One Sunday in church it was mentioned that in Obadiah, Edom's sin was pride, and God was going to bring them down. We started to look at pride and how "God resisteth the proud" (James 4:6), and then someone said that their Bible says in James 1:9 that the Christian should be proud ("take pride in his high position"). Well, neeless to say, I was a little confused with that, but I decided to go home and look it up. Please bear with me.

1. There are three Greek words in the New Testament for "pride":

1) ALAZONIA. "pride", "boast", or "vainglory" as in 1John 2:16.

 

2) HUPEREPHANIA. "pride", "haughty" as in Mark 7:22.

 

3) TUPHOO. "lifted up with pride", "puffed up" as in 1Tim 3:6.

When you look at these verses and the use of the word "pride" in it's proper context, you see that pride is not referred to in the New Testament (and I would say the whole Bible) as a good thing. God doesn't tell us to be proud, He tells us to "glory" or "boast"... and yes, these words are different than "pride" in the Greek.

The word used in James 1:9 is KAUCHAOMAI - "to boast" or "glory". To understand this word fully, read it in its context in Gal 6:14 where it is properly translated. To say that I have "pride" in the cross of Christ doesn't sound quite right, and indeed, God doesn't want his children to be prideful as we see in other passages.

This translation of "KAUCHAOMAI" and the various Greek words for "pride" holds true with both the Majority Text manuscripts and the Minority Text manuscripts. The word is just translated wrong (as pride) in the NIV.

I believe that God has given us His word in our language, so I don't really rely too much on the Hebrew and Greek texts. I think that what we have is preserved for us; but when faced with a multiplicity of Bible versions, one must sometimes resort to the original languages to settle a matter or it would just be "my Bible says this" and "but my Bible says this". It can be proven through study which version is correct.

-Richard Bostock