pride before a fall

If there’s ever a word that has been hijacked and twisted by our culture, it is “pride”.   It is time to get back to basics

My mother used to quote scripture across the kitchen table. One of the verses frequently quoted was “pride comes before a fall”, paraphrasing Proverbs 16:18: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”. We need to focus on this reality of ‘pride’. Let’s ignore ‘haughty spirit’ as it is virtually the same thing. If you are proud then you tend to have a haughty spirit. Haughty comes from the word ‘high’ – haughty people look down on others. Haughtiness and pride are really two sides of the same coin. ‘Destruction’ and a ‘fall’, of course, are two things we should avoid. Destruction means loss. A fall means injury.