We are told that pride is an essential element to making things better. We should have school pride, community pride, and personal pride.
In the Bible, however, pride is often seen as a corrosive personality trait, something to be avoided. What the Bible means by pride (when seen negatively) is similar to boastful arrogance (James 4:16). It is likened to vanity or vainglory, a distorted sense of one’s value and importance in the world (Philippians 2:3). Pride can even be related to envy, covetousness or greed—the belief that your desires are more important than those of others are (Romans 1:29).
Those to whom James wrote apparently had problems with pride; they lacked humility. Many Christians and churches today suffer the same condition, so James’s words are timely and vital to us.
The people turned to fighting and waging war to satisfy their own desires and ambitions. They did not turn to God to ask for what they desired. They sought to obtain their desires by their own means. Any petition to God was rooted in hedonism—self-satisfaction, pleasure seeking and a desire for power or position.
