Matthew 20:24-28
These verses are few in number, but they contain lessons of great importance to all professing Christians. Let us see what they are.
In the first place we learn, that there may be pride, jealousy and love of preeminence even among true disciples of Christ. What saith the Scripture? When the ten heard what James and John had asked, “they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.”
Pride is one of the oldest and most mischievous of sins: by it the angels fell, for they “kept not their first estate.” (Jude 6). Through pride Adam and Eve were seduced into eating the forbidden fruit: they were not content with their lot, and thought they would be “as gods.” From pride the saints of God receive their greatest injuries after their conversion. Well says Hooker, “Pride is a vice which cleaveth so fast unto the hearts of men that if we were to strip ourselves of all faults one by one, we should undoubtedly find it the very last and hardest to put off.” It is a quaint but true saying of Bishop Hall, that “pride is the inmost coat, which we put off last, and which we put on first.”