The Principle of Humility

Humility is the accurate understanding of who you are before God, not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself rightly, which frees you to honor others, receive correction, and walk in the authority you have been given without pride distorting the way you use it.

Living Without This Principle

When you live without humility, pride fills the space. You resist correction, compete with people you were meant to collaborate with, and attribute to yourself what belongs to God. Pride makes you unteachable, and an unteachable person stops growing the moment they believe they have arrived. Without humility, you push people away with the weight of your ego, miss the wisdom that comes through unexpected sources, and undermine your own calling by insisting on your own way. Pride is consistently identified in Scripture as one of the most dangerous postures a person can carry, not because confidence is wrong, but because pride is confidence misattributed to self rather than sourced in God.

What This Principle Unlocks

Humility unlocks promotion, teachability, and genuine influence. Scripture is clear that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). When you humble yourself, God is the one who lifts you up, which means the promotion that comes through humility is not manufactured but given. Humility makes you approachable, trustworthy, and safe to follow. It allows you to stay connected to wise counsel, to receive feedback without defensiveness, to celebrate others without jealousy, and to grow through both success and failure. The most influential leaders in Scripture were consistently marked by humility, not weakness, but a settled security in God that freed them from the need to promote themselves at the expense of others.

Hebrew and Greek Root Words

Hebrew: anav (עָנָו) — meek, humble, or gentle; describes someone who is low in their own eyes not from insecurity but from a right understanding of their dependence on God. Moses is described as the most anav man on earth (Numbers 12:3).

Greek: tapeinophrosyne (ταπεινοφροσύνη) — lowliness of mind, modesty, or humility of thought; a compound word meaning to think of yourself in a lowly, grounded way. Paul uses it in Philippians 2:3: “in humility value others above yourselves.”

Bible Verses on Humility

Proverbs 22:4 — “Humility (anav) is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life.”

James 4:10 — “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

Philippians 2:3–4 — “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility (tapeinophrosyne) value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Matthew 23:12 — “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Examples of People in the Bible Who Used This Principle

Moses — Moses was one of the most powerful figures in all of Scripture. He was the man God used to confront the most powerful ruler in the world, lead over a million people out of slavery, part the Red Sea, receive the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, and mediate between God and an entire nation. Yet in the middle of all of this, the Bible makes an extraordinary statement: “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). His humility was not weakness or passivity. It was an unwavering refusal to take credit for what only God could do. When his siblings Miriam and Aaron spoke against him, Moses did not retaliate. When the people grumbled against him repeatedly, Moses interceded for them rather than condemning them. His humility before God was the secret behind his access to God, and his access to God was the source of everything he accomplished.

John the Baptist — John the Baptist was a phenomenon. People traveled from Jerusalem and all of Judea and the region around the Jordan to hear him preach and be baptized. He was bold, confrontational, and unafraid to rebuke even powerful leaders. His ministry was electrifying enough that people began to wonder if he might be the Messiah himself. When asked directly, he refused the title without hesitation. He said, “I am not the Christ. I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.'” When Jesus began His ministry and crowds started shifting toward Him, some of John’s disciples came to him with what could have been taken as a complaint. John’s response became one of the most quoted statements on humility in all of Scripture: “He must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30). At the height of his own influence, John willingly stepped aside so that the one he was pointing to could step forward.

Jesus — The greatest act of humility in all of history was not a moment in Jesus’s ministry but the Incarnation itself. Jesus existed before creation as the second person of the Trinity, equal with God, sharing in His glory and nature. Yet He did not consider that equality with God something to cling to. Instead, He emptied Himself, took on human flesh, and came into the world as a baby born in a stable in a forgotten town. He spent thirty years in obscurity before His public ministry began. He washed His disciples’ feet. He touched lepers. He ate with tax collectors and sinners. And at the end, He submitted to arrest, humiliation, and crucifixion without resistance. Philippians 2:5–8 holds His example before every believer as the ultimate definition of what humble living looks like: “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

Tips for Using the Principle of Humility

1. Invite correction. Identify someone in your life whose feedback you have been resisting and deliberately open yourself to their perspective.
2. Celebrate others publicly. Make a habit of acknowledging the contributions, gifts, and wins of the people around you without making it about yourself.
3. Practice saying “I was wrong.” The ability to acknowledge mistakes without elaborate justification is one of the clearest signs of genuine humility.
4. Stay a learner. No matter how much you know or how far you have come, commit to approaching every room as someone who still has something to receive.
5. Root your confidence in God’s assessment, not people’s applause. When your worth is anchored in who God says you are, you do not need to be seen to feel significant.

Connected Principle: Identity

True humility is only possible from a place of secure identity. You cannot genuinely think of others above yourself if you are still frantically trying to prove your own worth. When you know who God says you are, you no longer need to compete for position or defend your significance. Identity settles the question of your value, and from that settled place, humility flows naturally. To learn more, read The Principle of Identity.