Boasting

Scripture treats boasting as a moral fault line. Vainglorious self-praise — the trader running down what he has just bought, the buyer congratulating himself, the man who promises tomorrow's profit, the gift-giver who never delivers — is set against a different kind of glorying that fixes its confidence outside the self. Yahweh's word is "Don't let the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, don't let the rich man glory in his riches" (Jer 9:23), and Paul's twin echo is "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Co 1:31; 2 Co 10:17).

Vainglorious Self-Praise

The Proverbs draw the picture of the everyday boaster. The buyer dismisses what he is buying — "It is bad, it is bad, says the buyer; But when he has gone his way, then he boasts" (Pr 20:14) — and the gift-giver who never delivers is "[As] clouds and wind without rain" (Pr 25:14). The presumption that runs forward into the calendar is rebuked the same way: "Don't boast yourself of tomorrow; For you don't know what a day may bring forth" (Pr 27:1). The remedy is set down in the next breath: "Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips" (Pr 27:2).

James locks the same instinct into a single image: "So the tongue also is a little member, and boasts great things. Look, how much wood is kindled by how small a fire!" (Jas 3:5). Among the Romans 1 catalogue of those given over to a reprobate mind, "boastful" stands alongside "backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty" (Ro 1:30). The Psalmist finds the same character among the wicked: "They gush out, they speak arrogantly: All the workers of iniquity boast themselves" (Ps 94:4).

The Boast Against Yahweh

Boasting becomes worst when the creature lifts his voice against the Creator. Goliath of Gath does it openly, walking out morning by morning to taunt Israel — "I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together" (1 Sa 17:10) — and turning on David himself: "Am I a dog, that you come to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods" (1 Sa 17:43). David answers with the kind of counter-boast Scripture sanctions: "You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied... that all this assembly may know that Yahweh does not save with sword and spear: for the battle is Yahweh's" (1 Sa 17:45, 47).

Ben-hadad of Syria sends the like word against Samaria — "if the dust of Samaria will suffice for handfuls for all the people who follow me" (1 Ki 20:10) — and Israel's king answers with the proverb: "Don't let him who girds on [his armor] boast himself as he who puts it off" (1 Ki 20:11).

Sennacherib's Rabshakeh stands beneath the wall of Jerusalem: "Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this in which you trust?... [There is] counsel and strength for the war" (2 Ki 18:19-20). Isaiah reports the inner speech behind the embassy — "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I have understanding" (Is 10:13), "Isn't Calno as Carchemish? Isn't Hamath as Arpad? Isn't Samaria as Damascus?" (Is 10:9) — and answers it with the figure of the tool: "Will the ax boast itself against him who cuts with it? Will the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?" (Is 10:15). Yahweh's verdict on the Assyrian is, "I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks" (Is 10:12).

Nebuchadnezzar walks his roof and says, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" (Da 4:30). Belshazzar, his heir, is told plainly: "you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven" (Da 5:22-23). Doeg the Edomite stands under the same accusation in David's psalm: "Why do you boast yourself in mischief, O mighty man? The loving-kindness of God [endures] continually" (Ps 52:1).

Presuming on Tomorrow

James gathers up Pr 27:1 into a single rebuke for traders who plot the future: "Come now, you⁺ who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and will gain: whereas you⁺ don't know what will be on the next day. What is your⁺ life? For you⁺ are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. Instead you⁺ ought to say, If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that. But now you⁺ glory in your⁺ vauntings: all such glorying is evil" (Jas 4:13-16).

Boasting Excluded by the Gospel

Where salvation is gift, every boast is silenced at the root. The wealthy "boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; None [of them] can by any means redeem his brother, Nor give to God a ransom for him" (Ps 49:6-7) — the price is too high for any human boast to reach. Paul presses the same logic into his preaching of the cross: "God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame those who are wise... that no flesh should glory before God" (1 Co 1:27-29). The closing line, "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Co 1:31), is the apostolic citation of Jer 9:23-24 — "but let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving-kindness, justice, and righteousness" (Jer 9:24).

The same exclusion governs Ephesians: "for by grace you⁺ have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; not of works, that no man should boast" (Eph 2:8-9). It governs Paul's reproof of the Corinthians who pit Apollos against him: "what do you have that you did not receive? But if you did receive it, why do you glory as if you had not received it?" (1 Co 4:7).

To the Gentile believer tempted to look down on the broken-off branches of Israel, Paul writes: "do not glory over the branches: but if you glory, it is not you that bear the root, but the root you... by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don't be highminded, but fear: for if God didn't spare the natural branches, lest neither will he spare you" (Ro 11:18, 20-21).

Glorying in Yahweh

The thread that holds this article together is the converse boast — the boast Scripture commands. The Psalter sets it as a steady note: "My soul will make her boast in [the Speech of] Yahweh: The meek will hear of it, and be glad" (Ps 34:2); "In [the Speech of] God we have made our boast all the day long, And we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah" (Ps 44:8). The prophet locks redemption to it: "In the [Speech] of Yahweh will all the seed of Israel be justified, and will glory" (Is 45:25). The covenant conscience repeats it: "if you bear the name of a Jew, and rest on the law, and glory in God" (Ro 2:17) — though Paul's argument in Romans 2-3 turns to show that God strips the boast from Jew and Gentile alike, leaving "He who glories, let him glory in the Lord" (1 Co 1:31; 2 Co 10:17).

Paul's Reluctant Glorying

Paul takes up the language of boasting only because the Corinthian rivals force his hand. "We are not bold to number or compare ourselves with certain of those who commend themselves: but they themselves, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves with themselves, are without understanding" (2 Co 10:12). His own glorying is bounded — "we will not glory beyond [our] measure, but according to the measure of the province which God apportioned to us" (2 Co 10:13) — and his rule of approval is external: "For [it is] not he who commends himself [who] is approved, but whom the Lord commends" (2 Co 10:18).

When pressed, he turns the categories upside-down. The list of his sufferings — five times forty stripes less one, three beatings with rods, stoning, three shipwrecks, perils of rivers and robbers and Gentiles and false brothers, hunger and cold and the daily anxiety for all the churches (2 Co 11:24-28) — is not a credentials boast but the opposite: "If I must surely glory, I will glory of the things that concern my weakness" (2 Co 11:30). The escape from Damascus in a basket through the wall (2 Co 11:33) is filed under the same heading.

The vision of the third heaven is told in the third person — "On behalf of such a one I will glory: but on my own behalf I will not glory, except in [my] weaknesses" (2 Co 12:5) — and the thorn in the flesh is given precisely to keep the apostle from being "exalted too much" (2 Co 12:7). The Lord's answer is, "My grace is sufficient for you: for [my] power is made perfect in weakness," and Paul's gloss inverts the boasts the canon rebukes: "Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions and distresses, for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Co 12:9-10). The whole exercise embarrasses him — "I have become foolish: you⁺ compelled me" (2 Co 12:11) — but he insists on it because the alternative is to surrender the Corinthian conscience to "those who commend themselves" (2 Co 10:12).

A Lesson on Joy

The seventy-two return to Jesus with the same instinct the Old Testament rebukes: "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name" (Lu 10:17). His correction is to relocate their boast: "Nevertheless don't rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you⁺; but rejoice that your⁺ names are written in heaven" (Lu 10:20). The pattern is steady from Jeremiah to the gospels — knowledge of Yahweh, and the gift of his loving-kindness, is the ground Scripture leaves open for glorying.