Meditations on Meekness and Humility that helps us be more like Jesus.

1. Meditation Emphasis

The only two qualities that Jesus ever suggested that his disciples should learn from him were humility and meekness. He never told them that they should learn how to preach or how to pray or even how to heal the sick! Why are these two qualities so important to life?

Well, Jesus knew that without humility and meekness the task that lay ahead for the twelve disciples would be too great. They were unknown fishermen, tax-collectors and zealots, a motley crew, but their names would become household names for the next 2,000 years! Even today the most popular names in the world are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John! The weight of their fame and the trials of faith they had to undergo required humility and meekness in their character.

2. Meditation on Contemporary thought

The Oxford Dictionary definitions of these qualities are inaccurate if weighed by the meaning the Greek concepts in the bible of these two words.

Humble: (Oxford) having or showing low estimate of one’s own importance, lowly, modest, of small pretensions. To make humble, abase, (Latin humus: ground) to eat humble pie means to be humiliated.

Meek: (Oxford) submissive, tame-spirited

3. Bible Dictionary Meditations

Vine’s Greek Expository Dictionary

Humble: tapeinos signifying low-lying. It is used always in a good sense in the New Testament to denote of low degree, brought low, literally of mountains and hills, abase. Matthew 11:29 it is used in the sense of being humble in spirit. Acts 20:19 talks about humility of mind (tapeinophrosunê).

Act 20:19 Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews:

Humility of Mind from Acts 20:19

G5012 tapeinophrosune?

Thayer Definition:

1) the having a humble opinion of one’s self

2) a deep sense of one’s (moral) littleness

3) modesty, humility, lowliness of mind

Part of Speech: noun feminine

Vines Dictionary:

“Meek: Praos denotes gentle, mild, and meek. It consists not in a person’s outward behaviour only; nor yet in his relations to his fellow-men; as little in his mere natural disposition. Rather it is an inwrought grace of the soul; and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God. It is that temper of Spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good and therefore without disputing or resisting; it is closely linked with the word humility. It is only the humble heart that can be meek and does not struggle and contend with Him. Meekness in the face of vile men allows insults and injuries which they may inflict as being permitted and employed by God for the chastening and purifying of His elect. It is associated with self-control.

The English language uses the word, meekness, to express weakness and pusillanimity, which the original Greek meaning does not allow. Praos or ‘praütês’ describes a condition of heart and mind.

It must be clearly understood that the meekness manifested by the Lord and commended to the believer is the fruit of power. The common assumption is that when a man is meek it is because he cannot help himself. But the Lord was meek because he had the infinite resources of God at His command. Described negatively meekness is the opposite of self-assertiveness and self-interest; it is equanimity of spirit that is neither elated nor cast down, simply because it is not occupied with self at all.

The apostle Paul appeals to the meekness of Christ in believers and charges them to show all meekness towards all men. In his dealings with the ignorant and erring he is to exhibit a spirit of meekness and towards those who oppose themselves he is to correct them in meekness (II Timothy 2:25) James the apostle, exhorts his beloved brethren to receive with meekness the implanted word (James 12:21). The apostle Peter says meekness is required to set forth the grounds of the Christian hope (I Peter 3:15)”

4. Apostolic Perspective Me