Humility Is Knowing What You Don't Know

[Richard]

Who is like the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man’s wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his countenance is changed.
Ecclesiastes 8:1

Throughout the Bible, we are warned against being wise in our own eyes. Solomon says that a wise man has a shining face, a glowing countenance. A wise man knows some things and some things he doesn’t. But “the sternness of his face is changed” because he is not uptight about what he doesn’t know. He is wise, and his wisdom makes him humble.

In 1 Corinthians 8:2, Paul wrote, “And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.” Knowledge is a never-ending pursuit, an exercise in humility as we discover what we don’t know. Two decades ago researchers told us that the world’s knowledge changed every 38 years. That is, the knowledge you could acquire in 38 years was equal to all the knowledge that existed before. Today the knowledge of the world changes every single year! Today, more knowledge is accumulated in one year than in all the years that have ever been. And it will keep growing every year.

My grandchildren understand modern electrical gadgets better than I do because they have grown up with them. Knowledge is exploding—and it’s getting harder and harder to keep up. It is a wise and humble man who knows what he doesn’t know, what he can’t know, and what he doesn’t need to know—because you can’t know it all. Anyone who thinks he “knows it all” is already suffering from pride.

 

[jeremiah1five]

Humility is knowing what you do know and still remaining humble.

 

[Horatius]

Oh if you only knew. Counterfeit, or phony, humility Is the worst.

Even though these two concepts are virtually synonymous, I feel it is good to separate them because the Bible is very specific on the meaning of “false humility.” In fact, false humility only appears in one chapter of Bible—Colossians 2, where it comes up twice:

Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility Col. 2:18

These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body Col. 2:23

These two references to false humility are five verses apart. What is between the two of them? Four verses on legalism. In other words, the biblical definition of false humility is “legalism.” Here is a part of the text:

Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? Col. 2:20–22