Thanks for investing time rather than slapping together what dominates much of the net - groundless chatter.

Purposeful insight; corrective or confirming - and anything in between - based on one’s own best understanding of Biblical concepts, especially with a motivation to help guard and encourage without stifling, is welcome here. Bravo!

Let’s discuss the post.

While some truths may seem so clear, application of those truths can be a little tricky. One person needs more humility (probably most of us) - one needs more courage; one needs to stand up, another sit down. One is waiting on the Lord while one has a command to advance. Yet truth is truth no matter.

For what it’s worth, from my experiences as a full-time Pastor and businessman, here is something I have observed: I have seen dramatically more Christians struggling with a sense of Godly identity than who have one. I have seen this struggle over and over produce self-imposed limitations that God never intended. I have seen those outcomes consistently called spiritual.

While my experience hardly trumps the Bible, allow me to carry the discussion into a slightly different light. Regarding counting others as better than ourselves, phil 2:3, taken as an individual Scripture seems pretty clear. However, in the context of the verses that surround it, 1-7, and the original language, the ideas being conveyed here may be a little different than taught conventionally.

Paul is speaking to believers. So first of all he is not actually saying that if we walk around in front of the whole world as if we were nobody’s - that’s humility and spirituality. (That’s an exaggerated point, but hopefully clear…) In fact, this is directly in reference to believers with one another. Where Christians most often struggle with forced inferiority is not from other believer’s, but from the rest of the world.

The overall concept in the passage in Philippians 2:1-7, is about being like minded and unified as believers, not allowing individual agendas (selfish ambitions) or self absorption to rule the day. That as we all keep the big picture in mind and serve God and one another, obeying Him, rather than being at odds with each other - we are on the right track. This is the context of deferring to one another.

While that makes interesting theological discussion,here is perhaps a more important point. Paul is directing believers to choose or ‘put on’ this attitude toward other believers, a voluntary internal act; not a forced external one. In other words, Paul is not saying “deal with it; everyone is superior to you”.

How could we defeat any “giants in the land” if our attitude is to serve those giants. He is saying, instead “consider the interests of God and other believers very highly, CHOOSE to put their interests in front of your own. This is a personal decision, not forced on us, not made without ‘giving permission’ or choosing to take on the attitude.

Choosing to serve somebody, rather than being forced to be their slave, might look positionally similar - but is quite different.

The quote, no one can make you feel inferior without your permission, although not a direct Biblical quote and often attributed to Roosevelt, still holds weight - perhaps. The Bible also says that “the people who know their God shall be strong and carry out great exploits” in Dan 11:32 and is full of stories where men and women of God led victorious armies and accomplished great things in society, fully serving God yet not being forced to bow to wrong things.

Balancing the truth can be a challenge.

The point submitted, nonetheless, is a very good one. Thanks for challenging and sharpening us, truly. We look forward to your next post.

However, nowhere that I can recall in the Bible do I see anything like Eleanor Roosevelt’s “No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Permission.”

On the contrary, Paul, for example, finds it necessary to exhort the Christians in Rome not think more highly of themselves than they ought. Even the much-cited “Love thy neighbor” merely assumes self-love (”as thyself”) rather than encourages it. Further, when the psalmist is attacked and mocked by evil men, the Roosevelt concept is nowhere proposed as far as I can recall.

We may assume one can underestimate one’s God-given abilities and potential, but there are times when one ought to feel inferior to some on a particular parameter because one is in fact inferior (and humility would suggest we ought to regard others as better than ourselves anyway). The text of Scripture seems far more interested in confidence in God rather than in self. And those confident in God always seem to get the job done and done right.

I also agree that in some circles the clergy/laity distinction sometimes leads to pride among the “in” clergy and leader-worship (or leader-exaltation) among the laity. This is a problem. In some ways, this can be like the “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos” division in Corinth. And for what it is worth in Corinth, Paul’s solution seems to exclude anything like “No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Permission.”

All this is not to say that I want to be a wet blanket for acts of faith in business building and entrepreneurship. Rather, I hope to caution the reader … and solicit gentle Bible-based correction to my caveats where appropriate. I certainly have not offered anything like the last word, but hope to have contributed something of worth.

May God move His people to be productive and to recognize our callings as you have encouraged us.

Perhaps our deep-down beliefs about the God we worship have an effect on our productivity too.

Peter Rubel