What Greeks Hate
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:3-5 NASB
Humility of mind – Even this translation indicates how much we as Westerners hate the idea of tapeinos. The Greek text does not include “of mind.” That has been added by the translators. One must ask why. What is the difference between tapeinos as “humility” and tapeinos as “humility of mind”? Obviously, the second does not require outward physical demonstration. All I have to do is think of myself as less than another. I am not required to actually demonstrate subservience. This tiny change is perhaps the result of a very long Western hatred of self-abasement, as we shall see.
The Greeks used tapeinos in usually negative fashion. For them it meant weakness, poverty of character, insignificance. The Greeks prized personal liberty. Tapeinos was exactly the opposite, a word that described someone who was servile, hindered in becoming truly free and virtuous, someone who was oppressed and humiliated. These conditions were intolerable to the Greeks and so tapeinos was never a state they would deliberately seek.
The LXX, however, uses tapeinos is a very different way. While it translated several Hebrew terms, tapeinos generally describes the action, not the state, of humbling oneself before a superior or before God. It is not about denigrating character. It is a decision to show respect, to bow down, to demonstrate a humble attitude of heart. In Hebrew thought, tapeinos is something I do, not something I am. In fact, showing humility is a positive expression of character. Of course, this is not just a cognitive event. It has real physical consequences. In Greek I might be humble in mind, but in Hebrew I will have to bend my knee.
In the end it comes down to ego. In a Greek world, ego reduction is considered a sign of weakness. “Stand up and fight for yourself” is the Greek idea of character building. Deliberately placing yourself in a subservient position only means you are a coward, a weakling, unworthy. No self-respecting person would even allow someone else to walk all over him and anyone who does is considered undeserving of honor. In the Greek world, ego reigns supreme. Of course, Christians have been taught that humility is a good thing. We inherited the Hebrew way of viewing this word. But Christian teaching doesn’t always result in transformed lives, especially when we live in a culture that prizes ego boasting and debases weakness. We find it difficult, uncomfortable and perhaps demeaning to lower ourselves in front of others. Our egos rebel. We want to be recognized as important, not as weaklings. The Greek world that surrounds us often overcomes our religious education. People rarely win ego battles. When Paul used tapeinos, he basically insulted every Greek reader. I wonder if we feel the same barb.
Topical Index: tapeinos, humility, ego, Philippians 2:3-5
As a woman recovering from emotional and physical abuse, I am concerned about how anyone being abused would read this message.
@Lynnet I understand where Skip is going with it and also then reading your comment defiantly can hear what you are saying. I’ll let Skip address yours because it’s out of my pay grade.
I can just only relate with I was once told, “Do good things and not search for praise”. Exp: I might do the dishes before my wife comes home and not boastfully mention, “I did the dishes aren’t you happy?!” That’s what I think of.
What I don’t understand though is I think someone can take a step further and become a door mat for someone and have that confused with humility. Or be a push over and have that confused with humility, or lastly lack confidence and have that confused with humility.
So my question is – what is ego and how does it not relate to the “or’s” I have listed above.
Hey Derek,
Obviously you have little experience w/abuse. in abuse one does NOT ‘take one step further’ and mistake being a doormat for humility. One shoved into the doormat position and TOLD it is humility.
In abuse one never mistakenly becomes a push over, thinking it is humility, one is pushed over and TOLD it is humility.
In abuse one is attacked over their confidence until they are robbed of it and then they are told they have to much pride to ever achieve humility.
In abuse everything is bassackwards, and humility has no place in the equation.
Just to be clear.
@bp wade correct, I’ve been blessed to be in non abusive relationships and surrounded by an abundance of love and support. Sincerely have been blessed in that department. All of it is why i said above my pay grade. Thanks for the clarification.
Please elaborate. Are you concerned that this might be taken as justification for such behavior, or are you concerned that it might lead to separation as a result of the behavior? Or something else?
As a woman who lived in the entire realm of abuse as well as six children for twenty three years I think I may be able to share.
Nothing about abuse is right! But, as I lived there, key word lived, my mindset was one of laying down my desires, one of allowing myself and what I wanted to be last. Did it help?
Often I could see myself holding onto a very fine fishing line and hanging over a cavern. Somehow Yaweh was so very gracious to my ability to believe that somehow He could change me, not my husband, although I constantly prayed for His grace to change him, my focus was being submissive and all I could be.
Through the years I learned some things. No man will ever be what I need, as far as fulfilling all my emotional and physical and mental needs. When I am needy there is only one and that is Yaweh and why we as women look to men to meet those needs has to be one a part of the mind control issues that are a part of abuse and the other is the mainstream Christian indoctrination we are taught as children.
Yes there are mind control issues in abuse and they are what keep people in the place of abuse. When we get away there ahs to be a whole cleansing and refilling that we don’t relate to the abuser. I had to leave and I had to let the word cleanse me, I had to quit relating everything back to what I had lived.
People talk about abuse but what I found was that the only advise or help anyone gave me was to focus in on, to have a mindset of how I was abused, how my children were abused and that carries a whole big giant guilt burden as well. When you live in that he’ll you take on survival mentalities, and when you remove yourself from it you have to take on the mentally of that was then and this is now. Allow Yaweh to heal you in his time and don’t allow thoughts of then to be your focus. It keeps you captive as if you never left.
Hope this helps. Stand strong in Him, your life can be a life of His reflection not your past, not your abuser, but Him. Many hours have been spent in study of who Yaweh is and His mighty deeds, He alone has been faithful.
Babs,
You gave no indications as to how long it has been since you left your situation, i’m thinking it wasn’t yesterday. 🙂
The thing that strikes me about the ‘move on’ theology is that it holds the person who has been wronged in the place of the greater responsibility at a time when they are most vulnerable. Kind of like kicking a dog that has been hit by a car, 3 broken legs, a concussion and massive internal injuries and telling it to get up and, basically, ‘heal thyself’.
With YHVH and a lot of prayer, of course.
There are so many things i track my life by….BEFORE i became a ward of the court, and after. BEFORE i placed my baby for adoption, and after. BEFORE i moved across country, and after. BEFORE i became a Marine, and after. BEFORE i met and married the man of my dreams, and after i discovered the person i married didn’t exist, it was a fabricated personality that didn’t hold up to the scrutiny of day to day exposure.
Like so many popular teachers these days.
BEFORE i made the choices to protect him in every way, and after he leveraged those choices to ensure that my future, my today, was void. Just. Void.
The one thing i have walked away with in this experience is the utmost respect for the woman with children who experience the same things that i have, yet they press forward, into their futures and creating lives for their children. I had spent my life prior to this experience helping women leave back situations, and vowed i’d never get into one.
So sincere was my commitment to marry by YHVH’s edict, his selection, that i waited 21 years, examining every aspect of my life and spirit for weaknesses to lay before him so he could cleanse me, make a righteous bride.
Life laughs sometimes. Imagine my surprise, My devastation, at being in this place myself.
The submission teaching, the “Godly Order” entrapment was so engrained in the religious environment that i was rooted in that my conversation, my pleas for support (emotional, prayerful) were met with the exasperated responses of “is it so hard just to repent for the things he points out to you?” and “We are not mandated to get involved in people’s personal lives” (and yet less then 6 months later, after considering the lucrativeness of the field, this ministry DID begin a marriage ministry).
People with strong support systems, with ANY support system tend to fare better then those that do not. In my case basically everyone i considered to be my church family responded to me by turning their backs on my and siding with my ex-husband (who, to date, has had no less then 6 restraining orders and has walked through probably 5 court cases, all explained by 1 word ‘persecution’. He is being persecuted for speaking the truth.)
Getting back to Skips post and the original response. One can only deliberately place themselves in a position of humility when it is a cognitive choice. One knows they are walking into the valley of disbelief and they choose to do so for the sake of their chosen beliefs. When one truly, with out guile and in a pure spirit choose their actions, humility prevails.
In an abuse situation someone is TOLD that their desperate gasping, their instinctive need to breathe, to live (because the focus of the abuser is to destroy) needs to be replaced by humble submission. Worse, in a mockery of Truth, the abused are told that their constant attempts at appeasement to the belly of the beast ARE acts of humility, and those abused are continually assaulted from within and without with the failure of the ability to achieve the appeasement they are so desperately attempting.
I’m not in that situation and i am simultaneously grateful and still devastated. I have never prayed against my accusers, have never sought revenge or retaliation for the wall of evil thrown at me.
Scripture says 2 things that i’m waiting on; 1) We will be known then as we are known now, and 2) ALL will be revealed.
My fervent prayer is those that do evil, especially those that do evil in marital abuse situations AS WELL AS those that stood against the abused, in self righteous displays of spiritual acumen, no realizing their display of total lack of godly discernment, will acknowledge their error and come to repentance.
No one seems to ever do a teaching on repentance and the steps and Scriptural expectations of the one who sows evil, consciously, into someone else’s life.
end rant.
PS: for the sake of Truth and transparency i have to add that while i have never prayed evil, revenge or retaliation into anyone’s life i WILL cop to sending hateful emails.
Because it seems that’s the ONLY option i had that didn’t hurt anyone. and please, don’t everyone respond with the ‘you are only hurting yourself’ stuff.
I taught that. I don’t care about it anymore.
I never had the luxury of being able to lash out because of the immaturity and lack of ability to use computers, believe it or not in this day and age. One difference was mine was unknown and remained that way for twenty years. During that time not only did I become so overwhelmed with the lies I lived and believed there were times I just knew I was the one who was wrong.
Although I’m not able to see the repayment for the things me and my children lived I rest assured that for once I am safe, emotionally and physically and definitely spiritually. I wanted to kill him and I grew to a place of total hatred suicide was another alternative that reared its ugly head often and to take my children with me. Oh my the he’ll and yet he chooses to live there, and I can’t control or manipulate his choices so although it seems now as it was easy to walk away it was the hardest thing besides allowing my own heart to heal. Am I there? Mostly but it only has come from choice for what I allow in my thoughts and feelings. It has been thirteen years and it is good now.
I would love to help and share with others but haven’t known how to step out and do so without uncovering my children and wounding them in order to do so.
By the way thank you for transparency and being real. Isn’t that what true humility is? Although I don’t know the original words or definition walking out real sure seems humble to me.
Blessings to you as you journey on! 🙂
Doing this on such a public forum (read there are NOT blocks to anyon seeing it) gives me a knot in my stomach. But so far, there’s been no other options to even try to weed through it.
and thanks for the affirmation.
I have only honor for you in your choices to NOT uncover your children. There were children involved for myself as well, not mine, his, and many of my choices were based on how i believed they would be affected.
I even sought legal advice as to what steps to take in regards to their safety, but the situation was thoroughly saturated w/insanity that i was advised to say nothing, that the children and their mother were capable of taking whatever steps necessary to protect themselves. Eventually they did so, although it took 2 attempts.
I was very secure in the choices i made while i was married, i was old enough and had been meticulously schooled in separation and appropriate response so i KNEW, even tho my now ex and all his support basically villified me for behaving inappropriately, i KNEW that i did no dishonor him or act out in his direction.
To this day, five years later, my reputation is destroyed and his conversation is one of my walking in error and refusing to repent or submit to ‘godly order’. It is nuts, how many people, how many WOMEN support him.
They have no idea.
It’s very difficult moving forward and offering an assist when honor is the pivot point you move with. I am certain something will open for you.
Well, I think it all could depend on whether or not you are honoring what (or who) you have in front of you, or whether you consider them as your competition (which induces covetousness). To extend HONOR to another is something I have noticed royalty seems to be taught how to practice at an early age, for a light offense when you are so powerful can result in dire consequences(!), but someone who grows up in a mud hut seems to know very little of true honor (with some very notable exceptions, of course). It is hard to establish a sense of honor in someone who has nothing to extend it with, and who has never been treated with it, either. What does honor have to do with humility? Everything! They are two sides of the same coin, in fact. Someone who is practicing true humility is someone who has enjoyed some previous elevation to practice it with. Humility is simply impossible to achieve for someone who is already lying flat on the floor! I think the Greeks were confused about the difference between true humility, which can only come from a place of honor (which would make it a true choice), and shame, which is a positional reference point. Shame is what you experience when you find yourself flat on the floor by force. Shame is what you experience when you lose. Humility is impossible to force, however, for humility is only possible from a place of power. Watch out for a truly humble, soft-spoken person; they are guaranteed to be packing a piece! Humility knows it can call for back up at any point; therefore, humility never has to.
In the animal world, the cat family ranges from the tiny little wild cats of Africa to the largest tigers of Siberia. I had to share a bathroom in my youth ( I worked at a small zoo) with an African wild cat, who established a true reign of terror about who he thought could take a shower, and who he thought shouldn’t exist in his world. His nerves were mercurial and his temper truly sour. Forget taming! There was no such thing as proximity to him. On the other hand, the Siberian tigers were the most laid back cats. It took a good deal to upset them, and they not only tended to give you plenty of warning, you usually had a window of time in which you could influence them to change their minds. Their tempers had several modulator valves. The difference I came to observe after many bottle raised batches of large and small cats, was that the small ones, such as the bobcats and the like, tended to not be able to stay in close quarters with each other (or any one else!) well at all. Even the mated pairs had to keep their distance, and those nerves! I was never successful in persuading a bobcat, no matter how tame, to respect me. Those nerves just pushed their personalities around. The tigers, though? Well, I considered them the least likely to turn on you without warning, and the most able to be persuaded to share their world. They were so laid back! The difference, I felt, was that the tiny cats’ best chances of survival were tied to the automatic assumption that they were on the shorter end of the stick, and so they had to jump first if they were going to have a chance. The other consideration being that, because they were so small, no matter what they tried to do, it was not going to cause a whole lot of damage. The tigers, on the other hand, were so large, they were guaranteed to not only cause damage almost no matter what they did, they were just not likely to be challenged at all. This played out in an interesting way. In the wild, tigers are loners except for only one circumstance, which is breeding. Somehow, they have to mate without killing each other. In other words, they have to make sure they don’t get mad at each other. SO, tigers have an elaborate system to make sure they are communicating their intentions clearly, and a whole range of behavior geared to sending signals of good intentions, which is not as easy as you might think when you have an animal, that, because they are far-sighted hunters, have eyes that go completely out of focus at close range. A tiger simply cannot see you if you are within a few feet of him! To compensate for this, they have a soft puffing sound that they make when they get nervous, or when they know you are close but they cannot see you. They make this soft whiffling sound on a continuous basis at those times, and as long as they are making that sound, or are hearing YOU make it, they stay relaxed. In other words, you have a behavior that you can tie into that can influence, or even change, a tiger’s intentions! And, it is so much fun to! I loved the tigers. We just had so much more potential for interaction because we had a platform upon which we could establish respect for each other. Respect is a mutual sharing of a sense of honor; of glory, even, which I think comes about when you have weight in the universe. (This is why I think honor is impossible among thieves, for thieves are focused on avoiding a footprint in reality.) Tigers, on the other hand, are born with a big one!
In Deut. 28:13, we have been promised that we will be made the head, and not the tail, if we are obedient; if we stay in love. Love gives us weight in any encounter. Love restores us to a place of honor. Love, in fact, is a guarantee that, when the game folds and the money is counted, we are going to be holding the winning hand. Love NEVER loses! Well, if I know I am already a winner, then not only do I not HAVE to ask anybody else (for there is no law against love), I can afford to extend grace and honor to all around me. Love recognizes everyone, with no exception, as a fellow potential participant in the Kingdom. Love, in fact, sees others as royalty, for love is looking through the eyes of their Creator. I treat you with the respect I am seeing myself as walking in, when I grasp who I am in that Kingdom. I am going to act like a true heavyweight only when I insist that reality is something better seen through those eyes than through the eyes of the world, which is starting from, and perpetuating, a losing position, which is the position of shame, by the way. If I have to ask the world’s opinion, then I am going to forever be subject to the position that that opinion puts me in, and it will always be a position of shame, for shame is what the rest of the world walks in. Shame is where you perceive you are holding the short end of the stick. In the world, everyone is always going to look bigger than me! I am going to act according to my viewpoint. When you see the world through royal eyes, you are going to act like the Kingdom has arrived, which, as soon as you show up, then, it has! Humility is only possible when you are already across the finish line. The head is the only one in a position to INITIATE reality, rather than to react to it. Then, and only then, am I in a place where I am going to be confident that I have nothing to lose, and then I can afford to be as gracious as necessary! True humility is something that only those at the very top are in a position to practice. The average Greek would have known nothing of this. The average worldling would agree. But, we are not called to average! Halleluah!
Laurita, I am a person with a huge soft spot for cats and I love what you related about cats both large and small. I would love to have those experiences myself!
I do share my home with several small cats. Attitude abounds! lol
Now comes another question….was Paul speaking to fellow believers about fellow believers?
How can I show love and be humble to one who plans to hurt me? I am NOT talking about one who claims to follow Christ either. I am thinking of someone whose actions and life implies they are Godless and are out for selfish gain by causing me and/or others pain in one way or another. I don’t believe I would ever allow someone to simply put a gun to my head and try to kill me without putting up a fight.
Becoming a doormat is not what I believe Paul was advocating for although I could be wrong and I know Skip will help out here. He is the Hebrew scholar while I am most certainly not!
I do trust that Y-H knows all things. Ecc teacher tells us that there is a time for all things. Also to know Y-H and to fear Him. If you know Him then you have a built in gauge to know what is right and what is wrong. Live life and expect to make mistakes but humbly learn from them and adjust accordingly.
My two cents worth!
There are segments of the Christian faith where the appearance of humility is the qualifier to the group. And this is where the act of speaking with loathing about yourself is somehow supposed to promote to others that you are humble. That’s where true humility and the appearance of it are very confused. It is the the acts of humility (not taking credit or drawing attention to self, serving selflessly in quiet ways) that are not done in order to be seen by others that seem to capture the spirit of what true acts of humility are about.
It is the the acts of humility (not taking credit or drawing attention to self, serving selflessly in quiet ways) that are not done in order to be seen by others that seem to capture the spirit of what true acts of humility are about. Amein, December.