The Greatest Virtue

Humility promotes an environment conducive to fulfilling God’s purpose for every person to represent him in interactions with others. It manifests as an invitation, by action or words, and conveys a promise to be respectful of others, polite, attentive, responsive, peaceful, and truthful in human interactions. The invitation offers promise of goodness; promise of care and diligence; promise of appreciation; and promise of obedience—overall, essentially a promise to be available and willing to provide service to benefit others, accept and appreciate service provided by others, and submit to and respect others’ authority. We discuss humility from Christ teaching and an example from David waiting seven years to be made king by due process after the death of the preceding king.

David was anointed to be king of Israel and was expected to become king at the end of Saul’s reign. However, after Saul died, David waited additional seven years to become king of Israel. He did not announce himself king or seek in any way to coerce the people into making him king. Instead, in his humility he waited to be made king by the people according to due process. In this study, we discuss the humility of David in the context of a general understanding of humility based on Christ teaching. We focus on Christ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount; interactions with his disciples, when he explained humility as the greatest virtue; and interactions with guests at a dinner party, when he explained the humble will be exalted.

Humility in the Sermon on the Mount

Humility is important in Following God’s Schedule. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ describes humility as one of the guiding principles of Living in the Image of God (see Following God Schedule by Living in His Image). He describes humility toward God and toward other people. Humility is important to committing to the responsibility of representing God in human interactions: by seeking and following his directions [Blessed are the poor in spirit] through repentance of sin [Blessed are those who mourn] and humility [Blessed are the meek].

This study focuses on humility in human interactions, which manifests as an invitation and conveys a promise to be respectful of others, polite, attentive, responsive, peaceful, and truthful in interactions with others. The invitation is conveyed through action and words and is essentially a promise to be available and willing to provide service to benefit others, accept and appreciate service provided by others, and submit to and respect others’ authority. Furthermore, the invitation offers promise of goodness; promise of care and diligence; promise of appreciation; and promise of obedience.

Promise of Care and Diligence conveys a message that the person can be relied upon to recognize when he/she is in position to provide for a need, recognize the need, care for the needy, seek diligently to alleviate the need, and will persevere through.

Promise of Appreciation conveys a message that a potential receiver of human service will appreciate the service and will do his/her part as needed. Promise of appreciation motivates care and diligence.

Promise of Obedience is important when a person interacts with higher authority, such as proposing a choice to the authority or requesting service controlled by the authority. Through promise of obedience, a person conveys a message of willingness to submit and accept the decision of the authority, even if unfavorable. Promise of obedience motivates a promise of care and diligence from the authority.

As we discuss in a previous study under Value of Humility, humility promotes an environment conducive to fulfilling God’s purpose for every person to represent him in interactions with others. The interactions often occur as part of a network of mutual provider-receiver relationships, whereby every person is potentially a provider of service to benefit others and receiver of service provided by others. Humility conveys a promise to recognize and appreciate others as potential providers of human service and offer self to do likewise. Humility conveys a recognition that another person better than I can be found. As Paul said in his letter to Philippians 2:3, “…in humility value others above yourselves.” Therefore, humility conveys Godliness and motivates others to do likewise. God creates every person to be humble, expects and rewards humility, but punishes haughtiness.

Continue reading “Humility in Human Interactions” →