You're listening to a bonus episode of the Daily Article podcast.

Over the next five to ten minutes, you'll hear Dr. Denison discuss what the Bible says about a particular topic.

To watch or share these biblical insights, subscribe to the Denison Forum YouTube channel at

YouTube.com forward slash Denison Forum.

Greetings. I'm Chris Elkins with the Denison Forum, and I'm here today with Dr. Jim Denison to talk about an interesting subject. What does the Bible say about humility? First of all,

we probably need to start off with some definitions about what is true humility, but actually, what is humility not?

Yeah, Chris, I think that's really a place to start, because for a lot of us, that's really

part of the challenges, understanding what this is and what it isn't. I want a lot of my Christian

life thinking that humility meant denying any compliments that anybody paid or pretending that something I'd

done well had not been done well, that sort of thing because the last thing I wanted to be was

proud, you know? And so I really think false humility takes kind of those two forms. The first one is

a little bit of dishonesty where someone says you did a great job and you have to find some way to demean the job you did, kind of pretend that it wasn't what it was, that sort of thing. That kind of dishonesty, we all know isn't really true. It doesn't ring true, but we don't want to be proud. And so we try to find some way to depreciate what we've done. The other way is to be deceptive. And that is to pretend to be humble when we're really not. When inside we know better, when others really kind of know better as well, then we're using humble language. But really, that's not the case. We're really pretty proud of what we've done and very proud that they've told us that they appreciate what we've done. And so we're struggling to look to be

humble. It's kind of the old joke about the guy that writes the book humility and how I perfected it.

It's kind of a sense of that, that we're proud of our humility, as it were. And that's obviously

not what the Bible has in mind when it calls us to humility as well. Okay. If we're not trying to fake it, then, what is true humility? How do we attain it?

Yeah, I've struggled with that over the years like so many people have, just to try to get a

sense of that. C.S. Lewis has been a help to me in so many subjects. He said,

praise is like chewing gum. It's not bad to chew, but be careful not to swallow

it. It's kind of the idea. And I think what's inside that is the sense that humility comes when I compare

myself not to others, but to the Lord and to his standard for me. As long as I'm comparing myself to

other people, I can almost always find somebody that I feel superior to somebody, whether I should feel that way or not, it's just kind of the way it is. And you feel like there's somebody that's further down the ladder and you can kind of look down at them. And as CS Lewis says, when you're looking down, you can't look up. And so if you're going to compare yourself to other people with regards to who you are or what you've done,

there's always going to be yourself to other people with regards to who you are

...