True humility is perhaps spoken of some in the modern day, but true humility is not stressed as it should be in the places that it should be. Chesterton once said something to the order that the modern day has misplaced humility. It has put humility in the realm of knowledge (epistemology). In other words, we are taught to be humble by saying that we can’t be sure that we have the truth. But the Bible teaches us that “the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (I John 5:20). Pride kills true understanding and knowledge. True humility gains access to the truth because God loves the humble and shows them His ways.
True knowledge and understanding only come from God. This can be seen by the prayers of the writers of Scripture as well as the writings of Scripture. The proud study Scripture as if depends on them and on their own wits and labor. A proud person who is religious enough may offer prayers to God to help him in his studies, but he does not do the study in prayer. He may recognize the need to pray for help, but he does not pray and study in a way that demonstrates that he really understands the need to seek understanding from the Lord. The proud may see a need for the help of the Lord, but they don’t understand that all spiritual understanding comes directly from the hand of the Lord and His work in the soul. All the bread of life comes from Him. All truth comes from Jesus Christ who is Truth Himself. All spiritual knowledge is from the Spirit. We are utterly dependant on Him for truth.
Psalm 25:9 He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way.
Psalm 119:34 Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law And keep it with all my heart.
Paslm 119:73 Your hands made me and fashioned me; Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.
Psalm 119:125 I am Your servant; give me understanding, That I may know Your testimonies.
Psalm 119:169 Let my cry come before You, O LORD; Give me understanding according to Your word.
Proverbs 2:6 For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding.
Proverbs 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Humility is utterly necessary for spiritual knowledge because the Lord only teaches the humble. The proud can come up with a lot of academic knowledge of religion and of God, and they can also come up with a lot of morality and personal ethics. But to know the ways of the Lord and to truly see His glory a person must be emptied of self in true humility. The proud are blinded to truth and to the glory of the Lord. The proud see a certain glory in the things of God but it is not the glory of God, but rather it is the glory of self. So the proud can have a delight in knowledge gained as the Bible and religious and moral things are studied, but the delight is from the things of self rather than the things of God. The proud loves those who love him, and surely this does not stop at just people. But since the love of the proud is all about self, anything that contributes to the self in the eyes of the proud that person will love. For some reason spiritual (religious) pride is the worst kind of pride, yet it is the kind of pride that inundates churches. People are proud of being members, of how long they have been members, of how long they have supported missions, how long they have had this or that duty. One can be proud of almost anything. But one thing that is utterly necessary for spiritual understanding and practice is humility. We see this from the prayers of the Psalmist in the verses above. It if from the Lord that understanding comes and He must give it.
The humble have been taught of God to seek Him for true wisdom and understanding. They know how each passage of Scripture has walls set around it to hide the true meaning of it from the proud and no one but the Lord Himself can open doors through those walls. The proud assume that they can just study the word with some tools they have learned and they will learn all they need to know. They don’t see any real walls there that their tools (language, hermeneutics) cannot overcome. But the humble know that true spiritual knowledge and understanding will only come from the Lord when the soul has been broken from its self-interests and self-sufficiency. The humble know that pride is like wearing blinders or a hood to understanding, and so they have learned to pray and seek the Lord for humility in order to understand His word. Humility is an utter necessity to reading the Bible.
God Loves... Himself 
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