Daily Bible Reading 19th October 2026 // Luke 14:7-11
7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honour, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person’, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
It is a remarkable thing that people who are greatly gifted are often the humblest of men; it is generally those not so gifted and who overestimate their abilities that make a parade of themselves. This is a pattern seen in many walks of life. The real aristocrat is not a snob; it is the would-be social climber that gives himself airs. And there is such a thing as spiritual snobbery also. This has been called by other names, with great effectiveness, as may be seen from the following quotation from G.K. Chesterton's Essay on Vulgarity: 'There is the man who wishes first to prove that he is a gentleman, and only proves two things; first, that he is vulgar enough to prefer being a gentleman to being a man; and second, that he has a hideously stunted and half-witted notion even of being a gentleman. There is the man who wishes to show that he has lived in the best society; and shows even in showing it that he does not know the best society from the worst.... There is the man who tells stories of the wonderful affability and friendliness of very rich men he has known, and thereby reveals his secret religion - that rich men are gods and that he is a fortunate favourite of the gods. All these men have the mark that I call for convenience vulgar; the mark that they give us their own moral and spiritual measure by stretching themselves to their full stature. If they have been a little lax and casual and humble, we might never have found them out. If they had not been so clever, we might never have known that they were fools. If they had not been so gentlemanly, we should not have seen that they were cads.' How different, by contrast, are Paul's words in Philippians 2:3, 4, 20, 21!