Pride...Is it ever ok to be Proud?

Have you ever been told 'You should be proud of yourself', or to 'take pride in your appearance', or heard someone say that a person 'should be more house-proud'?

We take the usage of the word 'proud' in these situations to mean something good, and that it’s right to be 'proud' in some situations. There is even a movie called 'Proud' where the concept is upheld as a character trait to be aspired to.

I was astonished when a devotional email message was sent to me a short while back saying that ‘pride is not necessarily a bad thing…a certain amount of pride in God-given talent and ability is needed. It’s a needed component of self-esteem and confidence for balanced mental health’…it did go on thankfully to also say that ‘pride can become the most serious sin…without tempering influences of large doses of humility, pride tends to become arrogant’.

Then I also recently read an article about grandchildren being the ‘crown’ of the elderly, that this ‘must first and obviously refer to pride’ and that ‘we know that grandparents are proud of their grandchildren, and that’s right and good’.  However, I was encouraged by the clarification of this endorsement of ‘pride’ by saying ‘But it’s not the kind of pride that says, “Look at my accomplishment. Look what I’ve done.” It’s the kind of pride that says, “Look at God’s accomplishment! Look what God has done!”’ 

But then is that actually ‘pride’?

So there seems to be some confusion and tension on the issue of pride. 

On the one hand we feel like there are times we should have it so want to excuse it or justify it, but we also know  Scripture says God 'opposes the proud' (James 4:6).

How do we reconcile these two opposing uses of the word?

What is this word 'proud’?

The Word ‘Pride/Proud'
Our English Bible's word ‘pride/proud’ is a translation of the Greek word (used in the verse above - James 4:6) tranliterated as huperephanos.
               
                  At biblehub.com,  Thayers Greek Lexicon says it means to “despise others, to be haughty”.[1]


However, unlike our culture, there doesn't seem to be anywhere in Scripture which gives a positive slant to personal pride.  To justify our use of the word we might say there different kinds of pride, there is ‘pride’ (which is ok) and ‘arrogant pride’ (which is not ok). But God seems to say that all pride is unacceptable.

If we look at Jeremiah 9:23-24, it says not to boast in any personal wisdom, might or wealth, but only boast in God and what he does. Similarly, the Apostle Paul states, in addressing the deeply rooted pride issues in the Corinthian church[3],[4], that if he was to 'boast' in anything, it would be in Christ - not himself and his strength or ability. He also talks about boasting in his weaknesses, but this is not personal pride, because his weakness gives credit to Christ for any strength or accomplishment, and ‘boasting’ in what the world despises is not seen by the world as boasting but as humiliating foolishness… and we are called to be humble and fools for Christ (2 Corinthians 10:17,  11:16-30, 12:5,9). Personal pride is not spoken anywhere in Scripture of it being godly.

In fact, as we said earlier, Scripture says that God 'opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble' (James 4:6).  These words which also appear in 1 Peter 5:5 and are reflective of Proverbs 3:34 ’to the humble he gives favour’, are contrasting pride with humility and saying that honour and favour (grace) from God goes to the humble, not the proud.  A bit of humility here and there doesn’t excuse us having pride in other areas. No, pride is the enemy of humility not its companion. The proud are so far from a position of favour, that God actually opposes them.  The proud are on the losing side.

In Scripture, ‘pride' in anything or anyone except God, is sinful. Even pride in our skills and achievements is wrong, as we are not supposed to boast in those, when we should be directing our acclaim to the Giver of those things. (Deut 8:18)

In fact John Piper puts it as bluntly as ‘God hates human pride’ and goes onto list several passages in Scripture as his reasons:

• Proverbs 6:16–17 says, "There are six things which the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him . . . " and the first one mentioned is "haughty eyes."
• In Psalm 101:5 David speaks for God and says, "The man of haughty looks and arrogant heart I will not endure."
• Proverbs 16:5, "Every one who is arrogant is an abomination to the Lord."
• Isaiah 2:11, "The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the pride of men shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day."
• Jeremiah 50:31, "Behold, I am against you, O proud one, says the Lord God of hosts; for your day has come, the time when I will punish you."
• Jesus said in Luke 16:15, "What is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God."
• And in Acts 12:23 it says that an angel of the Lord struck Herod so that he was eaten with worms and died because when he received applause from the people, he did not give God the glory but took it for himself.[5]

Right now you might be saying: “But, but but.... What about congratulating a child on a job well done? How do we encourage someone to endeavour to keep their house neat and clean?  How do we describe the feeling a parent has when their child does well on the sports field or in an exam?” Surely there really are some contexts where being ‘proud’ is ok?

I wonder if the problem we have here is that, without realising it, as Christians we have unconsciously adopted the ways of the world around us, in how we express ourselves.  Like any culture, we can make too many assumptions that the way we do things must be right, instead of asking ‘Does God say it is right?'.

I don't accusingly point the finger, because I have also used this terminology with no thought at all, and I still find it all too easy to slip back to this terminology which in use all around me. It almost feels ‘strange’ to use other terminology. It certainly feels counter-cultural!


Is There A More Godly Way?  …find out in Part 2 of this blog post.

[1] Accessed 26 August 2016 http://biblehub.com/greek/5244.htm

[3] Piper John, Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord, message on 1 Cor 1:31, http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/let-him-who-boasts-boast-in-the-lord accessed 31 August 2016.  In it Piper points out that it was pride that was the root problem in the Corinthian church and gives 13 references to elucidate this: 1 Cor 1:29, 1:31, 3:7, 3:21, 4:6, 4:18, 5:2, 8:1, 13:4, and 2 Cor 1:9, 3:5, 4:7, 12:9)

[4] Keller, Timothy, The Freedom of Self-forgetfulness, 10Publishing, p8

[5] Piper John, Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord, message on 1 Cor 1:31, http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/let-him-who-boasts-boast-in-the-lord accessed 31 August 2016.