A Badge of Servitude

Commenting on I Peter 5:5, Charles Ellicott gives us some interesting sidelights on the sense of this text in the Greek. He says that it literally means, “tie yourself up in humility.” In other words, we are to gather it around us like a cloak to shut out the blighting winds of pride. But there is a still more delicate shade of meaning to the word “humility.” Ellicott says it originally referred to “a peculiar kind of cape worn by slaves.” Thus it was “a badge of servitude.” This implies that humility is not a mere passive quality. It includes performing selflessly any task God assigns, and bringing forth spiritual fruit.

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