Text: Ecclesiastes 5:1-7; 1 Peter 5:5

Yesterday we saw where humility is a weapon against the self-exaltation spirit of the Amorite. Oswall Chambers writes, “If humility were put up as an ideal it would serve only to increase pride. Humility is not an ideal, it is the unconscious result of the life being rightly related to God and centered in Him.”

Wisdom penned in our text, “Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2 KJV). Think of the times that Peter spoke rashly to the Lord and was so self-asserting: speaking against Jesus’ crucifixion (cf. Matthew 16); directing the Lord as He washed the disciples feet (cf. John 13); and countering the Lord’s words about his future denial (cf. Matthew 26:33-35). I can’t help but think those times of reproof and perceived humiliation influenced Peter so in asking the saints to be “clothed with humility.”

Concerning the word clothed in Peter’s exhortation Vincent writes, “The last word is a very peculiar one, occurring only here. It is derived from [a Greek word] that means a roll, band, or girth: a knot or roll of cloth, made in tying or tucking up any part of the dress. The kindred [Greek] word, from which the verb is directly formed, means a slave’s apron, under which the loose garments were girt up. Hence the figure carries an exhortation to put on humility as a working virtue employed in ministry. This is apparent from the evident reminiscence of that scene in which Peter figured so prominently—the washing of the disciples’ feet by the Lord, when he girded himself with a towel as a servant, and gave them the lesson of ministry both by word and act. Bengel paraphrases, ‘Put on and wrap yourselves about with humility, so that the covering of humility cannot possibly be stripped from you.’”

Recall those times in your Christian walk where you may have challenged the Lord regarding His Word, His practice; or His knowledge only to realize later that is was a form of self-exaltation. Offer a prayer of repentance for those times you took off the slave’s apron and put on a master’s tunic. Devote to destruction the Amorite spirit of grandeur.