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What the Bible says about Esteem Others Better than Ourselves
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Psalm 139:23-24

We have to ask God to do the same thing in our lives, especially during the time before Passover. Human nature is blind to problems in our character, so we have to ask God to show us the things that we cannot see. A main characteristic of a converted person is willingness to admit when wrong and then to repent. If we justify our faults, we may as well not bother to look for them. If we do, we will be the person who looked in the mirror, saw their faults, and then walked away doing nothing about them (James 1:23-24).

We can see many of our own faults by observing the mistakes of others, if we do not have a superior and critical attitude toward them. We have to be humble and esteem others better than ourselves before we are able to learn from their mistakes. It is a matter of being teachable.

Martin G. Collins
The Law's Purpose and Intent

James 3:13-18

One way to begin taming our tongues is to speak in meekness. Meekness is not weakness. It is knowing at all times where we stand with God, fully realizing who He is and the nature of His power in contrast to ourselves, His creation. Joshua cried out in confidence for the army of Israel to go forward; His confidence was not in himself or his leadership but totally in his awareness of God's purpose in his life, God's law to live by, and God's sovereignty over him. He was, after all, clay in the Potter's hands. If we keep this in mind, we will never have cause to feel better, more righteous, more successful, or more honorable than another.

Meekness is the ability to esteem others better than ourselves and to allow God to use us as He wills. II Timothy 2:20 shows us that God will honor whom He will. To seek honor for ourselves or to feel worthy of honor is a dead end, and it will taint how we communicate to others. We will naturally look down on them, disrespect them, overlook them, and criticize them.

Test: If we have experienced dishonor, perhaps we need to look closely to see where we have dishonored others. We all stand guilty as charged.

Staff
Are You Sharp-Tongued? (Part Two)

1 Peter 3:8

In I Peter 3:8, the apostle uses only seven Greek words, whereas the King James employs nineteen to get the meaning across. At the risk of boring the reader, we will look at I Peter 3:8 in the Greek, as if it were in an interlinear Bible: Telos pas homophron sumpathes philadelphos eusplagchnos philophron. Here it is, word by word, with English equivalents and a note or two:

Telos (finally, in the end, to sum up)

pas (individually and all, each and every one of you, collectively)

homophron (of one mind, in accord with one another; used in the New Testament only this once)

sumpathes (suffering or feeling the same with one another; used only this once)

philadelphos (love as brethren, brothers and sisters, countrymen; used only this once)

eusplagchnos (compassionate, tender-hearted; used just twice)

and finally, philophron (friendly, kind, courteous; used only this once).

The apostle Peter is here summarizing his instructions from the previous 20 verses, going back to I Peter 2:17. That passage deals with relationships: how to get along with brethren, mates, and the world at large.

We could paraphrase I Peter 3:8 like this, which sounds a great deal like The Amplified Bible: “In summation, each and every one of you, individually and collectively, have compassion, sympathy, even empathy for one another, loving everyone as if they were your family; be compassionate and courteous.”

The only way to do what Peter recommends is to consider others more important than ourselves. This can be quite hard to do in this competitive world we live in. We have to win in everything. We have to be in the fastest line at the bank or store. We have to ensure no one breaks in line ahead of us. We have to close up on the car ahead and not leave a gap to allow another car to cut in.

If we fail to do these things, what happens? We are life's losers, right? Of course not. There is no pain in living a courteous life. It does not cost us a thing to tell someone, “No, you go first.”

Why has our society coarsened? Is it because our schools for decades now have emphasized how “special” we all are? We have many adults now who cannot read or write very well and who know little history or math, but they feel really good about themselves! They have high self-esteem. Anything that comes their way is deserved or owed to them because we have taught them that.

Or are we less polite because, as a people, we drift further from God every day?

Mike Ford
Courtesy


 




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