on the issue of pride

here is how I spell it:

pr-I-de

what about it?

The reason I do this is to show what lies at the center of pride – I – I do, me, the self.  When we are full of pride we are full of ourselves.  I agree with C.S. Lewis that pride is the chief sin of man or as he calls it “the Great Sin” (see ch 8 in Mere Christianity).  Pride is all about us and our own agendas (at least I think that is the heart of it) – when we are prideful it is nearly impossible to live the Christian life in any reasonable sense.  Why? Because Christ calls us to die to self and one’s own agends and purposes.  We can’t be prideful and follow Jesus Christ too.   He told his disciples in Luke 9:23-25:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.   For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.  What good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self?” (TNIV)

Seems to me this is pretty hard to do if we are prideful.  To follow Christ is to deny the pride, humble ourselves and go after him.  Now does this mean we are to deny ourselves to the point we don’t care for ourselves.  No, of course not.  What it is saying is that we are to live God centered lives and live in faithful obedience to his will and purpose for our lives – I think we tend to complicate this verse and its meaning when we don’t need to – its pretty simple really – swallow the pride, follow Jesus. 

Any questions?

 

Biblical Studies Carnival XXXIX

The XXXIXth Biblical Studies Carnival i up and running over at Darrell Pursiful’s blog Dr. Platypus.

The post offers some the advice of Elmore Leonard, who said,

“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.”

Yes, but how do you do that?