Red Carpet Syndrome

April 7, 2011 CNN reported that Alan Iverson, former NBA star, was a passenger in his own car when a Georgia police officer pulled them over. The documented exchange between Iverson and the officer revealed in one statement this “red carpet syndrome.” He said, “Do you know who I am?” Red Carpet Syndrome. Everything is about me and how I am treated. This statement shows true weakness in character and is the opposite of meekness. We live in a culture that is all about self-assertion. So what is meekness? I couldn’t state it any better than Marvin Vincent in his Word Studies.* Don’t just read this once. Read it as many times as you need to let it soak in your mind. You will see that meekness is living out how you view yourself in comparison to God.

“The meekness of the Christian springs from a sense of the inferiority of the creature to the Creator, and especially of the sinful creature to the holy God. While, therefore, the pagan quality is redolent of self-assertion, the Christian quality carries the flavor of self-abasement. As toward God, therefore, meekness accepts his dealings without murmur or resistance as absolutely good and wise. As toward man, it accepts opposition, insult, and provocation, as God’s permitted ministers of a chastening demanded by the infirmity and corruption of sin; while, under this sense of his own sinfulness, the meek bears patiently ‘the contradiction of sinners against himself,’ forgiving and restoring the erring in a spirit of meekness, considering himself, lest he also be tempted (see Gal. 6:1–5).”

Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

*Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 2002), Mt 5:5.