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Paul & Pride: Origins and Orige
By David W. T. Brattston
At first sight, it would appear easy to write an article on the topic “God hates pride,” but it is not in fact as simple as it would first seem.
Granted, there are plenty of Scripture passages condemning pride. Infuse readers with a good knowledge of the Bible will immediately recall Proverbs 16:5: “The LORD detests all the proud of heart”; and Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall”; and Romans 12:16: “Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.” In 1 Corinthians 13:4 the Apostle Paul tells us that love “is not proud.” Wisdom, says Proverbs 8:13, hates “pride and arrogance.” All these quotations are from the New International Version. Other translations use other words for pride: haughty, arrogant, glory, conceit, self-glory, etc., or rephrase the verse and use the word “boast.” There is no shortage of other disapprovals of pride, by whatever name, in the Bible; for example: Job 40:11f; Psalm 10:4; Proverbs 3:34; 8:13; 11:2; 15:25; 21:4; 29:23; Ecclesiastes 7:8; Jeremiah 13:15; Ezekiel 16:49; Mark 7:22; Romans 11:20; and 2 Timothy 3:2. In fact, 2 Timothy 3:5 even instructs Christians to avoid and have nothing to do with proud people. Both James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 tell us that “God opposes the proud.”
But writing an article on the sin of pride involves much more than hunting up and listing Biblical sources against it. The problem comes in looking up some verses and discovering the Apostle Paul sometimes approved of pride and even was proud himself. The NIV quotes him as saying to the Corinthians, “I take great pride in you” (2 Corinthians 7:4), and that he was giving them “an opportunity to take pride in us” (2 Corinthians 5:12); and to the Galatians (6:4): “Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself.” The more literal Revised Standard Version translates the relevant words of Romans 15:17 as “I have reason to be proud of my work for God”; 1 Corinthians 15:31 as “I protest, brethren, by my pride in you which I have in Christ Jesus”; 2 Corinthians 1:14 as “you can be proud of us as we can be of you”; and Philippians 2:16 as “so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
How do we reconcile the clear teaching of many Scripture writers against the total opposite attitude taken by the most influential Christian next to Christ Himself?
The answer was provided long ago by the church father Origen, the most dedicated and prolific Bible student, teacher, and commentator before the Reformation. A lifelong bachelor who earned his living from an early age as a Scripture interpreter, preacher, and seminary professor, he wrote more about the Bible and Christian faith than anyone else for the next thirteen centuries. In addition, the church of his day still possessed oral memories of Jesus and the apostles, which handed down their interpretations and explanations of the written Scriptures. Moreover, he and other Christians of the first centuries wrestled with and provided solutions to problems in the interpretation of the Bible. Instead of reinventing the wheel by puzzling out the same problems again to produce our own solutions, we today can search the early non-biblical writings to find and adopt the solutions of Christians who were much closer in time and culture to Jesus and His apostles.
Origen resolved the seeming contradiction in the Bible when he preached against pride in a sermon in the A.D. 240s. He naturally condemned people who are proud that they have relatives in government or are otherwise important in a worldly sense, or have power over other people, or hold a high position, or are wealthy, or possess a beautiful home or lands. However, he also chastised people who are proud for what seems a good reason to Christians: wisdom, chastity, and having borne chains for Christ. Origen said Christians should not be proud even of these. As an illustration, he mentioned that Paul had similar reasons to be proud: visions and revelations (2 Corinthians 12:1; Acts 16:9f; Acts 18:9), signs, wonders and miracles (Romans 15:17-19; 2 Corinthians 12:12), and ambition to preach the Gospel in communities where Christ was not previously known (Romans 15:20). According to 2 Corinthians 12:9, he was even proud about his weaknesses! We may also add that Paul had reason to be proud because he planted many churches in Turkey and Greece, and because of his sufferings on behalf of the Gospel. Yet, said Origen, God strongly disapproved of such pride in Paul and took measures to counteract or balance it.
Origen reminded his congregation that, in addition to visions, revelations, etc., God also gave Paul a thorn in the flesh, a demon from Satan to torment the apostle and thus dampen down or eliminate any tendency toward pride. Paul three times asked the Lord to remove it but He refused, telling Paul that it was to remind him that he was and should be totally dependent on God’s grace (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). That which comes by grace is no cause for pride, because God is the source and the means to any accomplishment. Paul was no exception, said Origen, to God’s rule against pride.
In violation of many passages of Scripture, Paul may have drifted into pride, and even have encouraged others to be proud, but this does not mean God approved of it. All Christians have weaknesses, and Paul’s was pride. We must follow the consensus of all the Bible writers rather than the lapse of one man. The Lord hates pride. Paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 11:1, we should follow Paul’s example only to the extent that he followed Christ’s. The Bible is clear that we should curb our own pride before God, in His disciplining love, sends thorns in our own flesh to counteract it. i
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