Proverbs 3:34:  “Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the humble.”

James 4:6: ”But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

“It’s hard to be humble when you are as great as I am.”  Muhammad Ali

I have a friend who is just not impressed with any of my greatness and just keep reeling me in whenever pride starts to overtake me.  The other day she shared with me Proverbs 3:34: “He gives grace to the humble.”

I don’t know about this humble stuff, I mean I kind of enjoy basking in my pride, showing off, bragging. It may not win many friends, but it does feel good. But for the sake of my friend I decided to meditate on this a little.  James quotes this verse but says God resist the proud.  My KJV says in Psalms that he scorns the scorners.  When I think of scorn I think rejection, shunning and shutting out. The word resist in Greek is antitassetai which has the idea of opposing, rejecting and standing against.  The word scorn is luts in the Hebrew and has quite a history throughout the Semitic languages.

Before a big battle between say the Philistines and the Hebrew their armies would gather in a stand off just waiting for someone to make the first move. Like any fight you always want to say: “Well, he started it.”  So no one would make a move to attack.  Instead they would luts, they would taunt each other, you know say things like “You’re mother wears combat boots” and stuff like that.  Until someone finally says: “What you say bout my mother, that’s it, I had enough of your mouth.”   In fact that is what luts literally means “make a mouth at.”  Basically, the fight would break out over wounded pride.

There are different types of pride.  Some pride is not bad. Parents take pride in their children. That is a good thing and is a positive influence on the child.  A man takes pride in his wife. Well, he had better, if not he just might end up with a roving eye. The bad pride is the one that my friend keeps shoving in my face that is the feeling of being superior to others. Like Muhammad Ali said: “It’s hard to be humble, when you’re as great as I am.”

This is where luts (scorn, pride) comes in. In civil law you can seek recovery for libel if someone publishes a hurtful or damaging statement about you or you can recover for slander if they speak something that is hurtful or damaging. If you say someone is a fool then your best defense is to prove that he really is a fool and that the statement is true.  But the person cannot even bring an action against you unless they first suffer some monetary damage. Usually the person tries to sue without monetary damage by claiming mental distress. But in both cases you have to show malice. Normally the mental distress is simply that your pride has been hurt.  Like my friend what she says about me is true and there is no malice intended.  On top of that I suffered no lose only gain by becoming a better person and grow closer to God if I listen to her.

So quite literally this verse in Proverbs could read: “God will make a fool out of you if you call someone a fool.”  You want to sue God go right ahead, but you will lose hands down as there was no malice intent behind God and if you listen to Him you will become a better person and draw closer to Him.  In fact he even says that he will give more grace to the humble.  So when He shoots you down for your pride, you stand only to gain and he reinforces it with more grace.

How is grace better than the joy and pleasure you get from your pride?  We need to examine just what grace is.  The word for grace in Hebrew is chen.  Chen is favour, grace, charm, elegance, acceptance. It comes from the root word chanan which in its Semitic root is much more powerful, it is a word used when two people are betrothed but are not allowed to physically consummate their union until the betrothal period ends. During this time they have a longing to be intimate with each which only grows more intense as the days go by. Eventually this longing turns to chanan which is an intense longing to be joined together.  In the midst of this longing one would do anything for his beloved, he would think of nothing but his beloved, he would dream of her, write silly poems to her, you know just be totally love sick. That is really what grace is.  We call grace unmerited favor.  Oh, like come now, yes, yes it is unmerited favor.  But you know a man will show unmerited favor to the woman he loves.  I mean he will bring her flowers even though she did nothing to merit it.  But the husband did it only because he loves her.  Come on you cold, stone hearted preachers, enough of this unmerited favor business.  Tell it like it is, unmerited favor is only the result of grace, not grace.  Take grace, chanan back to its Semitic root.  Grace is God’s longing, intense desire to be intimate with us.  When we are full of pride He can’t get close to us because we are so full of ourselves.  C.S. Lewis said that a proud man cannot know God for a proud man is always looking down on others and how can he see what is above when he is looking down.

I saw a movie the other day where a woman was the administrative assistant to a man who had a powerful position.  She was totally in love with this man and as far as she was concerned he made the sun rise every morning.  But the man was so self absorbed, so full of himself, so full of pride, he was not even aware of a beautiful woman who just wanted to love him chanan him.  Then he fell on hard times, he lost everything and his pride was completely destroyed.  In his humiliated or humble state he became aware of this administrative assistant who loved him even in his broken state. At that point she was able to pour out all her love for this guy who didn’t deserve it, but he in turn finally received her love and gave it back to her and became a man who used his talents and gifts to benefit others rather than himself. She made him into a better person once he was able to receive her love.

This is what grace is, God just loving us from His unrequited love, longing for us to see and know how much He loves us.  But we can be so full of ourselves, our pride, our standing, our greatness that we do not even see it.  That is why God can give more grace chanan to the humble.  Once we are in a position where we stop looking at ourselves and being so self absorbed, then we can receive the fullness of love, chanan from God and truly be intimate with Him.