Luke 18:9-14
The Tax Collector and the Pharisee
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
The Pharisee thought that he was righteous and looked down on others...He compared himself to others...The Pharisee did not think of the tax collector as his equal...He thought he was better than the tax collector, and others...The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: "God, I thank You that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector...I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get."...
Competitions and comparing ourselves to others often make us judge people...And when we judge others often pride comes into play...And although everyone does not believe that competition causes Pride, C. S. Lewis interestingly wrote about this in Mere Christianity...
C. S. Lewis wrote, "Now what you want to get clear is the Pride is essentially competitive – is competitive by its very nature – while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident...Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man...We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not...They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others...If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about...It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest...Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone...That is why I say that Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not...Greed may drive men into competition if there is not enough to go round; but the proud man, even when he has got more than he can possibly want, will try to get still more just to assert his power...Nearly all those evils in the world that people put down to greed or selfishness are really far more the result of Pride...Take it with money...Greed will certainly make a man want money, for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink...But only up to a point...What is it that makes a man with 10,000 pounds a year anxious to get 20,000 a year?...It is not the greed for more pleasure...10,000 pounds will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy...It is Pride – the wish to be richer than some other rich man, and (still more) the wish for power...For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers...Pride is competitive by its very nature: that is why it goes on and on...If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is my rival and my enemy...The Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began...Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people...But Pride always means enmity – it is enmity...And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God...In God you come up against something that is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself...Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know your-self as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all...As long as you are proud you cannot know God...A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you."...