Boasting in the Bible: When God Condemns It and When He Allows It
- Jack Selcher
- Sep 8, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Jan 29
Summary
The Bible strongly condemns self-centered boasting rooted in pride, insecurity, or control. Such boasting ignores God’s gifts and invites judgment. Yet Scripture allows boasting that gives glory to God for what He has done in and through His people. Salvation removes all grounds for self-praise, while godly boasting highlights Christ’s work, transformed lives, perseverance, generosity, and grace, always ensuring that God alone receives the glory He deserves.
A Lesson in Pride Remembered
My eighth-grade history teacher asked a student a question. He could not answer it. I raised my hand. I answered it correctly.
Then I pointed to my head in braggadocio fashion. A few minutes later, the teacher asked me a question.
I did not know the answer. Then she pointed to her head—imitating my behavior moments earlier. That is all I remember about her class that year. I deserved that!
Boasting Versus Faith
Boasting and earning God’s favor through performance are closely related. “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith” (Romans 3:27 NIV).
The Pharisees’ Religious Pride
Boasting is compatible with the law that requires works, but not with the law that requires faith. The Pharisees were religious boasters—overflowing with spiritual pride.
They wore symbols of their religious fervor. They attached portions of the Old Testament to their forehead and left arms.
When Spiritual Achievement Replaces God
They trumpeted their religious accomplishments. They got high marks in religious rule-keeping. But Jesus saw through them.
“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long” (Matthew 23:5 NIV). Meanwhile, they harbored treachery in their hearts against Him. They resisted God’s work in their midst.
We must be careful not to repeat their error. We can use our spiritual accomplishments to try to impress God and others with our goodness. That puts the spotlight on us, where it should not be.
Spiritual stagnation, disunity, pride, and boasting occur in the church when we place our rules and standards ahead of God’s rule in our hearts.
Faith Alone, Not Performance
It is about our motives. Are we trying to exalt Jesus or ourselves? Are we trying to justify ourselves? Are we resting our whole weight on God’s justifying us by faith?
Boasting Only in the Lord in the Christian Life
Jesus directed His harshest words at those who tried to impress others with their goodness (Matthew 23:13-33). We fall far short of Jesus’ sinless life. We have nothing to boast about there. “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord” (2 Corinthians 10:17 NIV).
Romans 3:27-31 repeats “By faith,” “of faith,” and “through faith” four times. It is talking about living faith. Such faith works. Dead faith does not.
God declares us righteous because of our faith alone. No merit is involved. God does not allow boasting (Ephesians 2:9). However, true faith is never alone. It always produces good works.
Faith establishes a relationship with God. He wants us to know Him intimately and trust Him completely. He wants our freely offered love and obedience.
He judges religious boasters who move forward by patting themselves on the back. He judges people who glory in their goodness. He judges those whose dead faith helps no one.
Spiritual pride earns God’s wrath. Our life is to be all about Him, not us. Boasting has no place.
Boasters praise themselves extravagantly and speak of themselves with excessive pride.1 They inflate a Praise Me balloon with helium and suspend it for all to see. An unintended consequence is that many people try to shoot it down because that balloon in their faces makes them feel smaller.
What Boasting Reveals About the Heart
Pride or a big ego is sometimes behind boasting, but poor social skills, social anxiety, or low self-esteem may also trigger it. Some types of boasting are obvious, whereas others are more subtle.2 Let’s look at how the Bible portrays various aspects of boasting.
Does the Bible Always Condemn Boasting
Does the Bible universally condemn boasting? It surprised me to discover that the Apostle Paul boasts more than any other biblical character. In this blog, we will first consider what the Bible teaches about self-centered boasting and then different kinds of boasting in the next blog.
Self-Centered Boasting Offends God
The Bible universally condemns self-centered boasting. Glorying in our accomplishments upsets God (Judges 7:2) because it ignores His gifts that made them possible. “For what gives you the right to make such a judgment? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?” (1 Corinthians 4:7 NLT).
God's gifts enable everything we do. We have nothing to brag about. Wise people glorify the Giver and not their gifts.
Boasting in Power, Wealth, or Wisdom
Wise, strong, or rich people should not boast in their wisdom, strength, or riches but that they know the Lord who delights in kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth (Jeremiah 9:23–24). Being humble is associated with listening and paying attention to the Lord, glorifying Him, and acknowledging Him.
Pride and Boasting Go Hand in Hand
Pride is associated with arrogance and boasting, forgetting God, and worshipping substitutes for God (Jeremiah 13:20). Pride and insolence are futile. They accomplish nothing (Jeremiah 48:30).
Historical Examples of Destructive Boasting
Haman boasted about his wealth, his many sons, and how the king had honored him. He revealed his “I” problems (Esther 5:11). Boasters usually are all wrapped up in themselves (Revelation 18:7).
The spotlight must always be on them. They pursue personal glory in a God-centered universe (Acts 8:9). How supremely dysfunctional! Instead of glorifying God’s goodness, they revile the Lord and boast about the evil cravings of their hearts (Psalm 10:3).
It is especially foolish to boast of accomplishments before rather than after achieving them (1 Kings 20:11). Those who boast about an uncertain future behave as though they can make it certain when they can’t (Proverbs 27:1).
Ammon boasted of its agricultural accomplishments and riches and imagined it was invulnerable to attack (Jeremiah 49:4). Edom boasted it would take possession of Israel and Judah as if God had no say. God punished them for their proud boasting (Ezekiel 35:13).
Israel boasted about the wealth gained through deceitful practices (Hosea 12:8). Conversely, it bragged about its religious devotion while living far from the Lord (Amos 4:5).
Boasting About the Future Is Foolish
Boasting about our future self-serving plans, we think we can independently carry out is evil. It excludes God from the equation. It is living as if God doesn’t exist (James 4:16).
Boasters act like they are in control of life and accountable to no one (Psalm 12:3). The psalmist asked God to silence such people.
The arrogant exalt themselves instead of God. Pride and boasting are connected (Psalm 75:4, Psalm 94:4).
Moab was proud, arrogant, and conceited. Her empty pride oozed like pus from those self-glorying characteristics (Isaiah 16:6).
Edom gloated, rejoiced, and spoke arrogantly when its Israelite relatives were exiled to distant lands (Obadiah 1:12). Boasting is associated with arrogance and resisting God’s word and ways (Romans 1:30). God will judge proud, arrogant, and haughty people.
Boasting and Moral Corruption
Note that the proud, boastful spirit keeps bad company. “For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God” (2 Timothy 3:2-4 NLT). There is nothing praiseworthy about any of that.
Pride is an “I know better than you do” attitude. It underlies self-centered boasting and launches the wrong use of the tongue, which causes catastrophic damage (James 3:5).
The worst kind of boasting is boasting about evil by those who love evil rather than good and lies rather than truth (Psalm 52:1). In the same category are those who boast about idols rather than the Creator of the heavens and earth (Psalm 97:7). The Bible universally condemns self-centered boasting. Religious boasting can be either good or bad.
Religious Boasting Is Especially Dangerous
Religious boasting is as hazardous as walking through a minefield. It is usually a symptom of spiritual self-elevation. Motivation is significant.
Spiritual pride blossoms in the garden of spiritual comparison. That is perilous because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).
Those who boast about their religious achievements, prowess, and fastidiousness often dishonor God by not following His words and ways (Romans 2:23). For example, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3 NLT).
Salvation Eliminates All Self-Boasting
Those who imagine they are acceptable to God based on their good works and boast about them are deluded. No one comes up to God’s “good” standard except Jesus. Good enough to go to heaven is a fictional category (Romans 4:2).
People come into right standing with God only through trust in the grace that sent His Son to take our place on the cross. That excludes boasting about what we have done to earn God’s favor (Romans 3:27).
Salvation is not based on good works. If it were, those performing them would get the glory (Ephesians 2:9), and that won’t happen.
God didn’t choose the powerful or wealthy. He chose the things the world considers foolish, powerless, and despised to nullify what the world thinks is important. Since that describes us, we have nothing to boast about in God’s presence (1 Corinthians 1:29).
The Corinthians boasted about freedom from moral restraints because of God’s grace. They allowed a man in their midst to sin flagrantly (1 Corinthians 5:6). Such boasting misses the point that believers must live for the One who died for them and not for themselves (2 Corinthians 5:15).
Bragging about acts of religious devotion reflects self-centeredness. Good deeds are worthless unless love motivates them. If love motivates them, why brag about them? Love is other-centered. That eliminates self-centered pride and boasting (1 Corinthians 13:3–4).
When Boasting Is Legitimate
Conversely, pride and boasting about what God has accomplished through us in the lives of others is legitimate. So is what God has done for us through His grace flowing through others (2 Corinthians 1:14). The Apostle Paul frequently engages in such boasting.
Paul is proud of what the Lord has done in the lives of believers in Corinth (1 Corinthians 15:31). He boasted of their spiritual transformation to Titus (2 Corinthians 7:14).
Paul was proud of the willingness of the Corinthians to give to meet the needs of the believers in Jerusalem and boasted about it to the Macedonians (2 Corinthians 9:2). Paul told the Corinthians that his boasting about them would be hollow if they didn’t follow through by giving to the believers in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 9:3).
Paul boasted about the authority the Lord gave him to establish and build up the church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 10:8, 13). He did so to defend his apostolic authority in the face of false teachers there who questioned it. He wasn’t glorifying himself but protecting the ministry God had given Him.
Giving God the Glory in All Boasting
Paul’s effective service empowered others to boast in Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:26). He wanted to boast on the day of Christ about what God has done through him in the lives of the Philippian believers (Philippians 2:16).
The opposite of boasting in Christ Jesus was trusting what he could do apart from Him (Philippians 3:3). Paul didn’t do that. Ultimately, God got the glory.
Paul boasted to other churches about the perseverance and faith of the Thessalonians amid much opposition (2 Thessalonians 1:4). The principle is that boasting is legitimate when it is about what God has done in and through us, and He gets the glory. We must be careful how we share with others what God has done through and for us so that He gets the glory He deserves.
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