Should we boast? My inclination is to say “no.” There are numerous warnings against pride and calls for humility for the people of God in the Bible. Pride is generally ugly and boasting is usually irritating.

That’s why a lot of people, if they don’t already know it, will be surprised to learn that the Bible actually tells us to boast.

In I Corinthians 1:31 the Apostle Paul paraphrases Jeremiah 9:24, “Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord’.” Before this quotation Paul reminds his readers that when they became Christians they were not in the upper class. In the second part of verse 26 he writes, “Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.” But in spite of that, and because they had no reason to boast, God chose them. But now that they are in Christ, if they are going to boast, they should boast in the Lord.

To get a better grasp of what is being said, I think it is helpful to review the context and fuller statement of Jeremiah from which Paul borrows. Jeremiah 9:23 tells us the LORD says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches.” It reminds me of what Paul told the Corinthians they were lacking when they became Christians.

But then in Jeremiah 9:24 Jeremiah continues, “but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.” That sounds like the reasoning Paul gave for God choosing the Corinthians.

So we know what we aren’t to boast about (and not everything that we are not to boast about is listed in Jeremiah 9:23), and what we are to boast about: God, who He is, and that we know him. But I don’t think that means we are to be smug about it, but that our boasting is to be humble and not self-serving.

As Christians we do know God, but we don’t know or understand everything about him. To act and talk like we do is not the kind of boasting the Bible calls for.

Last week I was working on a Bible study I am teaching and in my preparation came across a quote by Frederick Dale Bruner I had underlined when I first read the book in 2013. In the book THE HOLY SPIRIT: Shy Member of the Trinity Bruner notes there is an attitude that “is confident that, in at least some divine matters, it has the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Hence, it is prepared to cast into the outer darkness all who do not agree with it” (p. 67). I’m confident that is not what God, Jeremiah, or Paul meant when suggesting we boast in the Lord.

Have you ever been confident that you had the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about God? I have, and I was wrong.

Should we boast? Yes; but if we boast we should do so with and in a spirit of humility.

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