Humility

The last of this particular set of backed up assignments.  There may be hope for normal backed-up-ness by Friday!
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The apostle Paul gives us a good definition for humility when he tells the Philippians to "regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others " (2:3-4).  He then goes on to quote an early Christian poem about how Jesus emptied himself of the rights and privileges of divinity and instead took on the status of a servant (2:6-7).  Even then in human form he humbled himself even further to one of the most shameful kinds of death: crucifixion (2:8). 

Paul's example of Jesus, as well as his own example, point to humility more as a way of living and behaving rather than of self-esteem.  Humility for Paul thus means to put the needs of others above those of yourself.  It is "not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned" (Rom. 12:3).  Christian humility is thus not self-effacement, for we as humans are created in the image of God, both female and male (Gen. 1:27).  God made humanity a little lower than God (Ps. 2:5) and to denigrate each other is to insult God who made us (e.g. Jas. 3:9).

At the same time, humility is also an attitude, of which arrogance is the opposite.  An arrogant person is one who does not realize that everything they have is a gift from the Lord, that that we entered this world naked and will exit it the same (Job 1:21).  Dust we are, and to dust we shall return (Eccl. 3:20).  The humble recognize who they are before God (cf. Isa. 6) and rejoice in the greatness of his love.