YOU KNOW THE gesture. Imagine that a Christian does something noteworthy in public. Perhaps they’ve just preached a stirring sermon or given an inspiring lecture. Perhaps they’re professional athletes, and have just hit an impossible shot on the basketball court or scored the winning touchdown. People applaud. But as Christians, they know that humility is a virtue and therefore deflect the praise, pointing heavenward to signify that the glory belongs to God alone. It can be a deeply meaningful gesture.

But then the preacher goes to a ministry conference, where the attendees swap stories about how their churches have grown. They won’t say, “Because of my incredible leadership, our congregation has grown 100% in the last two years.” They’ll find other, more socially acceptable words: “God has really blessed us; more people than ever are coming to Christ.” Such words can be said with genuine humility, and they can be said as a way of fishing for the admiration of others. And being the complicated people we are, it can be both. Meanwhile, the other pastors around them may feel the need to tell their own stories of success in response, so as not to feel left out.

Or take the athlete who wows the crowd with some amazing feat of prowess. Humbly, they point toward the sky. But in the next moment or on the next play, they’re thumping their chest with both fists and roaring with triumph.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that we should abandon the gesture, nor am I saying that people have no right to celebrate accomplishments. The point is that sometimes what seems like humility isn’t; it’s humblebragging. We can use humble words and gestures without a humble heart. We can troll for approval, status, or praise while trying to give the impression of humility. Research from the Harvard Business School, though, suggests that the strategy doesn’t work. Whether humblebraggarts (is that a word?) know it or not, they come across as insincere and are therefore less well-liked.

And, of course, humblebragging can happen in the church. Imagine someone who’s asked for prayer about an upcoming job interview. Later, when someone asks how the interview went, they say, “I got the job! It was a really competitive process, and I beat out five other candidates. God is good!” Can you hear it? They could have left the middle part out and simply said, “I got the job! God is good!” Or, going the other way, they could have simply leaned into their pride and left out the phrase, “God is good.” That’s the question: when they say “God is good,” do they sincerely mean it with a truly grateful heart? Or is that just religious window dressing to make the boast sound more socially acceptable?

Only God knows for sure.

Although the word “humblebragging” is relatively new, what it describes is not. Apparently, it was already present in the early church, as Paul’s letter to the Colossians seems to suggest. He’s just finished telling them that they don’t need to kowtow to the judgment of others who think they’re not spiritual enough, as if the mere observance of religious rituals would make them better or more acceptable people. It’s the cross of Jesus, not their religious behavior, that establishes their standing before God.

If those verses were all we had to go on, we could read the situation behind Paul’s words as one in which the Colossians were being pressured by people who were sincere but mistaken. But what he says next suggests something different:

Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. (Col 2:18, NIV)

What does Paul mean by “the worship of angels”? Nobody knows for sure. In both the Old and New Testaments, angels are the messengers of God, and some may have worshiped them. It’s also possible, however, to read Paul as referring to the worship that angels themselves offer to God — one thinks here of the vision of Isaiah in the temple (Isa 6:1-4), or the similar scene in Revelation 4. There were Jewish communities that encouraged the faithful to participate in the angels’ own worship.

But we don’t need to know exactly what this worship entails. Paul’s point isn’t that it’s wrong to worship angels; rather, he’s warning the Colossians not to be taken in by these worshipers’ false humility. Substitute some other spiritual or religious practice for the worship of angels, and the point would be the same.

What the New International Version translates as “false humility” is actually just the word “humility”; the translators insert the word “false” to fit the context, and rightfully so. You can imagine these people going on at length, perhaps about some angelic vision they’ve seen, trying to sound like they’re giving praise to God. But underneath, what they’re really saying is, “I’m special.”

And if they’re special, then others who haven’t had the same experience or who don’t engage in the same practices aren’t special, perhaps not even properly spiritual. The braggarts stand in judgment over others they deem to be less worthy. The NIV translates Paul as telling the Colossians not to let these people “disqualify” them; the word appears only this one time in the New Testament. Imagine a referee making the wrong call at the end of a game so that the wrong team wins; that’s the import of Paul’s accusation.

These folks would like others to believe that they’re humble and spiritual people who have the right to judge others, but they’re not. Indeed, Paul unsparingly paints them as vain, proud people whose beliefs are baseless and whose minds are “unspiritual” — literally, “of the flesh.” The Colossians, therefore, don’t need to worry about what they think.

. . .

CHANCES ARE, MANY if not most of us can probably remember a time in which we’ve engaged in humblebragging, whether in person or on social media. I know I have, trying to subtly steer a conversation around to something I’ve accomplished to get a bit of praise or admiration.

But I don’t want to send the message that anyone who does this is a horrible and unspiritual person. To believe that would tempt us to stand in judgment over others, which is not what Paul would want for the Colossians or for us. It would be better to admit that we all have our insecurities — including the uncertainty about whether we’re spiritual enough! — and to strive always to remember that our security lies in what God has done through Jesus on the cross.