Can humility be false?
By Elizabeth Prata
Colossians 2:18a “Take care that no one keeps defrauding you of your prize by delighting in humility and the worship of angels”
Take that phrase, ‘delight in humility’? How do we ‘delight in humility’? It’s an attribute, it is part of our personality (hopefully). If we focus on it enough to be delighting in it, doesn’t that contradict what humility is? Rendering it moot?
Yes.
Other translations besides the NASB which I use, is KJV- “voluntary humility” or NKJV which says- “false humility”. The idea is, that the humility Paul warns about isn’t a genuine attribute in the person, but a false display. A performance.
It means “to indulge himself in a humility of his own imposing” says Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
False teachers love to tell you about their allegedly holy attributes. But doesn’t telling you about their humility contradict what humility is? Rendering it moot?
Yes.
This is where I warn us all again, don’t assess a teacher solely by what she says. Watch what she does. And vice versa. Both must match up- what they say and what they do.
Others who are more subtle don’t outright tell you that they are humble, but perform it. How?
“The meaning is, that they would not announce their opinions with dogmatic certainty, but they would put on the appearance of great modesty. In this way, they would become really more dangerous – for no false teachers are so dangerous as those who assume the aspect of great humility, and who manifest great reverence for divine things. ]They] had pleasure in attempting, to search into the hidden and abstruse things of religion. They were desirous of appearing to do this with an humble spirit – even with the modesty of an angel – but still they had pleasure in that profound and dangerous kind of inquiry.” ~Barnes’ Notes on Colossians 2:18.
Matthew Henry explains one method the false ones use to display their false humility, Colossians 2:18,
“v. 18. It looked like a piece of modesty to make use of the mediation of angels, as conscious to ourselves of our unworthiness to speak immediately to God; but, though it has a show of humility, it is a voluntary, not a commanded humility; and therefore it is not acceptable, yea, it is not warrantable: it is taking that honour which is due to Christ only and giving it to a creature.“
What they are really saying is, “I am smarter than God. He commanded us to come boldly to the throne. But instead, I will go poorly thru an angel, saint, or Virgin Mary…” It is outright disobedience, but couched in humble terms that are not genuine. Don’t be fooled. Be vigilant. If someone keeps telling you how humble they are, it’s a first clue. If someone says ‘we can’t know the Bible for sure, let’s not be arrogant in interpreting it’ it’s a clue.
More on this idea of false humility in subsequent blogs.
