Wear Humility
I think for the most part everyone agrees humility is a virtue. The problem is understanding what humility looks like in practice.
While it isn’t intended to be an exhaustive description of humility, this passage in 1st Peter gives us something to work with. Peter ties humility to submission. He talks a lot about submission in this letter. Earlier he wrote about citizens submitting to their civil rulers, servants to their masters, and wives to their husbands. Here he asks the youth to submit to their elders.
Peter doesn’t leave anyone out. No one gets a pass on submission. “Yes, all of you be submissive to one another.”
In all of this, submission is an act of humility.
To be submissive is to be clothed in humility.
The New Testament always looks at Christian humility as an act of the will more than a personality predisposition. We are regularly being told to “humble ourselves.” Humility isn’t in this way a trait as much as it is a choice.
Going further, we see that these acts of humble submission to other people are ultimately acts of humility before God Himself. When we humbly submit to others we are humbling ourselves “under the mighty hand of God.” This is not to suggest we put people in the place of God. Rather it reminds us that often times God works through people (our government, employers, husbands, elders, and fellow Christians) to help us learn humble submission to Him.
To be clear, Peter is not endorsing blind submission either. He is not suggesting compromise and cowardice in the face of evil. Resistance to evil is not off the table here. But in the normal course of life most things we are asked to submit to do not involve questions of great moral significance. They merely challenge our pride and call us to learn to chose humble submission.
But don’t overlook the great promise attached to humility before God. “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” God will pour out grace on the humble. What does that mean? It seems to be the opposite of the warning that He resists the proud. God holds the proud at arms length. So, he draws the humble close to Himself.
Not only are the humble drawn close; they are exalted in due time.
Be humble.
Receive grace.
Be lifted up in due time.
