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.