The Humble, Gentle Geek (In Search Of Truth, Ephesians 4:1-3, Part 1)

(Ephesians 4:1-3, ESV) 1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.


Paul transitions now from a heavily doctrinal focus to a more practical one, although the doctrinal concepts are still interwoven. In fact it is because of and in light of those doctrinal realities (summarized last time) that we should pursue what Paul and the Holy Spirit are calling us to beginning in Chapter 4.

v.1

When Paul urges readers to walk in a manner "worthy" of their calling, the Greek word for "worthy" he uses means literally "bringing up the other beam of the scales", and so implies equal balance. In other words, the way we go about our daily lives should fit with what God is calling us to as his followers.

If we don't feel some sobering regret after reading those words I don't think we have a clear view of ourselves. When the thought that "I'm a pretty good Christian" runs through my mind, I'm just comparing myself (too generously I should add) to other Christians and failing to see what I'm actually called to.

v.2-3

In case his readers should be left wondering, Paul gets specific about what it means to pursue "worthiness" to the call of Christ. It involves humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love and an eagerness to maintain unity. We'll start by just focusing on the first two of those.

1. Humility. The Greek word used here means having "a deep sense of one's moral littleness". This is a complete lack of self-importance or self-justification. We ARE important, and as believers we ARE justified. But we don't establish our own importance or justification. God does. And the "moral littleness" of humility involves a helpless recognition of our need for the tireless forgiveness of Jesus.

2. Gentleness. This involves anticipating the fragility of others and bringing compassionate sensitivity to our social interactions and relationships.


SO WHAT'S IN ALL THIS FOR GEEKS?

Last time we looked back at the first three chapters of Ephesians and I tried to emphasize the grace, forgiveness, power and position we've been given by God. I think Paul and the Holy Spirit provided those as a foundation for the life being described in these verses. Because when I look at the life being described here I think, "Holy crap, only God could make me into that kind of person!" So let's take a look at these first two character traits that we're being called into, as geeks specifically.


HUMILITY

Humility is a trait immensely lacking among geeks. And I'll line up as the title-holding champ for that disgraceful trophy. The lack of humility can and does come in the form of arrogance, but in my experience arrogant geeks are actually just compensating for insecurity. I've met so many geeks who (often unknowingly) come off as arrogant "know it alls", only to discover at some point that they grew up under verbally abusive or overly critical parents. As I get to know them more I learn that they themselves are actually very insecure (sometimes without realizing it) and are trying to gain security and good reputation through behavior that comes off as arrogance. I've certainly done some of this myself, despite growing up in a warm and loving home.

The more common variety of humility deficiency is subtle, because it festers in those who have a very low view of themselves and tend to fixate on that, to the detriment of their relationships. Matt McKinney, who edits our Speculative Faith videos, uses a quote from C.S. Lewis in an upcoming video that says, "Humility isn't thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less."

Despite having a low OPINION of ourselves, we still give tremendous priority to thinking ABOUT ourselves. My lack of humility causes me to obsess over what people think of me, and whether or not they like or respect me. I replay conversations in my mind and imagine conversations that might happen, all in an effort to feel secure in my standing with others. I also avoid social situations that would take me out of my comfort zone or potentially expose some weakness of mine. In all of this, I'm wasting time and missing opportunities that could be useful to God's purposes. Apologies for the rare sports metaphor, but "I'm choosing to sit on the bench in the middle of the Superbowl!"

By contrast, Jesus didn't obsess over whether people respected him or not. He wanted them to believe in who he was and to come to him for rescue, but he wasn't concerned about maintaining the respect from others that his nature and identity deserve. He was too busy serving others and living for them to obsess over whether people respected him or not.

(Philippians 2:6-8, ESV) though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

And though I'm an infant in this area, I can tell you that there is great freedom in getting our minds on serving others instead of worrying what they think about us. In the moments that God enables me to focus on helping others, even those who are being critical of me, I experience freedom from concern over the opinions of others. That is real life the way it's meant to be lived. Jesus modeled that for us and we can enter into it too!


GENTLENESS

We geeks are a passionate group of people. We talk about loving things and hating things, and we attack what we hate and defend what we love. We get on social media and make proclamations of our opinions or wade into the mud in online debates. A simple comment from someone can get our blood pumping and drive us to launch into a passionate monologue. I'm not ready to make a blanket statement that these things are wrong. But I do think that we don't value the skill of gentleness.

Yes, gentleness is a skill, not a feeling. (Although it can and should be motivated by compassion.) When we are ticked off but still have to drive somewhere, we don't jam our contact lenses into our eyes. We know that regardless of how we're feeling, inserting a contact lens requires gentleness if we don't want to destroy the lens or mutilate our eyeball.

In the same way, learning to reign in our tone, our pacing and our words is a vital part of living in unity with other believers. It's one thing for our hearts to burn with passion over something, it's another to burn people with our passion.

I've exchanged a number of text-based communications (e-mail, forums, youtube comments, etc.) where responding to the fire of another person with a gentle attitude causes things to die down and for a measure of reason to be restored. If we don't just want to spout off, if we truly want to be heard and to persuade, if we really want to find common ground, the skill of gentleness is worth developing. Since disagreement is inevitable, gentleness is a vital component in any healthy community of believers.

We will fail at being humble. We will fail at being gentle. But because of God's tireless forgiveness and empowering presence, we can get up after every stumble and continue moving deeper into the life God is calling us to.



Resources typically used to prepare this study include:
"Expositor's Bible Commentary", Frank E. Gaebelein General Editor (Zondervan Publishing House)
"The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament", by Dr. Craig S. Keener (InterVarsity Press)
Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance
Blueletterbible.org (primarily for search functionality)