humility

[imperfectchristian]

In this day of modern technology, unparalleled scholarship, historical cross referencing, archeological progress, computer raw data processing power, expotential advances in science and understanding human behavoiur, one must wonder...is there any room for humility?

We are smarter and more educated than we have ever been, but intellignece and knowledge are not the way we find God.

1st Corinthians 1:17-31

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."


20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

 

[enoch son]

We don't find God He find's us. So much for all that knowledges.

 

[Optimax]

If we took the top 1,000,000 "smartest people" in world knowledge the sum total of their "knowledge" would be but a very small percentage of what there is left to know.

And as you said. All that knowledge does not nor can not gain eternal life for the "knowers".

Takes Jesus.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

every modern convenience you enjoy freeing you from lives of constant toil, and medical treatment freeing you from sickness and pain in this world has been built by educated sentient creatures, many of whom never believed in a God to begin with.

the science upon which all technology and medicine has been based has been the same science as takes evolutionary theory as the basis for how life got here on earth.

you don't have to like that. but you ought to be aware of it nonetheless.


he is most definitely not humble, who sneers at education.

 

[imperfectchristian]

every modern convenience you enjoy freeing you from lives of constant toil, and medical treatment freeing you from sickness and pain in this world has been built by educated sentient creatures, many of whom never believed in a God to begin with.

the science upon which all technology and medicine has been based has been the same science as takes evolutionary theory as the basis for how life got here on earth.

you don't have to like that. but you ought to be aware of it nonetheless.


he is most definitely not humble, who sneers at education.

On the contrary, it is usually the other way around...those who believe themselves to be very intelligent and educated viewing and treating others who are more simple in their understandings as inferior.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

On the contrary, it is usually the other way around...those who believe themselves to be very intelligent and educated viewing and treating others who are more simple in their understandings as inferior.

They at least have a logical basis for doing so, even if the attitude bes morally questionable. The ones who do it in reverse don't.

And there has been plenty of reverse snobbery. Every child in America grows up with the "gospel" of jock-worship and the reign of ignorant bullies on the playground shoved down his throat, with having the word "smart" used as a pejorative and even a denunciatory term denoting that punishment bes imminent. Some drink the koolaid, poor dears. Others spit it out from the first moment it touches their lips and have to put up with being harassed for that, too, all their lives, on top of it all.

Education happens to be a meta-tool -- a tool capable of spawning new tools. You might have liked some of Aleister Crowley's sociological viewpoints, actually. He did not believe in "compulsory" education trying to raise the bar for everyone but rather advocated the cultivating of a contented slave class -- something along the lines of a socially-sanctioned and protected indentured servant class -- from those who neither valued the benefits of education nor took natural interest in the opportunities offered by it. Hey, someone has to collect the trash and mop the floors, after all ... might as well be someone who aspires to nothing more rather than someone who has worked diligently for a far more interesting station in life but winds up having to "make do".

 

[imperfectchristian]

They at least have a logical basis for doing so, even if the attitude bes morally questionable. The ones who do it in reverse don't.

And there has been plenty of reverse snobbery. Every child in America grows up with the "gospel" of jock-worship and the reign of ignorant bullies on the playground shoved down his throat, with having the word "smart" used as a pejorative and even a denunciatory term denoting that punishment bes imminent. Some drink the koolaid, poor dears. Others spit it out from the first moment it touches their lips and have to put up with being harassed for that, too, all their lives, on top of it all.

Education happens to be a meta-tool -- a tool capable of spawning new tools. You might have liked some of Aleister Crowley's sociological viewpoints, actually. He did not believe in "compulsory" education trying to raise the bar for everyone but rather advocated the cultivating of a contented slave class -- something along the lines of a socially-sanctioned and protected indentured servant class -- from those who neither valued the benefits of education nor took natural interest in the opportunities offered by it. Hey, someone has to collect the trash and mop the floors, after all ... might as well be someone who aspires to nothing more rather than someone who has worked diligently for a far more interesting station in life but winds up having to "make do".

No of course not...I have never spoken against education nor against the opportunity for learning for everyone. Having said that however, education, philosophy and or man's wisdom are not ways in which we come to know God.

Paul was not speaking against education, philosophy or man's wisdom in and of themselves, he was speaking of these being a stumbling block for those who would rely upon their wisdom, superior knowledge or intellectual ability to know God.

An intelligent and or wise man knows God, comes to God and finds God's grace not because he is wise and or intelligent, but because he is humble.

 

[NaLuvena]

Originally Posted by Moriah_Conquering_Wind

every modern convenience you enjoy freeing you from lives of constant toil, and medical treatment freeing you from sickness and pain in this world has been built by educated sentient creatures, many of whom never believed in a God to begin with.

the science upon which all technology and medicine has been based has been the same science as takes evolutionary theory as the basis for how life got here on earth.

you don't have to like that. but you ought to be aware of it nonetheless.


he is most definitely not humble, who sneers at education.
​

On the contrary, it is usually the other way around...those who believe themselves to be very intelligent and educated viewing and treating others who are more simple in their understandings as inferior.

I see this stage as a middle ground, similar to a teenager, who thinks they know everything, and sneers at the knowledge of their parents.

Once they become adults, they realise the old man wasn't as stupid as they thought.

When we start to learn, we reach a stage when we think we know everything, and tend to become insufferable snobs. As our learning progresses, we realize the immensity of what we don't know, and that humbles us (and humiliates some), and we lose our snobbery, sometimes without even realizing it. This is when we become an adult, intellectually.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Pretty astute summary, NaLuvena. Moriah had an internal revelation today, one of those quick flash-recognition things in the brain, that immaturity does not constitute evil or sin. It bes not evil, wrong, or sin to be immature or incomplete. Most sickness among the humans gets bred from this error, to reckon youthful folly as having ulterior motives it does not possess and the evil and deliberation which go with those; to consider incompleteness a form of deceit or premeditated selfishness when it bes entirely "innocent" in the sense of inadvertent, a product of an unfinished cycle. These attitudes would be wrong, and they breed sickness and error and prevent heallthy completion of the maturation cycle by entrenching people along a false polar divide, which they then imagine to be the product of morality, at certain stages of that cycle, ensuring the cycle remains incomplete and its phases counterproductive to one another instead of informing and assisting completion.

 

[Floatingaxe]

No of course not...I have never spoken against education nor against the opportunity for learning for everyone. Having said that however, education, philosophy and or man's wisdom are not ways in which we come to know God.

Paul was not speaking against education, philosophy or man's wisdom in and of themselves, he was speaking of these being a stumbling block for those who would rely upon their wisdom, superior knowledge or intellectual ability to know God.

An intelligent and or wise man knows God, comes to God and finds God's grace not because he is wise and or intelligent, but because he is humble.

Amen!

 

[nephilimiyr]

In this day of modern technology, unparalleled scholarship, historical cross referencing, archeological progress, computer raw data processing power, expotential advances in science and understanding human behavoiur, one must wonder...is there any room for humility?

Oh yeah, of course, there's always room to be humble, but man is it ever hard to be.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoRPohOA8WI

 

[imperfectchristian]

Oh yeah, of course, there's always room to be humble, but man is it ever hard to be.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoRPohOA8WIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoRPohOA8WI

Yeah I know what you mean.

 

[imperfectchristian]

The point of the Scripture posted is that God reveals the wisdom of God to those who believe, not to those who try to use their ability to "figure out God" those are the people who endlessly go around in circles.

If anyone should have known who Jesus was, it should have been the teachers of the law, yet God hid the truth from them and revealed it unto babes.

Paul was well educated in the school in Jerusalem so he is hardly disqualifying education as a negative, rather he is pointing out the overarching preeminence of God.

This actually comes back and ties into salvation by grace through faith as opposed to works (AKA our attempts to bring ourselves closer to God through our own abilities: wisdom, adherence to the law, good deeds, benevolence, willpower, mental resolve, accumulated learning, socially acceptable behaviour, etc...)

 

[nephilimiyr]

You've gotten some good responses here Twiggy, and hopefully will get more. So I'll just post a couple passages most people probably don't know about yet sorta speaks to this being humble thing.

Ecclesiates 8:16-17, When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes) Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea father; though a wiseman think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.

The way I see it, when I consider God and how wonderful and brilliant He is, I become humble no matter what I think I may know.

 

[imperfectchristian]

You've gotten some good responses here Twiggy, and hopefully will get more. So I'll just post a couple passages most people probably don't know about yet sorta speaks to this being humble thing.

Ecclesiates 8:16-17, When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes. Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea father; though a wiseman think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.

The way I see it, when I consider God and how wonderful and brilliant He is, I become humble no matter what I think I may know.

Excellent point!

 

[Alpine]

1st Corinthians 1:17-31

If there was anyone who had a reason to be proud and boast it was Paul. He was highly educated by the greatest rabbi's of that age, knew the law inside and out and was close to the leadership in the Sanhedrin.


But Paul left that life and became a fool for the Messiah. Traveling all over the Mediterranean, starving and homeless as he went because he so passionately believed Jesus was real and others needed to know the good news!

That's a kind of humility I want to know, where I will sacrifice my life for Jesus and be willing to be mocked and scorned by all.

I'm not there yet, but I'm trying to get there.

 

[THE OLD BUM]

dont forget you have a body that has pride filled up to excess

 

[MrSnow]

I find it interesting that the words humble, humus, and human all derive from the same concept: dirt.

Our humanity finds is truest expression in humbling ourselves to the humus.

When we lower ourselves, we find what it truly means to bear the image of God.

 

[Moriah_Conquering_Wind]

Actually, grovelling can be its own form of pride. Pride can be very sneaky like that. It can hide in false modesty, in self-recriminations, in constant reiterations of how one bes "nothing", etc. People begin to take pride in how humble they can act. That becomes a real danger zone. Sometimes the most humble thing a person can do would be to graciously thank someone else for a compliment. No muss, no fuss, no trying to blush and fawn and pretend you don't deserve it. Just smile, say "thank you, that's very kind of you to say" and let it go without trying to be a crass opportunist grabbing yet another opportunity to do the little martyr trip in the spotlight and show off how self-effacing and unassuming one can LOOK.

 

[MrSnow]

Actually, grovelling can be its own form of pride. Pride can be very sneaky like that. It can hide in false modesty, in self-recriminations, in constant reiterations of how one bes "nothing", etc. People begin to take pride in how humble they can act. That becomes a real danger zone. Sometimes the most humble thing a person can do would be to graciously thank someone else for a compliment. No muss, no fuss, no trying to blush and fawn and pretend you don't deserve it. Just smile, say "thank you, that's very kind of you to say" and let it go without trying to be a crass opportunist grabbing yet another opportunity to do the little martyr trip in the spotlight and show off how self-effacing and unassuming one can LOOK.

I thoroughly agree.

I didn't mean to come across as saying that it's good to grovel or make a display of humility.

Rather, my point (hidden by my lack of words in the direction of actually making a point) was more along the idea that humbling ourselves would lead to just the attitude that you described - drawing no attention or focus to ourselves.