If you try to become humble by keeping quiet, letting others have their way and never mentioning what you have done, you may end up easier to walk over without being any closer to humility. Scripture points somewhere else. Humility is strength held in check by closeness to God and spent on other people’s behalf. A doormat has given its strength away. A humble person still has it and decides who it serves. Over the next seven days you will test that on yourself: an honest inventory, two passages read closely, and then a week of using whatever power you have for someone who has less.
You can work through this alone with a notebook, or with a group that meets before and after the week. If you are in a group, everything written in the inventory stays private unless the writer chooses to share it.
Begin with an honest inventory
On the Jude 3 Project podcast, Dr. Dennis Edwards, a New Testament scholar and dean of North Park Theological Seminary, offered a test that works better than asking whether you feel humble. The useful question, he said, is not whether you can mention your accomplishments. He suggested asking yourself “how do I feel when my accomplishments aren’t acknowledged” and in what setting that feeling shows up. He admitted it used to bother him when someone introduced him and got his background wrong.
Lisa Fields, the founder and president of Jude 3 Project, described a second test from her own life. She said “that offense exposes my pride and my self-righteousness” more than anything else does. When someone wrongs her, she is tempted to feel better than that person, because she is not weak where they are weak. She knows she is moving toward humility when her prayer changes. She stops asking only for the other person to be corrected. In her words, “I’m praying for both of us to be better.”
Take fifteen quiet minutes and write short answers to these. Nobody else needs to read them.
- In the last month, when did you feel stung because someone overlooked what you had done? Write down the setting and who was in the room.
- Name one person who has offended you recently. Write one honest sentence about a way you might also have wronged them, or a weakness of yours they might see.
- Where do you hold some kind of power right now? Think broadly: a job title, seniority, money, a confident voice, knowing how a system works, being the one people listen to at home or at church.
Keep the third list. The rest of the week depends on it.
Read Philippians 2:1-8 slowly
Read the passage twice, once silently and once out loud. Then work through these observations before you look at anyone’s commentary.
First, find the warning. Paul writes, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Philippians 2:3). Circle the word vainglory. Edwards defined it as “wanting to have the show of superiority, even if I’m not actually superior.” Pride claims to be better. Vainglory wants to be seen as better.
Second, notice the direction of the next verse: “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others” (Philippians 2:4). Paul does not tell the reader to stop having interests. The word also matters. He tells them to widen their attention to include someone else’s.
Third, look at who Paul holds up as the model. Write down everything the passage says Christ had before he humbled himself. Then write down what he did with it. Pay attention to the verbs and to who performs them. Nobody forces Christ downward in these verses. He chooses his path, and he chooses it for others. That is the shape of the practice you are about to try. Humility in this passage is an act of someone who could have done otherwise.
Why secure people can stop competing
Edwards traces humility to a source outside the self. He defines it as a way of being “rooted in intimacy and submission to God” that plays out in peacemaking for others. He draws this from Numbers 12, where Miriam and Aaron challenge Moses’s leadership and the narrator adds, “(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)” (Numbers 12:3). In the reading Edwards found persuasive, that comment belongs with God’s description of speaking with Moses mouth to mouth. Closeness to God and humility go together. That link is an interpretation, and Edwards himself says scholars go back and forth on the passage. It does fit the scene: Moses does not defend himself, and God does.
This matters for a week of practice. If your sense of worth depends on being recognized, every act of service becomes a transaction. You will either resent it or try to get credit for it. Edwards said that constantly calculating where to look kind and where to look good “becomes exhausting” and is not genuine.
So each morning this week, read 1 Peter 5:6: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.” Notice whose hand you humble yourself under. It is God’s, not the hand of whoever wants to dominate you. Then say two sentences to God, aloud or on paper. In the first, name one specific advantage you will carry into the day. In the second, name the person you intend to use it for, or the moment where you intend to hold it back. That is the whole morning practice. It takes two minutes, and it puts your power in front of God before you put it in front of anyone else.
Two counterfeits to watch for
Before you begin, learn to recognize two imitations. Both can look like humility from across the room.
The first is useful kindness. Edwards described a word often translated “gentle” that was respectable in the Roman world, where it could mean a powerful person being kind in a way meant to be noticed. He applied this to the modern workplace. Being pleasant can make working relationships run smoother, he said, but a person can do all of that and still not be attuned to injustice. Real humility goes further. “It doesn’t just say, how can we all get along?” It asks how to set right what is broken.
The second is enforced shrinking. Edwards recalled that in Minnesota, where he ministered, people joked that you never take the last cookie, because taking it makes you look greedy. Polite, self-effacing customs like that can look exactly like humility while having no submission to God behind them. They are simply the rules of a group. The heavier version comes when those rules are pressed on people who already have less. Lisa Fields raised this with Edwards: many African Americans have been made to be humble, taught not to speak of their achievements, and then treated as a problem when they do. Edwards answered directly that “humility isn’t about becoming a doormat.” He went further: “true humility would make me want to look out for my neighbor” and make sure people are not pushed to the margins.
So this is not a week of letting people take advantage of you. If the inventory showed that you are the one being pressed down, your practice may mean speaking up for yourself honestly, or standing with others in the same position. If someone is harming you at home, no part of this study asks you to stay in harm’s way. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is available at 1-800-799-7233.
The week: spending your power on someone with less
The week has one act of restraint and one act on someone’s behalf, with preparation before and a review after. Edwards said, “it takes more strength to practice godly restraint in some situations than it does to be a bully.” Both acts assume you have strength to use.
Day 1: Pick one person. From your power list, identify one setting and one person in it who has less standing than you. It might be a coworker who gets talked over, a newer member of a ministry team, a younger sibling, a neighbor who does not know how a system works that you understand well. Write down what they lack that you have: access, information, a seat in a meeting, a voice people already trust.
Days 2 and 3: Watch before acting. Pay attention to how that person is treated when you are present. Notice when they are interrupted, overlooked, blamed or left out. Also notice your own part in it. Do not fix anything yet. Write down two specific moments.
Day 4: Hold back once. Find one moment where you could win: get the last word, take the credit, settle an argument by rank. Choose not to. Then write down what the restraint cost you and whether anyone noticed. If you find you were waiting for someone to notice, record that too. It tells you something about vainglory.
Days 5 and 6: Act once on their behalf. Use your advantage for that person in a way that changes something, even something small. Give credit by name to the person whose idea it was. Bring someone into a decision they were left out of. Explain how the system works. Tell someone in authority about a wrong you saw. Edwards warned against the reflex to blame both sides for everything and said “some things are just straight out evil.” If what you saw on Days 2 and 3 was simply wrong, humility may require you to say so plainly.
Day 7: Review. Read back over everything you wrote, starting with your inventory. Then answer three questions in writing. Did either act make you smaller? Did it cost you anything real? What did you notice about where your sense of worth was coming from?
One honest caution. Edwards said of people who live this way, “Doesn’t mean that people will always like us. Certainly not, they didn’t like Jesus.” Acting for someone with less can create friction with those who have more. Watch whether that friction makes you want to retreat into simply being pleasant.
For groups
Meet once before the week and once after. At the first meeting, read Philippians 2:1-8 together and talk through the two counterfeits. Do not ask anyone to read their inventory aloud. Invite each person to say which setting they chose for the week, if they are willing.
At the second meeting, let people describe what happened in whatever detail they choose. Leaders should watch for two responses. Some people, often the most faithful, have been taught that humility means silence and will need to hear that speaking up for someone is part of the practice. Others will hear this study as permission to stop examining themselves. Lisa Fields’s point about offense helps with both: humility looks outward toward the neighbor and stays honest about the self. If someone describes ongoing abuse, do not treat it as a discussion topic. Follow up privately and connect them with a pastor and appropriate help.
Discussion questions
- When you tried Edwards’s test about unacknowledged accomplishments, what came to mind? Did the answer surprise you, confirm what you already knew, or seem not to apply?
- In Philippians 2, Christ humbles himself from a position of full power. Does that change the way you read the command to esteem others better than yourself? If so, how?
- Did either counterfeit, useful kindness or enforced shrinking, describe anything you noticed this week? If so, where do you think it came from? If not, what did you see instead?
- Lisa Fields described moving from praying for someone else’s correction to praying for both people. Is there a conflict in your life where that shift seems possible, or one where it seems wrong or premature?
- When you acted on someone’s behalf, who did it change things for? How would you tell the difference between helping them and improving your view of yourself?
- Edwards said, “I want whole churches to be humble places.” What would that look like in your congregation or group, and what stands in the way?
- Was there a point this week when humility seemed to call for speaking up, and another when it seemed to call for staying quiet? How did you decide?
What to carry forward
James repeats an old line from Proverbs: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). A week of practice will not settle whether you believe that. It will show you where your habits disagree with it. Before you close your notebook, write down the name of the person you served this week. Then write whether you plan to keep spending your advantage for them, and what that would look like a month from now.