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haughtiness, a temper that would not brook denial or misrepresentation.  If we
would understand the causes that combined together to make the change from Saul
the Pharisee, `breathing out threatenings and slaughter', to the humble,
despised, faithful bond-servant of Christ, we must follow his steps as recorded
in the Acts and the Epistles, and realize that only a close fellowship with the
Son of God makes such a change either possible or permanent.  Unity without
humility is hopelessly impossible:
`From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even
of your lusts that war in your members? ... Wherefore He saith, God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble' (Jas. 4:1-6).
So it is that the apostle, in Philippians 2, links together `lowliness of
mind' and `one mind':
`Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of
one accord, of one mind.  Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory;
but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves'
(Phil. 2:2,3).
What an example of this spirit follows, nothing less than the humility of
the Son of God, Who made Himself of no reputation.  Humility of mind, meekness,
longsuffering and forbearance should ever be the characteristics of God's elect:
`Put on therefore, as the elect of God ... bowels of mercies, kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another' (Col.
3:12,13).
Just in passing we call the reader's attention to the parallel with
Ephesians 4 expressed in the two passages of Colossians 3:10 and 12:
`Put on the new man'.
`Put on ... humility'.
We must not leave this theme without a word of warning.  There is a true
humility, but there is also a false.  The one flows from Christ, the other draws
away from Christ.  The passage that gives the warning is Colossians 2:18-23, and
we give Farrar's rendering in order to stimulate thought and provoke attention:
`Let no one then snatch your prize from you, by delighting in abjectness,
and service of the angels, treading the emptiness of his own visions in
all the futile inflation of his mere carnal understanding, and not keeping
hold of Him Who is "the Head", from Whom, supplied and compacted by its
junctures and ligaments the whole body grows the growth of God.  If ye
died with Christ from mundane rudiments, why, as though living in the
world are ye ordinance ridden with such rules as "Do not handle", "Do not
taste", "Do not even touch", referring to things all of which are
perishable in the mere consumption, according to the "commandments and
teachings of men?"  All these kinds of rules have a credit for wisdom in
volunteered supererogation* and abasement -- hard usage of the body -- but
have no sort of value as a remedy as regards the indulgence of the flesh'.
* superogation=the performance of more than duty requires.
Humility of mind is in the original tapeinophrosune; tapeinos, lowly, is
wonderfully illustrated in Matthew 11:29, `I am meek and lowly in heart',
especially if we realize the point of the words `At that time' of verse 25.
Other references worth noticing are Romans 12:16 and Philippians 2:8.  Humility
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