Two meanings of pride: one is very bad the other is very good so don’t get them confused!

The word pride can be used in a strictly religious sense and is very bad for us. My pride in this sense is referring to that part of me which thinks I can live without God’s help and that I am better-off without him; and that I am better than others and are better off without them too. Therefore, my pride in this bad sense makes me haughty and aloof, quick to judge others, and, also leading to hypocrisy, my pride prevents me seeing the many faults in myself.

There are countless Biblical scriptures which severely condemns this kind of bad pride, with it even being seen as the root of all sin. For example, in the Old Testament’s Proverbs 6:17 we are told that God hates, and sees as an abomination, ‘haughty eyes’. Proverbs 21:4 continues this theme: ‘Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin’. In other parts of the Old Testament too, we repeatedly read that God brings down the haughty and the proud (see 2 Samuel 2:28; Psalm 18:27; Isaiah 2:11; Ezekiel 16:50). This attitude to pride, viewed in this strictly religious sense, is also found in the New Testament. For example, in Matthew 7:5 Jesus condemns the proud for judging others: ‘You hypocrite! Why don’t you take the plank out of your own first so you can see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.’ On the flip-side other New Testament teaching recommends humility as the antidote to pride. For example, in Philippians 2:3 Paul says: ‘Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.’

However, pride can be used in another non-religious sense, and is very good, being part of how God blesses us all in so many ways in our lives, helping us to overcome adversity. So, here pride is being used to depict the feeling of achievement or elation a person might have from doing something well, and from coming through a difficult experience which led her to grow as a person. Pride can also be used to depict the feeling of satisfaction or elation a person might have from witnessing a family member, friend, or even a stranger doing something well, and of them coming through a difficult experience which led to them too grow as a person.

These feelings of achievement and satisfaction, while at times can spill over into pride in the bad religious sense referred to above, are radically different to the religious understanding of pride. Indeed, feelings of achievement and satisfaction when overcoming adversity often provokes in people a profound sense of humility as people who go through these experiences also realise, more deeply than before, their very dependence on God and others.

In short, these feelings of achievement and satisfaction are properly understood as God-given fruits of living well and is a wonderful testament to the way human beings can overcome adversity. For example, in the Old Testament book of Isaiah 61:3 it proclaims that God will: ‘grant to those who mourn … a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.’. And in the New Testament, Jesus says in John 10:10: ‘The thief has come to steal, kill and destroy, but I have come to give you life in all its abundance until it overflows.’ 

It is a horrible, nasty distortion that these messages of achievement and satisfaction for overcoming adversity (producing these very healthy God-given feelings) have been associated with the word pride, with the original religious meaning of the term being subsequently lost in the process.