What Do You Think of Other’s Pride? By Pastor Kevin Feder

As we work our way through Esther it is hard to ignore the topic of pride. Haman and Xerxes were the two most powerful people in the world at this point, and they both had plenty of pride to boot. Haman’s pride is easier to point out because it so visibly and so neatly satisfies one of our favorite Proverbs:

Proverbs 16:18 - Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Haman wanted genocide for the Jews when Mordecai refused to bow down to him. Haman made a gallows pole that was 75 feet high for Mordecai. This is ridiculously high and would have been seen for miles around.

The danger for us in reading the Bible is that many of the examples of pride are so fantastic that we might not think we relate. Maybe we should be thankful for the outlandish examples. If we had the resources of Haman we might go to equally ridiculous lengths that he did. In this, we see the potential of pride within our own hearts.

There is another consideration as well. C.S. Lewis had this to say about pride: “There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.”

In other words, Lewis tells us that the best way to tell if you are proud is to consider how other people’s pride makes you feel. The more pride that you have, the more you will find yourself disliking it in others.

Joseph Epstein says, “so many people hate snobs, but you can only hate snobs if you feel superior to them. And that’s simply another form of snobbery. Many of us probably look down on arrogant people, not realizing that in doing so we are revealing our own form of pride.

Tim Keller tells us that pride hides itself. He says, “by definition, the more proud you are, the less proud you think you are.” No doubt, Haman was proud. Yet, we should pay attention to our attitude towards him and what that might reveal of our own pride. Jesus is ready to save us in our arrogance, if we will only see it and cry out to him for mercy.

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