On today’s episode, the guys talk about the  extremely destructive sin of pride.  Pride is “the silent killer,” the original sin, a self-deceiving foe.  It is a form of idolatry present in all of us and driving much of the world.  It is subtle and secretive, and while we often can’t see it in ourselves, we tend to be disgusted when we notice it in others.  We all know what it feels like to notice pride in this way.  We’ve been bothered by the athlete who is obviously full of himself or the self-proclaimed hero who claims praise for helping a person in danger.  But how do we define what it is that bothers us in these moments?  What is pride?  To use the words of Charnock, it is “contending with God for preeminence.”  Its opposite is humility, which entails seeing ourselves in truth and not being overly attentive to self.  Getting into more practical outworkings of pride, it’s important to know that it often harms our evangelism as Christians by fueling fear of rejection and driving us to corner people with arguments.  Given a Bible, pride can lead to phariseeism.  Knowledge inflames pride if the antidote of humility isn’t applied.  Pride can be low, disguising itself as humility.  Pride clouds our witness by placing attention on ourselves rather than Jesus.

The stark truth is that “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”  Because of this fact, we need to be the kind of people who try to root out and repent of pride.  And since we may not always see it in ourselves, the input of others is tremendously helpful.   We ought to humble ourselves, because God will not abide our foolish pride.  And moreover, the gospel frees us from the need for pride!  After all, we are accepted by God, and need no other approval.