Humility by Andrew Murray Summary: All 12 Chapters Explained
Andrew Murray's Humility: The Beauty of Holiness (1895) is a short book of twelve meditations with one big claim: humility is not one virtue among many. It is the right place of a creature before God, the thing Jesus came to give back to us, and the ground every other grace grows from. Most of us think of humility as feeling bad about our sins. Murray says that is too small. We are to be humble first because we are creatures, then because we are sinners, and finally because we are saints who have been loved beyond measure.
The whole book takes about two hours to read. You can read Humility free in TheWay Library, and every chapter below links straight to its page in the reader.
The preface: three reasons to be humble
In the preface, Murray names three motives for humility. It becomes us as creatures, as sinners and as saints. He says Christian teaching has leaned almost entirely on the second, so that some people think they must keep sinning to stay humble. He sets out to correct that by giving most of his attention to the humility that belongs to us simply as creatures, apart from sin.
It is not sin that humbles most, but grace, and … it is the soul, led through its sinfulness to be occupied with God in His wonderful glory as God, as Creator and Redeemer, that will truly take the lowest place before Him.
Humility, Preface
He also admits he is amazed at how little humility is sought as the mark of a disciple, even among people who talk a great deal about holiness.
Chapter 1: Humility, the Glory of the Creature
Chapter 1 lays the foundation. God made creatures so He could share His goodness with them, but they never hold that goodness on their own. A creature lives in complete dependence on God every moment. So humility is not something extra we bring to God. It is just the truth about who we are. Pride, the loss of that dependence, is what turned angels into devils and led Adam and Eve to fall. Jesus came to restore humility to the earth.
Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all.
Humility, chapter 1
Chapter 2: Humility, the Secret of Redemption
Chapter 2 repeats one line three times.
No tree can grow except on the root from which it sprang.
Humility, chapter 2
Our life from the first Adam is rooted in the pride the serpent breathed into Eve. Our new life from the Second Adam is rooted in Christ, and the heart of Christ's character is humility: in His incarnation, His servant life, His death and His exaltation. Murray asks readers to look honestly at how much unkindness, sharp judgment and touchiness in the church comes from pride.
Chapter 3: The Humility of Jesus
Chapter 3 turns to the Gospel of John, where Jesus says again and again that He does nothing of Himself, seeks not His own will and receives not glory from men. Murray lists eleven of these sayings. Their meaning is simple: Jesus gave Himself wholly to the Father to work through Him, and He found that life to be one of peace and joy. Because He was humble before God, He could be humble before men and be the servant of all. The chapter ends with a pointed question.
Brother, are you clothed with humility? Ask your daily life. Ask Jesus. Ask your friends. Ask the world.
Humility, chapter 3
Chapter 4: Humility in the Teaching of Jesus
Chapter 4 walks through nine passages where Jesus taught humility: the Beatitudes, "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly," the child set among the disciples, the request of Zebedee's sons, the parables about chief seats and the Pharisee and the publican, the washing of feet, and the argument at the Last Supper. Murray sums it up as a call to go lower and lower. Our part is to humble ourselves. Lifting us up is God's part.
Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.
Humility, chapter 4
Chapter 5: Humility in the Disciples of Jesus
In chapter 5, Murray looks at the twelve. They loved Jesus, left everything and were ready to die with Him, yet they kept arguing about who was greatest, right up to the Last Supper. He draws three lessons. There can be much earnest religion where humility is missing. No teaching or effort, not even three years with Jesus, can cast out pride. And only Christ living within, as He came at Pentecost, makes us truly humble.
Chapter 6: Humility in Daily Life
Chapter 6 brings the subject home. Humility before God is proved only by humility toward people. Murray gathers Paul's commands to the churches about preferring one another, serving one another and forbearing one another. The humble man feels no jealousy when others are praised. He counts every believer, even the weakest, as a child of the King. Murray even suggests seeing the person who tries your patience as a means of grace God has sent you.
To know the humble man, to know how the humble man behaves, you must follow him in the common course of daily life.
Humility, chapter 6
Chapter 7: Humility and Holiness
Chapter 7 speaks to the holiness movement of Murray's day. He praises God for it, then warns that the test of real holiness is whether it makes us humbler. The Pharisee can enter the temple wearing the publican's clothes.
Jesus the Holy One is the humble One: the holiest will ever be the humblest.
Humility, chapter 7
The pride of holiness, he says, is the most dangerous pride of all because it is the hardest to see.
Chapter 8: Humility and Sin
Chapter 8 takes up Paul, who called himself the chief of sinners. Murray points out that Paul's letters contain sharp memories of his past sin but almost no confession of daily failure. Paul's humility came from grace that never let him forget he was a saved sinner. Self-condemnation alone cannot make us humble.
Not to be occupied with thy sin, but to be occupied with God, brings deliverance from self.
Humility, chapter 8
Chapter 9: Humility and Faith
Chapter 9 rests on the words of Jesus in John 5:44.
How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?
John 5:44
Murray compares the blessings of the Christian life to goods behind a shop window: visible but out of reach. The glass is pride. Faith is the confession that we can do nothing, so pride and faith cannot live together. The centurion and the Canaanite woman, the two people Jesus praised for great faith, were also deeply humble.
Chapter 10: Humility and Death to Self
Chapter 10 answers the question "How can I die to self?" Murray's answer is that death to self is God's work, already done in the death of Jesus and made real by the Holy Spirit. Our part is to humble ourselves, accept every humiliation and sink into helpless dependence on God.
Humility is the blossom of which death to self is the perfect fruit.
Humility, chapter 10
Chapter 11: Humility and Happiness
Chapter 11 tells the story of Paul's thorn in the flesh. At first Paul asked for it to be taken away. After the Lord's answer, he gloried in his weakness. Murray says every Christian passes through those two stages: first fleeing whatever humbles us, then taking pleasure in it, because that is where Christ's power rests.
We shall find that the deepest humility is the secret of the truest happiness, of a joy that nothing can destroy.
Humility, chapter 11
Chapter 12: Humility and Exaltation
Chapter 12 answers someone who asked Murray how to conquer pride. His reply has two parts. Do what God says is your work: humble yourself. Trust God to do what He says is His work: He will exalt you. The exaltation is not a prize from outside. It is more of God Himself filling an emptied vessel. The book closes with the picture of a speck of dust in the sunlight, small and lost in the light of God's love.
The notes and the prayer
The notes at the end are mostly long passages from William Law, whom Murray admired, on pride, humility and dying to self. They end with Law's suggestion to spend a month praying one prayer: that God would take every kind of pride out of your heart.
Where to go next
If you want the lines worth underlining, see our collection of Andrew Murray's humility quotes. Murray took up the same themes of self-emptying and dependence in a later book; read our summary of Absolute Surrender and our article on what absolute surrender means. Then open Humility: The Beauty of Holiness and read a chapter a day. It's twelve days well spent.