Haughtiness and Pride Good enough for Kings of old and men today

Haughtiness, arrogance, is a rather ugly trait. Indeed, most people find that it makes them uncomfortable to be around arrogant people. One natural aspect of arrogance is the tendency to elevate oneself while at the same time denigrating others. Neither the self-acclamation, nor the unnecessary maligning of others, is pleasant to listen to on an extended basis. 

Haughtiness is visible around us. Professional athletes, upon some achievement, will often perform some kind of ritual purpose'' designed to draw extra attention to themselves for their great accomplishment. Some people consider themselves superior to other people due to their self-perceived incredible intellect. Others look down on people who don't live in their financial circle. Still others have gained notoriety as talented artists of one stripe or another, and they look rather condescendingly on all the "little people" with nothing more than "ordinary" talent. Some have gained positions of prestige, honor, or authority, and they tend to come down hard on the "underlings" around them.

Often, arrogant  people are not satisfied simply with voluntary recognition from others of their status. Nor is it enough for them to continually elicit extra recognition for themselves. They have to get in other people's faces, purposely denigrate them, and put them in their places.    The twelfth through fourteenth chapters of First Corinthians deal extensively with miraculous gifts. In the twelfth and thirteenth chapters, Paul goes into lengthy and meticulous detail on the need for unity within the church. He emphasizes, at length, that Christians are part of the "body of Christ" and, as such, need to treat one another with love. It seems obvious, with such a lengthy treatise emphasizing such specific instruction on unity placed within a text on miraculous gifts, that the congregation at Corinth was experiencing serious problems involving their abuse of, and arrogance over, those miraculous gifts. 

It's ironic to recognize that in every case noted above, especially that within the church at Corinth, nobody achieved their status on their own. The athlete had to be coached and trained for years. The supposed intellectual had to be educated and guided for years. The rich person had to be instructed as to how to make astute business decisions. The artist had to study under the tutelage of other artists for a long time, and get the right breaks to be in a position to gain recognition. The person in a position of authority would not be in that position had somebody else not promoted him. And, of course, the Christians in Corinth who had miraculous gifts had those gifts only because God so blessed them. 

Paul throws a bucket of the cold water of reality in the face of anyone who is so arrogant as to think that his abilities or accomplishments are all his own doing: "For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" (1 Cor. 4:7). Let us be humbly thankful for God's blessings, and let us use them to His