“For who makes you to differ? And what do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive, why do you boast as if you had not received?” — 1 Corinthians 4:7 (Recovery Version)
“Let no one defraud you by judging against you in voluntary humility and the worship of the angels, dwelling on the things which he has seen, vainly puffed up by his mind set on the flesh.” — Colossians 2:18 (Recovery Version)
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” — 1 Corinthians 8:1 (Recovery Version)
Paul uses the same word six times in one letter to describe the same problem in the same church. The word is physioo (φυσιόω) — to inflate, to puff up, to fill with air. Something inflated looks large, but there is nothing inside (Blue Letter Bible: G5448). The Corinthians were inflated over their teachers (4:6), inflated over sin they tolerated (5:2), even inflated over their knowledge (8:1). Six times, the same word — not a casual turn of phrase. A diagnosis.
Colossians 2:18 uses the same word with a startling modifier: “vainly puffed up by his mind set on the flesh.” Those who claimed special visions, practiced asceticism, and displayed elaborately costumed humility — Paul says their inflation was without cause. They had lost connection with the Head (2:19). Inflation and loss of Christ always travel together.
The Pharisee’s Prayer
Jesus told a parable in Luke 18:9–14, aimed squarely: “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised the rest.” The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself: “God, I thank You that I am not like other men.”
This sentence is the DNA of spiritual elitism. It does not begin with God — it begins with comparison. I am not like them. We see what they cannot. Comparison is the native language of pride.
The tax collector stood at a distance, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, and said only: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” Jesus said it was this one who went home justified. Not the one with more knowledge. Not the one with better practice. The one who came to God empty-handed.
Empty Glory and Disguised Humility
In Philippians 2:3, Paul uses a precise compound word: kenodoxia (κενοδοξία) — from kenos (empty) and doxa (glory). Literally, “empty glory” — self-assessment unsupported by substance (Blue Letter Bible: G2754). Paul contrasts it with its opposite: “in lowliness of mind (ταπεινοφροσύνη, tapeinophrosyne), each counting others more excellent than himself.”
But Colossians 2:18 and 23 introduce a disturbing twist: the same word tapeinophrosyne appears there in a negative sense. Paul describes pride dressed as humility: “voluntary humility,” “asceticism,” “harsh treatment of the body” — practices that “have a reputation of wisdom” but are actually worthless (Blue Letter Bible: G5012). A group can appear supremely humble — low-key posture, spiritual vocabulary, self-denying rhetoric — while its inner operating system runs on carefully disguised pride.
What Paul combats in Colossians 2 is not crude boasting. It is refined, humility-clad spiritual elitism.
What Do You Have That You Did Not Receive?
1 Corinthians 4:7 is Paul’s shortest and most lethal answer to all spiritual elitism:
“Who makes you to differ?” — No one; God does. “What do you have that you did not receive?” — Nothing.
If everything is received — gifts, light, experiences, understanding of Scripture — then boasting in received things is logically self-contradictory. You cannot take credit for a gift.
Chrysostom (c. 349–407) explained this passage in Homily 12 on 1 Corinthians: “The one who is puffed up has a kind of swelling in the spirit, filled with corrupt humors.” He insisted: “This is not yours; what was given belongs to the giver.” All spiritual gifts originate in God’s grace, not personal achievement (Chrysostom, Homily 12 on 1 Corinthians (New Advent)).
Augustine (354–430) defined pride in City of God XIV.13 as the root of all sin: the soul abandons God, to whom it should cling, and “becomes its own end.” Then he stated the great paradox: “Humility subjects us to God and therefore exalts us; pride, precisely because it refuses to submit, falls into degradation” (Augustine, City of God XIV.13 (New Advent)).
Aquinas (1225–1274), following Gregory the Great, elevated pride above the seven deadly sins — “the queen of all vices.” His warning is especially sharp: pride “lies in ambush for good works to destroy them” — spiritual accomplishment itself becomes the raw material for the most dangerous kind of pride. A person can even be proud of their humility (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, Q.162 (New Advent)).
Paul’s Résumé, Paul’s Rubbish
Philippians 3:3–9 is the most personal rebuttal of spiritual elitism in the New Testament. Paul lists his religious credentials — circumcised, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, zealous, blameless according to the law — then one word flips the entire list: skybala. Rubbish. Dung. Waste.
Not “not good enough.” Not “helpful but insufficient.” Rubbish.
Paul was not a man without credentials speaking sour words. He had the most complete credentials. Precisely because he had the most complete credentials, his judgment carries weight: all of it is rubbish — “that I may gain Christ.”
Calvin wrote in Institutes III.17: “Our only ground of confidence, our only boast, our only anchor of salvation, is that Christ — the Son of God — is ours” (Calvin, Institutes III.17 (CCEL)). Human boasting destroys the foundation of salvation because it attributes to the creature what belongs to the Creator.
The Friend of the Bridegroom
Augustine warned in Tractate 13 on John against those who “desire to be loved in the place of the Bridegroom” — spiritual leaders who draw attention to themselves rather than to Christ. Such leaders commit a form of spiritual adultery. The true servant says what John the Baptist said: “This is the One who baptizes” — not “I am he” (Augustine, Tractate 13 on John (New Advent)).
Brother Watchman Nee taught in The Normal Christian Life: “While each of them is a precious fragment of truth, no single one of them is by itself the whole of truth” (Nee, The Normal Christian Life (CCEL)). A person who has truly seen Christ becomes smaller, not larger. A community that truly knows Him holds its knowledge with open hands, not clenched fists.
1 Corinthians 1:30–31 delivers the final correction: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, ‘He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.’”
Everything is His. Our hands are empty. This is not discouraging news. It is the gospel.