When the pastor asked Ekaette to chair the church’s finance committee, she said no before he had finished the sentence.
It was an awkward moment, because everybody knew she was the obvious choice. She was a chartered accountant with twelve years in a large audit firm. The church had just been through a painful year in which the accounts had been badly kept, a building fund had gone missing for several months, and members had begun to ask questions that nobody could answer. The pastor needed someone competent, trusted and calm. He had prayed about it. He had asked the elders. Every one of them had said the same name.
“Pastor, I am nobody,” Ekaette said. “There are people here who are far more spiritual than me. I am just a small girl. Let somebody senior do it. I will help them from the back.”
The pastor said he understood and would pray about it further. He thought she was being humble. So did she.
She had always been like this. When someone praised a report she had written, she said it was nothing. When a friend told her she sang beautifully, she said the friend must not have heard the alto line properly. When her firm promoted her, she told her mother that they must have run out of other candidates. As a child she had been sharp and quick and eager to answer in class, and an aunt who raised her for some years used to tell her to stop being “too forward” and to learn her place. She had learned it very well. Somewhere along the way, she had come to believe that the godliest thing she could do with her abilities was to deny that she had any.
PunchlineOn the Saturday after the pastor’s request, Ekaette went to help clean the church. She found herself on toilet duty beside Mama Funmi.
Mama Funmi was seventy-two. She was a retired professor of paediatrics who had trained a whole generation of doctors and still lectured twice a month at the teaching hospital. Half the consultants in the city had sat in her classes. Every Saturday morning for as long as anyone could remember, she had arrived at the church at seven with her own bucket and brush and cleaned the toilets, because, she said, somebody had to and she was usually awake.
They worked in silence for a while. Then Mama Funmi, without looking up from the basin she was scrubbing, said, “I heard you refused the pastor.”
I will come back to what she said next. But the two women on their knees in that washroom represent the two pictures of humility this article is about. One of them knew exactly who she was and held a toilet brush with complete freedom. The other believed she was nothing and could not accept a task she was perfectly equipped to do. Only one of them was showing biblical humility, and it was not the one who thought less of herself.
Two counterfeits
We usually think of pride as the opposite of humility, and it is. Pride inflates the self. It wants the best seat, the loudest praise and the final word. It looks down on other people and measures its worth by being above them. Scripture is relentless against it: “God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).
But there is a second counterfeit that often passes for the real thing in church. It is self-contempt, the habit of thinking poorly of oneself and calling it godliness. The person caught in it refuses responsibility, deflects every compliment, hides every gift and speaks of himself in the harshest terms. People around him often admire him for it. Yet very often the root is the same as pride. Both are preoccupied with the self. The proud person keeps asking, “How do I compare?” and hopes the answer is “better.” The self-despising person asks the same question and expects the answer to be “worse.” Both are still standing in front of the mirror.
Scripture gives us an example of how closely the two can sit together. When Saul was chosen as Israel’s first king, he was so reluctant that he hid among the baggage during his own coronation (1 Samuel 10:22). It looked like modesty. Years later, after Saul had grown arrogant and disobeyed God, Samuel said to him, “When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel?” (1 Samuel 15:17). The man who once thought himself too small became the man who built a monument to himself (1 Samuel 15:12). His low view of himself had never been humility. It was insecurity, and insecurity, once it gains power, is very easily turned into pride.
Gideon, when the angel called him a mighty man of valour, protested that his family was poor in Manasseh and that he was the least in his father’s house (Judges 6:15). God did not argue with him about his family tree. He simply said, “Surely I will be with thee.” Gideon’s estimate of himself was beside the point. What mattered was the presence and calling of God.
Biblical humility is neither inflation nor deflation. It is an accurate and grateful view of oneself before God, which frees a person to forget about himself and serve.
Jesus knew who He was
The clearest picture of humility in the whole Bible takes place in an upper room in Jerusalem, on the night before the crucifixion. John introduces it with great care:
Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself. After that he poureth water into a bason, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet? Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean. So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.
Read the opening sentence slowly, because it tells us where the foot washing came from. “Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; He riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments.”
Jesus knowing. Before He picked up the towel, He was fully aware of who He was. All things had been given into His hands. He had come from God. He was going to God. His identity, His authority and His destiny were settled in His own mind. And it was precisely out of that knowledge that He knelt down to do the work of a slave.
In first-century homes, washing guests’ feet was the lowest task in the household, usually given to the most junior servant. The roads were dusty and the sandals were open, and the job was unpleasant. Luke tells us that on that very evening the disciples had been arguing about which of them should be accounted the greatest (Luke 22:24). Nobody had volunteered for the towel. So the Lord of glory did it Himself.
Jesus did not wash their feet because He thought little of Himself. A person who is insecure about his worth cannot easily stoop, because stooping feels like a threat. Jesus could stoop because nothing about His identity depended on where He was standing.
Then look at what He said when He had finished. “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.” He did not deny His status. He did not say, “Oh, I am nobody really.” He affirmed it plainly. So I am. Humility does not require us to lie about the truth. It requires us to use whatever we are and have for the good of others.
“If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” The argument runs from the greater to the lesser. If the One with the highest position took the lowest place, then nobody among His followers can claim to be too important for it. And He ends with a promise: “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” There is joy in this kind of service. It is the joy of people who have stopped calculating their own importance.
Peter’s reaction is worth a moment too. “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” That sounds humble. It was actually a refusal to receive. Jesus answered, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.” True humility includes the willingness to be served, to receive grace and help without insisting on always being the one who gives. Some of the people who find it hardest to accept a kindness are those whose sense of worth depends on being needed.
The mind that was in Christ Jesus
Paul takes this same pattern and builds a whole doctrine of Christian character on it. He was writing to a church in Philippi that he loved deeply, but there were tensions within it. Two women, Euodias and Syntyche, had fallen out, and Paul begs them to be “of the same mind in the Lord” (Philippians 4:2). Against that background he writes:
Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.” Vainglory means empty glory, the hunger for a reputation that has nothing real behind it. “But in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”
This verse is often misunderstood. Paul is not asking every believer to persuade himself that everyone else is more talented, more intelligent or more spiritual than he is. That would often be untrue, and it would make humility a matter of self-deception. The word esteem has to do with how we regard and treat others. Paul is asking us to count other people’s interests as weighty, to give them honour, to put their good ahead of our own preferences. The next verse makes this plain: “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” Notice the word also. Paul does not tell you to ignore your own concerns entirely. He tells you not to look only at them.
Then comes the great hymn of Christ. “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant.”
Christ did not stop being God. He was, and remained, “in the form of God.” What He did was refuse to treat His equality with God as something to be grasped and exploited for His own advantage. He “made himself of no reputation,” which translates a Greek word meaning that He emptied Himself. He did not empty Himself of His divine nature. He emptied Himself of the privileges and status that were rightfully His, and took the form of a servant. Then He went further still: “he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
Humility, in this passage, is something Christ chose from a position of fullness. He was not small and therefore humble. He was supremely great and chose to humble Himself. That is the mind Paul wants in us.
And notice how the passage ends. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.” Christ did not exalt Himself. He left that to the Father, and the Father lifted Him to the highest place. That is the freedom of the humble person. He no longer has to manage his own reputation. He can safely leave his honour in God’s hands.
Think soberly
If Philippians shows us the heart of humility, Romans 12 shows us its mind. Having spent eleven chapters on the mercies of God, Paul turns to how a believer should regard himself within the body of Christ:
For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.
Nugget“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly.”
Paul does not tell us to think of ourselves as lowly as possible. He tells us not to think more highly than we ought, and then to think soberly. The word means with a clear, sound and balanced mind, like a person who is not intoxicated. A sober estimate of yourself is an accurate one. It does not exaggerate your abilities, and it does not deny them either.
God has “dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Whatever you have, God gave it, and He gave it for a body in which every member is needed.
And then a command that every Ekaette in the church needs to hear. “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us” use them. “Or ministry, let us wait on our ministry: or he that teacheth, on teaching... he that ruleth, with diligence.” Paul does not say, “If you have a gift, be careful not to think about it.” He says, use it. Prophesy according to faith. Teach. Exhort. Give with simplicity. Lead with diligence. Show mercy with cheerfulness.
A believer who buries his gift because he fears looking proud has not achieved humility. He has simply withheld from the body something God meant it to have. Jesus told of a servant who received a talent from his master and said, “I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth” (Matthew 25:25). His master did not praise his modesty.
When false modesty resists God
The most striking example of self-deprecation in Scripture comes at the burning bush. God had appeared to Moses, revealed His name, and announced that He was sending him to Pharaoh to bring Israel out of Egypt. Moses raised objection after objection. Then he came to his last one:
And Moses said unto the LORD , O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD ? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart.
“O my Lord, I am not eloquent... I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” It sounds humble. Moses was being honest about his limitations, or so it seemed. But God’s answer exposed what was really going on. “Who hath made man’s mouth?... have not I the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth.”
Moses’ reply was the real heart of the matter: “O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send.” In other words, send someone else. And “the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses.”
That is sobering. Acknowledging a weakness did not anger God. Using the weakness as a reason to refuse His call did. Self-deprecation had become resistance, and Moses was looking at his own mouth rather than at the God who made mouths.
Jeremiah tried something similar when he was called as a young man: “Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child” (Jeremiah 1:6). God’s reply was firm: “Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee” (Jeremiah 1:7).
When God gives you an opportunity, and the people who know you best confirm it, your sense of inadequacy is no sufficient reason to refuse. You may well be inadequate. So is everyone God has ever used. The real question is whether He has called you and will be with you.
Moses, incidentally, grew. Years later Scripture describes him as “very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). That meekness was not the timid self-doubt of the burning bush. It was the strength of a man who had learned to trust God so deeply that he no longer needed to defend himself.
PunchlineHumility is not thinking poorly of yourself. It is seeing yourself accurately before God, receiving what He has given with gratitude, and using it freely for others.
What hast thou that thou didst not receive?
The church in Corinth was full of gifted people, and it was riddled with pride. Different groups had attached themselves to different teachers and were boasting about their spiritual sophistication. Paul writes:
And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. For who maketh thee to differ from another ? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it , why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it ?
“For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?”
That one question is the cure for both counterfeits of humility.
To the proud, it says: every ability you have was given to you. Your intelligence, your voice, your health, your opportunities, your upbringing, your spiritual gifts and even your capacity for hard work came from God. You have no grounds for treating them as achievements that make you superior to anyone else.
To the self-despising, it says something equally important: you did receive. The gifts are real. God gave them. Denying them quietly refuses to acknowledge the Giver.
The natural response to a gift is gratitude. When someone gives you a present, you say thank you and use it well. Paul could say without any embarrassment, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Corinthians 15:10). He knew what he was and where it came from, and that combination kept him both confident and humble. John the Baptist put the principle simply: “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven” (John 3:27).
So when someone compliments your work, you do not need to argue. You can say, “Thank you,” and in your heart thank God. When you are good at something, you can say so without boasting: “God has given me some skill with numbers, and I would be glad to help.” Gifts acknowledged as gifts lose their power to make us proud, and they lose their power to make us ashamed.
Gifts that do not make you more important
There is one more thing humility does with gifts. It refuses to let them become grounds for importance over another person.
We live in a culture deeply attentive to status. At weddings and burials there is a high table. At events, the order of protocol matters a great deal. In many churches, titles have multiplied, and the size of one’s car, the location of one’s seat, and whether one is greeted by name from the pulpit can become quiet measures of importance. None of this is new. Jesus watched guests at a dinner jostling for the best places, and told them a parable:
When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
The advice is practical, almost humorous. Do not rush for the best seat, in case someone more honourable arrives and you are moved down in front of everyone. Take the lowest place, and let your host call you up. Then Jesus states the principle beneath it: “For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
Notice that Jesus does not tell the guests to refuse the higher seat when the host offers it. “Friend, go up higher” is to be accepted with grace. Honour itself is no enemy. The trouble lies in grasping for it, instead of letting it come from the right person.
Paul’s picture of the body makes the same point. “And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:21). A gift that is more visible does not make its owner more valuable. The preacher is not more precious to God than the woman who arranges the chairs. The professor is not more important than the cleaner whose toilet she is scrubbing. Different gifts, different responsibilities, the same Father.
Humility also needs a guard-rail here. Taking the lowest place is a free choice made by someone secure in God’s love. It is not the same as allowing yourself to be belittled, exploited or abused. A wife who is mistreated, a worker who is cheated, a church member who is manipulated by a leader in the name of “humility” is not being asked by Scripture to accept it. Jesus chose the towel. Nobody forced it on Him. And people whose sense of worth has been crushed by others may need patient pastoral care, and sometimes professional help, before they can begin to see themselves soberly.
Practising humility from security
Peter, who had once refused to let Jesus wash his feet, later wrote: “Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility” (1 Peter 5:5). The word he uses for clothed suggests tying something on, as a servant would tie on an apron before work. It is hard to imagine that Peter wrote it without remembering a towel in an upper room.
What does it look like to tie on that apron?
It looks like doing unseen work gladly. It looks like celebrating someone else’s success without immediately comparing it with your own, and asking for feedback and being willing to hear it. It looks like saying, “I was wrong,” without collapsing into self-hatred, and using your gift fully when you are asked, without either showing off or hiding it.
And above all it looks like remembering who you are. You are a child of God, loved, accepted and secure in Christ. Your worth has been settled by Him. That frees you from the endless work of proving yourself and from the endless work of hiding yourself. Like Jesus, you can know that you have come from God and are going to God, and then get up from the table and pick up the towel.
So what did Mama Funmi say in the washroom?
She finished scrubbing her basin, sat back on her heels and looked at Ekaette for a long moment. “My dear,” she said, “I am a professor. I know it. God gave it to me, and I thank Him for it every day. That is exactly why I can hold this brush. If I believed I was nothing, I would spend my Saturdays trying to prove I was something. If I believed I was everything, I would never pick up a brush at all.”
Then she said the sentence Ekaette told me she has never forgotten. “When you say you are nobody, you think you are bowing to God. But you are actually arguing with Him. He made you an accountant. He gave this church a problem with money. And He put you in the front row.”
Ekaette went home and did not sleep well. On the Monday she phoned the pastor and told him she would chair the committee. She asked him to pray that she would do it with diligence and without vainglory.
At the first meeting she arrived early and set out the chairs. Then she sat at the head of the table, opened her laptop and explained, clearly and confidently, what had gone wrong with the accounts and how the committee was going to fix it. When one of the older members thanked her afterwards, she opened her mouth to say, “It is nothing,” and then stopped. “Thank you,” she said. “I am glad God has given me something to give.”
She still cleans the church toilets on Saturdays. She and Mama Funmi have a rota now.
If you have mistaken self-contempt for humility, hear the voice of the One who washed His disciples’ feet. He knew who He was, and He knelt. You can know who you are in Him, receive with gratitude what He has given you, and kneel too. Lay down the false modesty. Pick up the towel, and pick up the gift as well.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Which counterfeit of humility are you more prone to: pride that inflates the self, or self-contempt that deflates it? How does each show up in your life?
- What does it mean to you that Jesus washed the disciples’ feet knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands?
- Paul tells us to think “soberly” about ourselves. What would an accurate, grateful estimate of your own gifts sound like?
- Is there an opportunity or responsibility you have refused because you felt inadequate? Was that humility, or something else?
- Where do you most need to “tie on the apron” this week: in unseen service, in receiving a compliment, in celebrating someone else, or in using a gift you have been hiding?
This Week
Read John 13:3-17 at the beginning of the week and Romans 12:3-8 in the middle of it. Then do two things. First, write down three gifts or abilities God has given you, and beside each one write a sentence of thanks to Him. Second, find one piece of unseen, unglamorous service to do this week, such as cleaning, setting up, visiting or helping someone with a practical task, and do it without telling anyone. When someone compliments you this week, practise saying only, “Thank you,” and then thank God quietly in your heart.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, You knew that the Father had given all things into Your hands, and You knelt and washed Your disciples’ feet. Teach me that kind of humility. Deliver me from pride that wants to be above others, and from false modesty that hides what You have given me. Help me to think of myself soberly, to receive Your gifts with gratitude, and to use them freely for the good of Your people. Where my sense of worth has been crushed, heal me with the truth of who I am in You. Clothe me with humility, and let me find joy in serving. I leave my honour in the Father’s hands. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.