were to gather a two days’ supply of manna.  There would be no manna on the Sabbath (the seventh day).  In this case, the manna would not spoil overnight.

The Sabbath was as much of a test as anything else, and as much of a test today as well, though many Christians don’t believe it applies anymore.  Can a business afford to be closed on Sundays today?  Can people stop their busy lives one day a week to rest and to worship? 

I should talk some about this exaltation that Peter mentions, but I will save that for another time.  Next time we will look at anxiety in the Christian life and how humility is related to it.

Humility and Anxiety I Peter 5:5-7 Part 3

1 Peter 5:5–6 (NASB95)

5  and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. 6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,

So what exactly does it mean when the Bible says that God gives grace to the humble? 

Our topic is humility and anxiety, and we have looked at humility first.  We are told to put on humility, because God is opposed to proud people, but He gives grace to humble people.  But what does that mean?  The next verse explains that.  That’s why it begins with ‘therefore.’

Every translation I have seen translates this as ‘humble yourselves.’  This is probably because verse 5 says that we should put on humility.  But the verb is passive.  Literally it says ‘be humbled.’  Scholars may insist that it is proper to translate a passive as a middle voice, but I don’t see any reason why Peter would use a passive if he meant a middle.  Middle voice verb forms are not uncommon in Greek. 

You read I and II Peter, and Peter does not appear to be some uneducated blue collar fisherman.  A lot of years have passed since he was, but either way his Greek is not that of somebody who dropped out of high school.  If he meant to say ‘humble yourselves,’ I have no doubt he would have said that without expecting his readers to make that correction in their minds as they read this.

Why is this important?  In the first case, we are told to actively submit ourselves to whatever God might want for our lives.  In the second case, it tells us that God is the One who is actively working here to humble us.  Translators are expecting that first thought here, because we were told to do that in verse 5. 

But the humility that Peter speaks of in verse 5 is only one small aspect of humility.  While we are to humble ourselves before fellow believers, there is a much bigger program at work.  Humility is to characterize believers, and God is actively working to bring that about.  In the case mentioned here, we choose to put others first, but humility with God means more than just putting others or God before ourselves.

The Bible commentary on I Peter 5:6 is Deuteronomy 8:

Deuteronomy 8 (NASB95)

1 “All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers.

2 “You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 “He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. 4 “Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5 “Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.

6 “Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. 7 “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; 9 a land where you will eat food without scarcity, in which you will not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

10 “When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you. 11 “Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; 12 otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

15 “He led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He brought water for you out of the rock of flint. 16 “In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. 17 “Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’

18 “But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19 “It shall come about if you ever forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. 20 “Like the nations that the LORD makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you would not listen to the voice of the LORD your God.

The people of God had been freed from slavery in Egypt.  God had promised to give them a land of their own, but it took 40 years to get them there through a wilderness.  In this chapter, Moses explains to the people what God was doing with them for those 40 years.

Very briefly, in verse 2 he said that God wanted to humble them and in verse 16, he said that the purpose of the humbling was so God could “do good for (them) in the end,” just like I Peter 5:6.  Actually this humbling process has 5 purposes, but Peter just mentions the one, because it is important to see in a situation where it appears you are giving up something (by humbling yourself) that you are really gaining by doing so.

So chapter 8 of Deuteronomy explains this whole humbling process that Peter tells them (us) to submit to (or, be humbled). 

1.         The first purpose of God in His attempts to humble us to know what is in our hearts (v.2).  Theologians may argue that God already knows what is in our hearts, but we certainly don’t.  And what exactly is He looking for?  Whether we will keep His commandments or not.

This is the exact same thing that Job went through.  Satan claimed that the only reason Job served God was because God protected Job from bad things and filled his life with good things.  And everybody needs to answer the same question: do you do what is right because it is right, or because you benefit from it?  Would you do the right thing even if it cost you something? 

You see, when you are dealing with God, by the very definition of God, you are not going to always understand what is going on, so you will be asked to do things that you will not understand or that will seem contrary to all common sense at the time.  Can you believe that this is still the right thing to do?  At some point, you will just have to believe that what God says to do is the right thing to do. 

2.         The second purpose of this humbling process is to make you understand that man does not live by bread alone but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God.  So what does that mean (v.3).

So what does that mean?  Notice in the first part of verse 3 that God humbled them and let them be hungry, and then He fed them.  We wonder why God allows problems to come into our lives.  It’s so that we go through the process of seeing a need and approaching God for help, and God then provides the help.  Without the process, it becomes easy to assume that everything will just work out by themselves.  We won’t see God’s direct involvement in every part of our lives. 

3.         The third purpose of this humbling process is so we learn that God is treating us like children, His children.  Do you ever wonder why God created families?  Why this whole birth process and this whole growing up process, where we start out not exactly stupid, but essentially we have to learn everything.  And that means that somebody has to teach us.  Generally it is the parents.  They care the most about us and are most invested in our lives.

And that is how God feels about us.  This is why I would say that it is important for people to marry and have children.  This is an important tool for learning about God.  You may know it in your head, but until your heart aches for your kids, you won’t really understand how God aches for you. 

4,         The fourth purpose of this humbling process is to help us not forget (v.11).  We are told to beware not to forget.  Forgetting is easy.  Now these words were addressed to people who had seen miracles from God on a daily basis.  If they can forget, how much easier is it for us to forget?

And what exactly is it that they will forget?  They will forget that God was the One who did all these things for them (v.17).  They will start to think that it was their intelligence, their education, their hard work, their great personalities, their social skills that brought them their success.

5.         The fifth purpose for this humbling was so that God could do good for them in the end (v.16).  One of the hardest parts of the Christian life, in my opinion, is believing that God really wants what is best for us.  To put it another way, will I be happy in life without really trying?  We know we are to give thanks in everything and to rejoice always, but that sounds like we are to force ourselves to smile when the world is falling in around us or we appear trapped in a situation that we find bothersome with no sign of relief.

All the descriptions Moses uses here to describe this land are descriptions of abundance: flowing forth, without scarcity, not lacking anything, satisfied, multiplies. 

At this point, many Christians will protest and say that God did not promise us a life of ease but of trials.  Which could I suppose lead to anxiety, which is the topic of these articles. 

Peter says that God will exalt those who have been humbled by God’s work in their lives.  You can judge the progress of that humbling by the first 4 purposes listed above.  The Bible doesn’t spell out just what that exaltation will look like or exactly when due time is.  I think it depends on the person.  It’s like buying Christmas presents for people.  What excites me might not interest you at all.

But this is certainly not talking about going to heaven and having a wonderful time up there.  God wants to bless us in life down here.  We just need to understand what God is doing in our lives, and this verse gives us the clue.

Humility and Anxiety I Peter 5:5-7 Part 2

1 Peter 5:5 (NASB95)

⁵ and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Are you humble, or are you proud?  Or maybe you are proud to say that you are humble.

I think most of us would put ourselves as somewhere in between.  Not fully humble and not too proud, but we are working on it.

In our text, Peter tells the Christians (including us) to clothe themselves with humility, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Peter fully expects that we are to do this and that we are capable of doing this.  I think most of us view humility as some ideal unattainable state of being, where the moment we become conscious of, or think we might be humble, we immediately lose it and become proud.

We said last time from both Philippians 2 and our text here that humility is a choice to focus your life on others and not on yourself.  Is there more to humility?  Yes, but so far in our discussion, that is the prominent idea.

But then Peter makes a startling statement: we should clothe ourselves with this humility, because “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 

This statement implies, or says, two things: If we are not humble like this, we are proud.  And God opposes people like that. 

What????  He is talking to Christians here.  Now what is that all about?

Peter is quoting here a verse from Proverbs.  Actually this is a direct quote from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which was the Bible commonly used by the early Church.  This verse also appears in the book of James.  The Hebrew text reads a little differently.

We need to understand this verse first as it is used in Proverbs to help us understand how Peter is using the verse here.

I

n the Hebrew original text, the word for proud here means scoffer.  I can’t say that I have met too many people in my life who I would call scoffers, but when we look at Proverbs, we see something we can easily miss.  Yes, it indeed refers to actual scoffing [an expression of scorn, derision, or contempt, stresses insolence, disrespect, or incredulity as motivating the derision], and, yes, in this context it is a scoffing with regard to things related to God, but more people are considered to be scoffers in Proverbs than we might think. 

The book of Proverbs is about wisdom and how to get it.  And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (9:10).  Not fear of the Lord as in being afraid of Him, though certainly that’s part of it, but a recognition of God’s absolute place in life.  Any thinking about life that doesn’t include God is automatically flawed.  It’s like trying to balance your checkbook when the first entry is wrong.  Everything you do after that can be correct, but you will always come out wrong at every step.

In chapter one of Proverbs, wisdom is pictured as a woman shouting in the streets; I have wisdom.  Listen to me.

Proverbs 1:20–22 (NASB95) ²⁰ Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; ²¹ At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: ²² “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

The image might strike some people as that of some crazy old lady babbling where you would just keep walking when you see her.  But the idea is more like, Wisdom is right in front of you if you will only pay attention.  It’s not that hard to find if you really want it.

Wisdom then addresses people who are not listening to her.  She calls them naïve, or simple ones, who like to live in their ignorance.  Scoffers who turn up their nose at her.  It gives them a thrill when they can trash something that they reject.  And fools who are quite content with life and their life just as it is.

Are these three distinct groups of people, or actually one, looking at different aspects of their thinking?  In other words, are naive people really scoffers who think wisdom is unworthy of their time and fools who have no use for the truth?  Are scoffers really simpletons who don’t have a clue and fools who are despising the remedy for their deepest longings and needs?  And are fools naïve for hating something they just can’t appreciate and actually scoffers at heart because they think they are above learning something new?

So in actuality, scoffers, as used in Proverbs is often just another way of looking or describing the simple ones and the fools.  When you get down to it, there are really only two kinds of people in the world, those who respond to and embrace the truth, and those who for whatever reason reject it.  Anyone who rejects the truth, wisdom, is at heart a scoffer.  How else can you describe someone who rejects wisdom when it is all around them, if they would only take the time to really look at it.

Proverbs 9:7 (NASB95)  7 He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonor for himself, And he who reproves a wicked man gets insults for himself.

Hebrew parallelism either puts essentially synonymous ideas in compound sentences or contrasts.  Are scoffers and wicked men two distinct groups of people?  In a word, no.  Here scoffers are considered wicked, and the wicked are scoffers.  

Proverbs 9:8 (NASB95)  ⁸ Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you, Reprove a wise man and he will love you.

A wise person loves truth, so he is happy to learn even the truth about himself so he can change and improve himself.  This is contrasted with a scoffer.  Is everybody who doesn’t want to hear the truth about themselves a scoffer at heart? I think that’s what it is saying.  The scoffer has all the answers and has it all together.  Don’t try to tell him he is wrong about something.

Proverbs 9:12 (NASB95) ¹² If you are wise, you are wise for yourself, and if you scoff, you alone will bear it.

Here the contrast with being wise is being a scoffer.  Proverbs has already shown that wisdom is readily available.  It shouts in the streets.  So if a person is unwise, it is because they are scoffers.  They feel they don’t need wisdom.  Their rejection of wisdom is their scoffing.

Proverbs 13:1 (NASB95) ¹ A wise son accepts his father’s discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.

Another contrast between a wise person and a scoffer.  This verse can be understand as saying simply that a scoffer does not listen to rebuke, but I believe it can also be understood as saying that the person who does not listen to rebuke is a scoffer.  Is that important?  As I said and as I believe this article will show, I believe we often make distinctions where God does not.  We need to see how the Bible uses words to understand what the Bible is trying to say.  We will see how this applies to our original verse.

Proverbs 14:6 (NASB95)  ⁶ A scoffer seeks wisdom and finds none, but knowledge is easy to one who has understanding.

The scoffer doesn’t find wisdom because it requires him to change.   Change is humbling, because it requires a person to say either I don’t know or I was wrong.  If he could do that without anybody finding out, he might.  But he doesn’t want the truth, because it might be different from how he views the world.  He might not have such a high place in it as he thinks he should.

Proverbs 14:9 (NASB95)

⁹ Fools mock at sin, but among the upright there is good will.

Here the scoffing is aimed toward sin, and the person doing the scoffing is called a fool.  What else do scoffers scoff at but things that are not aligned with God? 

Proverbs 15:12 (NASB95)

¹² A scoffer does not love one who reproves him, He will not go to the wise.

Another verse about how scoffers don’t want to hear the truth.  Here it is the truth about himself, but in other passages it is truth in general.

So in Proverbs a scoffer is not just a person who scoffs at the things of God but looked at from other angles, he is a fool, wicked, and a simpleton.

Now when we come to the Greek translation of Proverbs, the Bible of the early church, it is interesting that the word translated pride is only used twice in Proverbs and only once as a translation of scoffer in the verses we just quoted, and that is the verse that Peter quoted.

The various Greek words that translate the Hebrew scoffer in Proverbs include words that mean pest, pernicious, bad, evil, wicked, disobedient, heedless, ignorant, foolish, impious.  Why is this significant? 

Because when we see a verse like Peter quotes, “God resists the proud,” we tend to think in absolute terms.  He must be talking about really bad people who think they are better than everybody else and who reject God because they think they are so smart and so they reject Christianity as being unenlightened and outdated folklore. 

But the word covers the whole range of thinking and behavior of those who will not submit their lives to God.  Peter is saying that if we don’t clothe ourselves with humility toward one another, we are rejecting and resisting God just like an atheist would be doing who scoffs at the very idea of God.  . 

When the Bible talks about humility, it is not talking about some unattainable ideal like some monk who spends his life in sackcloth and prayer.  Humility is a conscious choice to live a life for others.

Humility is not a suggestion, a good idea.  It’s how the Christian life is lived.

Humility and Anxiety I Peter 5:5-7 (Part 1)

I Peter 5:5  And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  6   Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,  7  casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.  ⁽NASB 1995)

So what does humility have to do with anxiety? 

First we need to understand a little more about humility.

For many people, humility means to think little of yourself.  So a person of low self-esteem would be naturally very humble. 

I often say that humility isn’t thinking little of yourself, but not thinking of yourself at all.

But generally humility in the Bible is a choice.  Jesus told a parable (Luke 14:7-11) about attending a dinner.  At that time, where you sat at a table was an indicator of your social status.  Jesus said that it is better to choose a lower place at the table, where the host might ask you to move higher rather than your choosing a higher place and the host then asks you to assume a lower place. 

Jesus concludes the parable by making a statement very similar to our passage: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

A more extended relevant passage on humility is Philippians 2 and 3.  I include a portion of it here for your convenience, but there are some translations issues that you need to be aware of before you ponder it too deeply.

Philippians 2:1–4 (NASB95)

¹ Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, ² make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. ³ Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; ⁴ do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Paul had just told the Philippians at the end of chapter one to live worthily of the gospel, standing in one spirit and contending for the faith of the gospel.  He also told them that they would encounter opposition and suffering for doing so.

But the Christian life has encouragement, consolation, fellowship, and compassion (v.1).  It is not just one bad thing after another.  But Christians need to be like-minded and united (v. 2).[1]  Some people see this and think that this means that everybody needs to follow the (or, a) leader and nobody is to have any original thoughts or disagreement of opinion.  I think it’s better to think of this like the dynamic in a family, where the intensity of love for each other overrides any differences that may come up.  Or think of a military or sports analogy, where the unit or team is so focused on their objective that personal differences become irrelevant.  Christians need to focus on the bigger picture, seeing themselves as ambassadors for God on earth, where we are all on the same team fighting for the same cause.

Verses 3 and 4 are the key verses here, but I must note that I think the translations fail to catch the right nuances.[2] 

Paul expands here on how we are to think, having nothing to do with ἐριθεία (eritheia) and empty conceit.[3]  The meaning of the first word is disputed, but it certainly includes ideas of self-centeredness and self-seeking that puts one’s own interests before that of others.  Empty conceit has to do with a self-focus that puts too much weight on one’s own importance. 

But in contrast here, Paul puts forth humility as the proper behavior, regarding other people in a certain way.  The word is ὑπερέχω, or in English letters, hyper – echo.  We recognize the hyper part, something excessive or in abundance.  Echo has to do with having or possessing.  So we are supposed to regard other people as being or having this hyper-echo-ness.  And this is the tricky part. 

You could translate it as regarding others as better than yourself, superior to yourself, greater than yourself, or more important than yourself.  And then we are back to this low self-image thing again.  

But I believe that would be a mistake.  The next verse explains what he means.

Each of us is to look out for the things of others, not as busybodies intruding into other people’s lives, but wanting and focusing on what is best for them.  The NASB adds the word ‘merely’, saying don’t look out merely for your own interests, but that word ‘merely’ is not in the original text.  Our focus is to be on others period.  Very radical thinking. 

I think the key here is to understand that if one thing is more important than another, that doesn’t make the first thing unimportant.  Living for others doesn’t make your life less important or of less value.

One way to look at it is, if everybody only looked out for themselves, then there is only one person looking out for me: me.  But if everybody is looking out for everybody else, then there are a lot of people looking out for me. 

Elsewhere in the Bible, we are told to love our neighbors as ourselves.  So love for ourselves is not only natural, it is built into our system.  Self-love doesn’t need to imply self-absorption but just the everyday care that we do for ourselves.  But that verse alone says clearly that we are important and that we are important to ourselves. 

But if we don’t take care of our own needs first, who will take care of them then?  Are we to just hope that somebody else will just come along and do them for us?  We will answer that question before we are done in these articles, but first we need to understand how this Christian thing works.

Verse 5 Paul tells us to have this mind in us that was also in Jesus.  His expression here of ‘have this mind’ is the same expression he used twice before in verse 2 [see footnote 1].  So this becomes another example of what humility looks like. 

We are to be like Jesus, who humbled Himself, which a few verses earlier in a parallel verse says that He emptied Himself, having taken the form of a slave. 

I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but verse 9 then says that for that reason God highly exalted Jesus.  The state of being humble is not the final goal that God has for His people.  It is actually a step toward something that God wants to do for us.

So to summarize Paul’s thought in Philippians here, he begins by calling for unity and love among believers, with humility regarding others as their priority more than themselves, looking out for the interests of others rather than their own.

In other words, don’t keep thinking about yourself, your needs, your problems, your promotion.  Start thinking about others, how you can bless them.  Pray for their successes. 

So Peter, as in our original text, says that we should all clothe ourselves with humility towards one another.  This expression ‘clothe oneself’ is not a common expression in Greek.  Consider it a deliberate act that displays this conduct to everybody.  Everybody can see that you are humble.  One noted Greek scholar says that the word connotes a binding of this dress.  This is not something casually thrown on or quickly removed.

In the first half of the verse from Peter that I quoted, young men are told to be subject to the elders.  But then immediately everyone is told to put on humility in the interactions with one another, so even the elders would show this humility to the young men who are to be subject to them. 

So humility is not low self-image or self-denigration.  Humility is the intent and focus of living for other people, particularly other believers.

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[1] Twice Paul uses the word φρονέω (phro-né-o) here in verse 2:  1. to have an opinion with regard to someth., think, form/hold an opinion, judge  2. to give careful consideration to someth., set one’s mind on, be intent on, 3. to develop an attitude based on careful thought, be minded/disposed.

He first says that they should be of the same mind (using φρονέω) as a command, followed by two participles explaining this being of one mind.  Having the same love, thinking (literally) the one thing.  United in spirit (Lit. one-souled) is translated by itself by some scholars and others join it with the participle: with one mind thinking the one thing.

The use of participles is important in these verses, because they clarify the meaning of the main verbs.  This word φρονέω is a key word in Philippians and in our discussion about humlity.

[2] I think the New American Standard is the best translation out there and is the one I always use for an English text.  But verses 3 and 4 are major disappointments here.

[3] Paul doesn’t use a verb here, so the verb implied would be φρονέω and not ‘do’ as in the NASB.  And putting ‘do’ in the imperative breaks the connection to the previous verse.  

So Where are All the Miracles? (Part 3) Judges 6:1-13

Judges 6:13 (NASB95)  ¹³ Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

Do you believe that modern Western Christians should expect miracles from God, or are those only for Bible days and primitive third world countries?

Most of the discussions I have heard on this question do not use a lot of Scripture in support of their positions, so I think the answer to this question might best be answered by looking at someone in the Bible who pretty much asked the same question. 

Actually Gideon had three questions, three questions that every Christian needs to answer for his own time.

The story of Gideon is familiar, though many of the details are not.  The nation of Israel, God’s people, “did what was evil in the sight of the LORD” (Judges 6:1). 

This was not a single event but a way of life.  Chapter two of Judges gives an overview of the book as well as an overview of the history of Israel in this period.  Under Moses, God had delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and gave them their own land.  After Moses died, the nation was governed by Joshua, someone that Moses had mentored and who God gave as the nation’s leader after Moses had asked God to give them someone to lead them after he died.

But then Joshua died, and there was no clear leader from God.  There were still people alive who had seen the mighty works of God, but then they died as well.    “And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.   Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals (the gods of the nations among whom they lived) (Judges 2:10-11).

And such was the time of Gideon.  The people did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of the Midianites, who oppressed them severely for 7 years.  But the people cried out to God.

So the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon.  We don’t have details, but he didn’t seem to have appeared as an angel but as a man.  The angel greets him with: “The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior.”

Gideon then responds with his three questions.  The first question is actually implied rather than stated.  He starts a question with an assumption.  “If God is with us, then why . . .?”  You can reverse the question like this.   If these things happened to us, can we really say that God is with us?  Or simply, is God really with us?

To modern ears, that question is ambiguous.  Is it a question of location, looking for the answer to, where is God?  And many modern Christians answer it in that way.  They quickly assert God’s presence in their lives at all times, while the world could be crashing in around them.  God offers them comfort in their affliction, but He does nothing to mitigate or relieve the affliction.

But for Biblical questions, we need to let the Bible answer them.  Rather than interpreting the Bible by our circumstances, we need to interpret our circumstances by the Bible.

The Bible talks about God being with people quite often in the Bible.  And when you read the relevant passages, you realize He is not talking about the mere fact of His presence, but that His presence is to be our assurance of His help, not simply in enduring problems but overcoming them, not just comforting us in the midst of our problems but delivering us out of our problems.    

I have added to the end of this paper a list of all those Bible references. [see next article God with us]   Don’t take my word for it.  Look at these passages and see the willingness of God to help His people and what that help looks like.

So in Gideon’s mind, God being with someone tells that person that God is there to deliver that person.  The Bible often notes troubling times and events for God’s people.  The question is: what does God expect or want to do with them?  Should we just endure them with a smile, or should we expect God to do something about the problems themselves?  I think the passages clearly show that God wants to deliver us out of these problems and not just leave us in them.

So Gideon’s second question is:  Why have all these bad things happened to us?   Many modern Christians would consider Gideon idealistic or naïve to even ask the question.  Of course, bad things happen to us.  They happen all the time.  It’s all part of the program. 

But God had very specifically spelled out for Gideon’s people the blessings that He wanted to give to his people (Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28).  Those chapters also clearly spelled out the consequences if the people rejected God’s way of life. 

The people had turned away from God as their basic pattern of life, and what they were now enduring, God had told them long ago that they would.  But wait.  The angel had said that God was with him.  The Hebrew text is in the singular.  The angel was saying that God was with Gideon, not ‘you’ as a people.  But Gideon didn’t see God as being with him apart from Him being with the whole nation.  Gideon wasn’t worried about God being with him but whether God was with his nation.

So Gideon’s second question shows that what the nation of Israel was now experiencing was something that he believed God should have protected the people from.

Are our lives supposed to be one long trial and tribulation until we die and go to heaven?  Look at Psalm 34.  This hadn’t been written by the time of Gideon and long before our time.  But Christians need to decide whether it applies to them today and whether this is all poetic hyperbole or promises you can take to the bank.  The following are excerpts from that psalm:

¹I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

⁴I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.

⁶This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

⁷The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them.

⁸O taste and see that the Lord is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!

⁹O fear the Lord, you His saints; for to those who fear Him there is no want.

¹⁰The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; but they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing.

¹⁷The righteous cry, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

¹⁸The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

¹⁹Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

²⁰He keeps all his bones, not one of them is broken.

If Psalm 34 doesn’t apply to us today as promises from God, then about ¾ of the Bible (the Old Testament) has become essentially irrelevant to our lives.  And what does the New Testament teach?  Sixty percent of that is the gospels and the book of Acts, where the sick were healed and needs were met, whether running out of wine at a wedding or feeding thousands of people in the wilderness.   

We may say today that God was perfectly justified in sending the Midians to oppress the Israelites, but I think we tend to err on the side of expecting too little from God rather than too much.

So Gideon’s third question: if God be with us, then where are all His miracles?  Gideon lived in Bible days, but in his time, miracles were a distant memory.  They happened a long time ago to people now dead, but if God is with a people, any people, of course He would do them again to meet their needs.  That’s what a God would do.  On our part, we worship God, give Him His due in our offerings and in our obedience to His commands, but God on His part is to deliver His people from their enemies and bless them in their lives. 

Gideon actually asked a fourth question which he asked to help answer his third question: “Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?  And now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.” v.13  The point is that God had done great things for them in the past, doing great miracles and delivering them from their enemies.  And now He abandons them?  It doesn’t make sense.  Why would God do so much for us in the past and then just let us go? 

He was arguing with God.  (See my last article on Sodom and Gomerica about arguing with God.)  He said that if God was with them, then there should have been miracles.  If God delivered them from Egypt, it makes no sense for God to just give up on them now and leave them in the hands of Midian. 

Christians like to quote Romans 8:32 (NASB95): ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

It’s the same principle.  God loves us so much to send His Son to die for us, but then He leaves us to suffer innumerable things that can make our lives hard and miserable?  We are encouraged by the hope of heaven where all pain, sorrow, and tears will be done away with, but we can be easily confused by the state of our lives now.

The time of Gideon was not a time of miracles.  But Gideon said it should have been.  So what happens?  God then uses Gideon to bring about the very miracle that he was asking for.  God didn’t deliver Israel apart from a human being doing the work.  And the human being He chose and used was the same person who questioned an angel of God about what God should be doing. 

God wasn’t angry with Gideon for questioning what He was doing or not doing.  Gideon was named in the Faith Hall of Fame of Hebrews 11.  Gideon’s faith showed itself in his insistence that God do miracles again in his time. 

No doubt Gideon had great faith to attack a huge army with only 300 men.  But he hadn’t attacked anybody when God called him, and why did God do that?  Was it just random, an exhibition of God’s grace?  Or is it that the kind of person who expected God to do miracles because that’s what it means for God to be with somebody is the kind of person who could attack a large army with 300 men?

A person who is not expecting miracles from God is a lot less likely to act in a situation like this than somebody who is.  The person not expecting a miracle will look at the situation, become full of fear, and then not go through with it.  The person expecting a miracle would say, of course, it looks impossible, but that’s what a miracle is.  And I can’t blame God for not doing a miracle if I don’t expect Him to.

Notice that God didn’t deliver Israel apart from a human being actually confronting the enemy in a situation that should have scared his boots off.  Gideon was hesitant at first, making sure that he was hearing all this right.  But I doubt anyone else could have pulled this off who didn’t begin with this expectation that God should have done a miracle here a long time ago.

We are often told today not to expect miracles, that they were for a time long past, that those were unique times, and that we don’t need miracles today because we now have the complete Bible, where they only had bits and pieces back then.  The problem is that I don’t see anything in this complete Bible that says that miracles are not for us.  On the contrary, it gives every impression that miracles are to be a part of the normal Christian life. 

A church in Gideon’s time could have told him the same thing, that the age of miracles was past.  They were now in the land of promise, and signs and wonders only happened to show the Egyptians and the nations the truth of Israel’s revelation and Israel’s special place in God’s economy. 

Sort of like the Christian Church today.  The Bible is the record to show the truth of the message. 

But a problem happened in Gideon’s time which required a miracle.  Now what?  And problems happen today that require miracles, but many of us seem well content to leave them to their natural course, whether it is an early death, years of miserable suffering, or just plain evil.  Gideon wasn’t just content with what was happening.  He thought things should be different, and God used him to change them.