What this is about
You may know the voice. A ministry newsletter, a sermon or an annual report says, sincerely, that the ministry is small, unworthy and humble. Then it tells you that God chose it, speaks to it directly, has used it extraordinarily, and set it apart from Christians who are “dead” or “compromising”.
The statements on this page were collected over many years. They are paraphrased and linked to no church or person — the point is the pattern, not the speaker.
The first way of seeing it
Tell what God did, so that people see GodReporting what God has done is good and biblical. But God is the subject of the sentences, virtues like humility are left for others to notice, other Christians aren’t needed as a dark background, and people go away praising God. This is what the page holds.The second way of seeing it
Say plainly how God is using us, and why we’re differentSupporters deserve to know what God is doing, in full. Calling the ministry humble and Spirit-led is just honest description, and saying “God directed us” gives him the credit. People who speak this way usually mean every word. This is the view the page tests.What this page is not doing
It doesn’t judge anyone’s heart: it tests sentences, not people. It doesn’t say ministries that talk this way do no good; many do a lot. It doesn’t describe any real church or ministry, and it names no living person.
The short answer
- Watch for the “but”. “We are nothing; Christ is everything — but Christ has used us extraordinarily.” What comes after the “but” is what the sentence is for. The humble part in front makes the big claim hard to question.
- Thanking God doesn’t make a boast humble. The proud Pharisee in Jesus’ story began his prayer “God, I thank thee” (Luke 18:11). And Paul asks: “if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). If it was a gift, there’s nothing to boast about.
- Humility is a word other people use about you. “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth” (Proverbs 27:2). You can’t announce your own humility without the announcement cancelling it.
- “God told us” can shut down disagreement. The apostles, facing their biggest decision, wrote “it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us” (Acts 15:28). “Our marching orders come directly from God” turns every decision into something you can’t question.
- Small words can carry big claims. Cross out “insignificant little” and you get “God chose our flock to accomplish great things.” And Jesus called all his disciples his “little flock” (Luke 12:32).
- Reporting results is fine — if God is the subject. The apostles “rehearsed all that God had done with them” (Acts 14:27), and the listeners “glorified the Lord” (21:20). When the disciples came back excited about their results, Jesus said: rejoice rather “because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
- Humility that needs someone worse to stand beside isn’t humility. “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are” — the Pharisee needed the tax collector at the back. Calling other Christians “dead” or “compromising” does the same thing.
- The old writers saw all this. Augustine, Benedict, Francis de Sales, Jonathan Edwards and C. S. Lewis all described pride that talks humbly. Lewis called it “pride at his own humility”.
After people hear your report, whom do they praise? If it’s God, it was testimony. If it’s you, it was something else — even if God’s name was in every sentence.
Glory given, or glory kept?
Ten of the twenty-five statements. For each, decide: does it give the glory away (leaving you thinking about God), keep some of it (leaving you thinking about the ministry), or does it depend on what surrounds it? The page gives its reading after you choose. Every statement is paraphrased and linked to no one.
0 of 10 answered.
What the old writers said
This isn’t a modern problem. Some of the sharpest things Christians have ever written are about pride that has learned to sound humble.
Pride lurks even in good works in order to destroy them.
Augustine, Rule 1.7, around 397.
We are very apt to speak of ourselves as nought, as weakness itself, as the offscouring of the earth; but we should be very much vexed to be taken at our word …
Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, 1609.
Some, who think themselves quite emptied of themselves … are full as they can hold with the glory of their own humility.
Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections, 1746.
“By jove! I’m being humble,” and almost immediately pride — pride at his own humility — will appear.
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, 1942. A senior devil advising a junior one.
Someone might fairly say: but Paul boasts! He does, once, at length, in 2 Corinthians 11–12. But he calls it foolishness, says the church forced him into it, lists his beatings and shipwrecks rather than his successes, and stops “lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be” (12:6). It’s the opposite of the pattern: the pattern announces humility and lists successes; Paul announces folly and lists failures.
Humility you announce about yourself has already turned into something else. The truly humble person, Edwards said, “never thinks his humility great”.
Remove the humble words
The highlighted words are the modest ones. Press the button to cross them out and see what claim is left.
Compare the one place Paul writes a sentence with the same shape: “I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God” (1 Corinthians 15:10). His sentence turns back to grace at the end. The pattern’s sentences turn back to us.
Testimony and advertisement
None of this means ministries should stay silent about what God has done. Here’s what an apostolic report sounds like:
… they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.
Acts 14:27.
God is the subject of both halves. Now compare a sentence from a report (made up by this page): “By God’s grace, our small team reached 214 villages which no other ministry had ever entered.” God is mentioned, but the subject is “our small team”, and other ministries are there to make us look good.
Three quick tests for any report, sermon or newsletter:
- Who is the subject of the sentences? God, or us?
- Are any of our own virtues named? Humble, selfless, sacrificial, dedicated — those are for others to say.
- Are other Christians there only as a contrast? If so, it’s the Pharisee’s prayer.
A warning to ourselves
It’s easy to read this page and pray, “God, I thank thee that I am not like those ministries.” That’s the Pharisee’s prayer again, pointed the other way. The only safe place in Jesus’ story is at the back, with the man who said “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
Read your own words back
Paste a paragraph you’ve written — a newsletter, a report, a post about your church or ministry. The page counts how often you talk about yourselves, how often about God, and how many humility words, big words and comparisons you use. It all happens in your browser; nothing is stored or sent. It’s a word count, not a verdict — but the numbers are often a surprise.
Check it yourself
Six things. The first three take an evening between them. The last one takes no time at all.
- 1. Read Luke 18:9–14 and Matthew 6:1–4. Five minutes. The Pharisee and the tax collector, and doing good in secret.
- 2. Read 1 Corinthians 3–4. Fifteen minutes. “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?”
- 3. Read Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III, chapter 5. Fifteen minutes, free online. The best short description of humble-sounding pride ever written.
- 4. Read Acts 14:21–28 and Luke 10:17–20. Ten minutes. How the apostles reported results, and what Jesus said when his disciples did.
- 5. Read C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book III, chapter 8, “The Great Sin”. Fifteen minutes.
- 6. Tell it the other way. Do this one. Next time you tell someone what God has done through you, make God the subject of every sentence, name none of your own virtues, and stop before the “but”. Then notice whom they praise.
Want the whole thing?
The full dossier has all twenty-five statements to sort, what Augustine, Benedict, Bernard, Francis de Sales, Edwards and Lewis wrote, a stranger test, a rewrite drill, a report where you mark who the subject is, the Pharisee’s prayer set beside modern sentences, a ten-question self-audit, and the prompt that produced it all.
Read the full dossier → Simple English →