Humility Illuminated: The Biblical Path Back to Christian Character
Digital Verbum Edition
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Overview
The modern church is immersed in a competitive, polarized, and status-driven society. It’s hard to have conversations about important issues when so many are defensive and unwilling to learn. Too often, Christians fall into these same traps. The health and witness of the church urgently depend on recovering an essential biblical virtue: humility.
New Testament scholar Dennis R. Edwards illuminates humility as a, if not the, distinctive identity marker of followers of Jesus. Tracing the theme throughout Scripture, he demonstrates how true humility is grounded in submission to God and becomes manifest in all areas of life. Edwards defuses common misconceptions about humility and explores its role in Christian community, conflict, leadership, suffering, worship, and stewardship.
As we learn from and honor the humble instead of the power-hungry, humility paradoxically empowers God’s people—including those who are often marginalized. Filled with stories from the author’s ministry experience, Humility Illuminated addresses common areas of leadership failure and how to avoid them, applies biblical texts on humility to multiethnic ministry and justice work, and issues a compelling challenge to the church.
Biblical humility is not a tactic, and it's not just “being nice.” It’s a revolutionary path to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
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- Demonstrates how true humility is grounded in submission to God and becomes manifest in all areas of life
- Addresses common areas of leadership failure and how to avoid them
- Traces the theme of humility throughout Scripture
- Introduction: Rediscovering Humility for Our Times
- 1. Yielding: Where Humility Starts
- 2. Embodying: The Example of Jesus
- 3. Communing: Mutual Love Instead of Self-Promotion
- 4. Reconciling: Navigating Conflict
- 5. Shepherding: Setting an Example Through Service
- 6. Enduring: Putting Our Suffering into Perspective
- 7. Worshiping: Glorifying God with Our Whole Selves
- 8. Stewarding: Attitude More Than Obligation
- 9. Empowering: Power to the People Who Are Poor in Spirit
- Conclusion
Dennis Edwards eloquently writes that the (all-but-extinct) virtue of humility ‘brings truth’s light by throwing back the shutters of arrogance and opening the window of curiosity.’ Similarly, this wonderful book—by someone who embodies its subject—offers a window into the multifaceted Christian identity marker of humility before God and others, throwing back the shutters of distortion and misunderstanding. Well-researched, wise, and highly readable, this is a timely book for all Christians in an age of competition, self-promotion, and division.
—Michael J. Gorman, Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland
Our ultracompetitive culture encourages us to outstrip others in quests for social status and prestige, and these temptations affect individual Christians and the ethos of church communities. In Humility Illuminated, Dennis Edwards provides a rich treatment of how Scripture prizes humility as both internal disposition and social practice. He draws on his many years of pastoral experience to wisely counsel readers on how to follow Jesus in the way of humility, which enriches our common humanity, connects us intimately to others, and generates hope.
—Timothy Gombis, author of Power in Weakness: Paul’s Transformed Vision for Ministry
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