Check out the various words translated into the common English word, ‘pride’ on BlueLetterBible.com
When we don’t really know what pride is at its roots, we may misattribute its fruit as symptoms of another issue. We’re moving past the puffed up and into the more unexpected sides of pride.
QUESTIONS WE TOUCH ON IN THIS EPISODE:
VERSES FROM PRIDE’S MANY SIDES
Proverbs 29:23, Proverbs 16:11, Proverbs 11:2, Psalms 47:24, Exodus 15:7, Job 37:4, Isaiah 2:10, Isaiah 14, 2 Chronicles, 26:16, Daniel 5:20, Psalm 51:17.
QUOTES FROM PRIDE’S MANY SIDES
“It’s so important to have that accurate understanding of who God says you are. Anything that deviates from that is pride.”
Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, S02E05,Pride’s Many Sides.
“But when I humble my spirit, I kneel down before the father, in every aspect of my life, his name is in my thoughts or on my tongue. He becomes everything in my world because I don’t want the other things to creep in because they’re destructive. They bring disgrace and they bring us low. So if there’s anything I could tell anyone out there right now to not let pride take over your life and consume you, give it to God because he can clean your heart.”
Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, S02E05,Pride’s Many Sides.
Transcript
Shea: Hi, we are back. Yes.
Shea: We’re talking about pride on many sides. There are many sides to pride. I’m going to start with three verses tonight because I think it’s really important to dial these in a little bit and get us to, you know, get us to a starting point in Proverbs 11:2. It says when pride comes then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom, Proverbs 16:11 says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall Proverbs 29:23. One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.
Michelle: Yeah. I notice a pattern. When you look at all of these, it reinforces that pride brings disgrace, destruction and just general lowness. But the humility that he calls us to brings wisdom and honor, and many other promises throughout the Bible where he just straight up encourages us to focus on him. But when you read pride, what is pride? How does it manifest in all of these different ways? What pride is hubris, right? And the pride in the Bible is when you’re preferring self-will over God’s will isn’t that our most natural state you can wake up in the morning. And that is your default. Your default is to think about what you’re feeling, what your status is, what you want to do, what you need to do, what you don’t want to do, what you like, what you don’t like, and all of it, you’re at the center. And you don’t want to admit it because it’s terrible to admit it.
Michelle: You know, it’s all about you, right? And it’s so easy to fall into that. And it’s easy also for the enemy to just use it, to beat you over the head and knock you down, discourage you. That’s not the point of this episode, right? This is a pantry staple episode because of how big an issue it is, how many different ways we still make it about self and that shouldn’t discourage us. It should get us excited. Cause some of those are really easy to fix, which will instantly bring us more wisdom or honor, right? More help, more blessing, more ability to help others. But then also when you know about something, you can submit it to the Lord. So it’s important to understand what pride means
Shea: And you know what it’s okay. That’s the point, it’s okay. Because even though I know I will fail, I will fail. There’s so many ways we’re going to fail and I know I’m going to fail in pride, but I also know who the healer is. Amen. I also know who I’m grounded in and I know who’s going to adjust me. It’s amazing. When we were looking at this from a study perspective, the basicness of the English language, right? It’s amazing how pride in Hebrew and in Greek have multiple different words with different descriptions. And what is the English language? Do we lump it all together? We call it pride. So I would encourage people to go out. Right? And when you study, take it to the Greek, take it to the Hebrew. It’s really important to understand what was really being said.
Shea:Cause sometimes in translation, okay, you go to Latin and then you come back to English and it’s just like, it’s all over the place. But like some of the things pride, good pride, glory, righteousness, et cetera. You know, there’s, there’s a lot there. I’m not going to list them out. They will be in our show notes so that everybody can look at these while other times pride is actually arrogance, presumptuousness, lack of humility. So when you study these really dig deep into the translation so that you understand what we’re reading. There’s some positive ones though. Not very many. The Bible has a very few positive demonstrations of pride, but I want to label some of them out. So you’d understand what I’m saying when I say, yeah, there’s good pride. The pride of the land of Israel, which is in Psalms 47:24, Exodus 15:7, Job 37:4, Isaiah 2:10. It’s kind of cool to know that when we’re talking about good pride, we’re talking about God, right? So I know where I need to be.
Michelle: Yeah. It’s important to go there just because when you’re reading the Bible and then when you’re just using our English language, it’s easy to start wondering, wait, should I be proud of my child? Should I be proud of X, Y, Z, because that’s pride. Right? And pride is a sin. It’s important to always take it back to what Shay said. Is it all about God and his glory? Is it representing him well? Or is it about self? And when I was looking into things researching, I found this amazing quote by Dennis Ken law. And it says Satan disguises submission to himself under the ruse of personal autonomy. He never asks us to become his servants. Never wants the serpent to say to Eve, I want to be your master. The shift in commitment is never from Christ to evil. It is always from Christ to self.
Michelle: And instead of his will self interest now rules and what you want reigns. And that is the essence of sin. We always think that there’s this vibe from mastership, there’s this battle. And there is. But whereas God is very transparent saying I am the Lord of Lords. I am the King of Kings and it is the wisest thing you can do to come under me. And my authority, the devil as usual comes in this underhanded way because he knows if you’re not for the Lord, you’re for him. So it’s actually an amazing business model because it’s incredibly efficient. It requires the least effort on his part. It requires the least individualized attention and time to just put you completely focused on yourself and walk away. Cause then now effort can be focused on the next person. The next it’s just this it’s natural for us to focus on ourselves, but he sends it into overdrive by reinforcing it and making it a part of ingrained society, ingrained culture, even in collectivist cultures. It’s about the group. Aside from God, it’s about the group of humans or the individual human, not about what God wants for that group.
Shea: It is kind of amazing how he works. It’s amazing how he took his own sin pride and tried to transfer that over onto Eve. I like what can loss that as well? He never went to her and said, worship me. He went and offered her God’s knowledge, eat this fruit. And that’s something that he did from the very beginning. In Isaiah 14, we find a fascinating portrait of the first casually of pride. That’s how the devil became the devil. God didn’t create a devil. God created Lucifer, this dazzling beautiful angel, highest of the chairman leader of the heavenly choir and the most intelligent and powerful of all created beings. But see Lucifer now the devil through his own means was prideful. And he mirrored that onto Eve. Do you want this knowledge? And she bit literally. And uh, here we are living in that beginning of pride.
Michelle: Our goal for this episode is not just to point out things like, you know, you’re wearing expensive trendy clothes thinking you’re better. You’re craving power. You’ve got pride, right? I think those are the types of things. We all associate with pride and most believers consciously battle and try not to fall into it’s safe to say that those are the ones that are most commonly linked to the word pride, but pride can manifest in any aspect of our lives and you might not even realize it. And that’s what we’re hoping to do. Become more aware when we’re making it about us taking God out. If you’re not defining it as making it about you, you’re like no I’m making about someone else, but is God at the center of your focus on someone else?
Shea: Our favorite term that is Christ centric
Michelle: Christ centric, right? You know, the seven deadly sins, the other six, aside from pride, they’re all sub categories, pride almost as interchangeable with sin. That’s self-driven, presumptuous, haughty. It’s puffed up it’s any time you think, you know, better in the Bible, you might think the Kings, the Pharisees, because you know, they were image conscious self centered, but there are a lot of things that we think happen when we lack pride, but they’re actually manifestations of pride themselves. So it’s not just the puffed up person. It’s the person with the negative self image when you’re feeling overwhelmed. But you’re unwilling to ask for help when you’re believing that you don’t deserve good things. The Lord has said you will provide it’s about your worth, right? When you’re letting your actions define who you are, Enneagram type three, right? What I’m good at was how I defined myself and how I proved my worth in a situation.
Michelle: I didn’t think I was good enough on my own. I had to provide something, but in Christ, all of that has the potential to really change the person who thinks they’re better than everybody doesn’t care. What others think about them. And the one who obsesses over what others think they’re both guilty of pride. And that’s what we mean by the many sides of pride. Because sometimes people don’t see that the low self esteem and the grandiose self esteem they’re on the same pride hole. And so self esteem needs to be completely reliant on Christ’s esteem of you.
Shea: I’ve always liked all the verses. I am Holy because he is Holy. I’m taking care of that. I am worthy because he is worthy. And it’s because of who he created us to be. It always goes back to our identity in Christ. And I really like what you’re saying, the idea that, you know, we always think of the, the big puffed up chest. Cause you know, my examples of pride, join the army, be all. You can be, be the best that you can be, drive, strive and go forward. And we have rules, you know, that we’re supposed to follow, but I mean, it really does instill this mind frame that you could get into the ring with a 700 pound gorilla and you could take him. I got it. God tries to off you. You just take water from him, but you won’t tag him and bring him in.
Shea: And my life was like that. It was like, I got this, I can handle it. And I’ve got, this, took me down to rock bottom. Right? But see that’s where I needed to be at rock bottom. I needed to understand that it wasn’t me. I needed to understand that he was the one who designed me. He is the one who cleansed me. He is the one who is forming me in his image because that is when you start to realize, you got to put that self aside. Now watch this. I know all of this. I know all of this. I’ve been to rock bottom. And yet I see it. And it’s something that’s instilled in, ingrained in us. And we need to capture that thought when it comes and we need to put Jesus onto it and say, Hey Jesus, look, I recognize this and I need to, I need to work on it.
Michelle: It’s so important to have that accurate understanding of who God says you are. Anything that deviates from that is pride. The original reason why I wanted to even have this episode was because I saw people struggling with self esteem issues on the narcissistic side where they’re hyperfocused on their shortcomings. And it’s defeating them. Even though they’re in Christ, they’re scared of rejection. They can’t cope well with correction, feel so low in who they are. It’s also a pride issue because if you mislabel the kind of issue it is, you’re liable to start tackling the problem in the wrong way. Submit things to God. That might not be what he’s waiting on you to submit to him, to fix this specific problem. It might speak something else. But if you think the problems over there and that’s why you feel so low, then fix that problem.
Michelle: Go ahead. It’s not going to fix how you feel about yourself. It’s not just the big lion with the fancy Maine that has a pride problem. So you have to be aware of what the actual problem is. And for most of our problems, it’s just us not identifying with who Christ said and what he has to say about us is good enough. Doesn’t sound like a good enough way to say it, but it’s good enough. You don’t need anything else. Aside from what he has said, you are to feel complete. It’s just very tempting to compensate in who we are
Shea: And my heartbreaks. I’m just going to be real right now because I think this podcast can reach more than just the believer in the world. My identity was defined by the world. If I failed, I was a failure. If I was an addict or I did drugs and then I wanted to get out of it, I’m labeled an addict, but in Christ, we are a new creation. The old has been put away. I remember when I first came to church, I would tell people, you know, I’m a recovering addict. And I changed that though, because he changed me. I’m no longer a recovering addict. I’ve been completely healed. And so that is the advantage we have. And my heart breaks for people who don’t have that voice. And so that leads us to the devices, right? It leaves us with examples in the Bible where pride led to Oseas downfall in 2 Chronicles, 26:16, it hardened the heart of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 5:20.
Shea: It goes before destruction and Proverbs 16:18. It does not seek God. Psalms 10:4 . It brings disgrace, Proverbs 11:2. It breeds quarrels, Proverbs 13:10, it deceives Jeremiah 49:16. I like that. It deceives. It makes you believe. You’re something that you’re not, and God can rely on that by the way, I’ll just, just stick there. It brings us low Proverbs 29, 23, it humbles Isaiah 2:17 and Daniel 4:37. If we listen to God, if we humble ourselves and we become selfless, we can conquer pride. We can have victory over pride. I’m really thinking here, just being honest with everybody out there, because I know I experienced this and I know what an impact it has in our everyday lives. When we’re either on the puffed up lion side or the lowly side of pride, it really drives our day. And it drives us in a direction that takes us away from the best place to be. And that is in God’s graces.
Michelle: You can call your can opener a paperclip or a hammer, but when you try to use it for anything other than what it is, you’re going to find yourself in some weird trouble. And that’s why it’s important to know who we are in Christ.
Shea: That is nice. And I think I’m going to leave on one verse, Psalm 51:17, the sacrifices God desires are a humble spirit. Oh God, a humble and repentant heart. You will not be rejected. He never ever rejects this. But when I humble my spirit, I kneel down before the father, in every aspect of my life, his name is in my thoughts or on my tongue. He becomes everything in my world because I don’t want the other things to creep in because they’re destructive. They bring disgrace and they bring us low. So if there’s anything I could tell anyone out there right now to not let pride take over your life and consume you, give it to God because he can clean your heart. Amen.
Michelle: Amen. This has been an awesome episode. So we want to hear from you send us your prayer requests. Let us know what you think about the episode. And I will always remember to share, comment, subscribe, go to the pantrypodcast.com and the Facebook page and Instagram. I keep forgetting the pantry podcast to just connect with us, connect with others and get a little more out of each episode until next time. Bye.
KEYWORDS: PRIDE, BE HUMBLE, HUMBLED, GOD.