This is the second of seven core characteristics of Jesus we’ve been called to imitate and thus disciple our kids toward using the ACT Bible Study Method. Learn more about this family discipleship method here.

TLDR: We see the humility of Jesus most clearly not in the details of his birth, but that he was born at all. This mind-boggling humility of Jesus is what we want our kids to imitate.

Nearly every detail of Jesus’ birth whispers humility. Some shout it. The King of kings wasn’t born in a palace surrounded by a royal court of subjects, but rather in a stable surrounded by animals. Even had there been room in Bethlehem’s “inn” (Luke 2:7), it wouldn’t have been the ancient equivalent of the Hyatt. Or even a Motel 6. It would have been more of a public shelter with several families sharing a space. But even that environment wouldn’t have rightly conveyed the jarring disconnect of the Creator taking on a creature’s flesh. Instead, the Son of God was born in a stable, not necessarily because of the poverty of Mary and Joseph, but merely to show the depth to which God would go to redeem humanity. The Savior of the world was then not even laid in a crib, but a manger (or feeding trough), further accenting his humble origin. We’d be right to recoil at seeing any child laid on an animal’s dinner plate. But to see the Son of God lying there is beyond comprehension. Or at least it should be.

Jesus’ first guests, then, wouldn’t be from royalty or even the upper class (they would come later, and surprisingly be Gentiles). Rather the first people to welcome Jesus into the world were shepherds (Luke 2:8–20). Some see the shepherds as representing the outcasts and sinners of society. The thinking is shepherds were lowly regarded in that day. But the evidence to support this isn’t terribly strong. It might be safer to understand these shepherds as representing most of us—ordinary people without positions of power and privilege. These shepherds mirrored the child they came to see—the Son of God who laid aside his privileges in heaven and his position of authority to be born in such an ordinary, lowly state.

Jesus’ Stepping into Creation

These details of Jesus’ birth are shocking, but, again, they weren’t needed to convey his humility. That Jesus was born at all is the ultimate evidence. The Son of God could have been born in the most luxurious of conditions and it still would have been the supreme example of selflessness and humility. This is what Paul wants to show us in Philippians:

⁵ You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had,

⁶ who though he existed in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
⁷ but emptied himself
by taking on the form of a slave,
by looking like other men,
and by sharing in human nature.
⁸ He humbled himself,
by becoming obedient to the point of death
—even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:5–8 (NET)

Humility Is Empty-Handedness

Let’s briefly walk through this rich passage that many scholars believe was a hymn or poem used in worship by the early church. First, notice that Christ “did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped” (v. 6).¹ What this doesn’t mean is that Jesus had trouble understanding his equality with the Father and the Spirit. Here, “grasped” isn’t a synonym for “understood.” Instead, it means to “grab” or “hold onto” as the New Living Translation (“as something to cling to”) and International Children’s Bible (“something to be held on to”) make plain. God the Son could have “held on to” his position of authority in heaven with the God the Father and God the Spirit, but he did not. He let that go and came to earth. This is what the next phrase talks about: Jesus “emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature” (v. 7).

Humility Is Lowliness

“Emptying” is another challenging concept in this hymn. Once again, it’s helpful to begin with what we know it’s not saying—that Jesus stopped being God. Jesus is the Son of God. He has always been the Son of God and always will be the Son of God. As such, he is fully God and can be no less. The problem is that when we think of emptying, we think of loss. And for good reason—that’s its normal use. If your gas tank needle is on “empty” it means you have run out of gas. You had gas, but now you don’t. If your coffee mug is empty, it means you have run out of coffee. Deep, distressing loss there. But that isn’t the idea of “emptying” in Philippians 2. How do we know? Because of the little word “by” that follows it. “By” points us to cause—how something happened. “I became rich by not spending any money.” “I drove to Nashville by I-24.” So here, we see that Jesus emptied himself not by losing something, but by adding something—human flesh. In this case, addition leads to loss, not gain. And again, what is it that Jesus lost? His position of authority and glory in heaven next to the Father. Jesus left sitting on a glorious throne to lie in a filthy manger.

Humility Is Sacrifice

As if all of this isn’t enough, the hymn moves from one end of his life to the other, jumping from Jesus’ birth to his death, to provide perhaps an even more profound demonstration of his humility. Jesus “humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (v. 8). This is humility heaped upon humility. For the Son of God to take on the flesh and become human is one thing. For him then to live as a servant is another. To have him give his life as a sacrifice is still another. But to have him give his life as a sacrifice on a cross—the lowliest and most painful of deaths reserved for slaves and insurrectionists—was nothing but scandalous. From start to finish, Jesus’ time on earth was marked by profound humility.

As we talk with our kids about humility, we need to set a high bar for what it means. To imitate Christ’s humility is not to downplay ourselves; it’s to die to ourselves. We need to banish any and every barrier that would limit living as servants. No job is too menial, no environment too vile, and no person too unimportant. Our very lives are not our own. Each day we live, we are to live with Christlike humility as we imitate the weakness and strength of the cross.

NEXT: The Compassion of Jesus

1. This idea of “to be grasped” is a challenging phrase to translate from the original Greek it was written in. The Christian Standard Bible (CSB) prefers “to be exploited.” It’s predecessor, the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB), translated this phrase as “to be used for his own advantage,” which the New International Version (NIV) also reads. Holman Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2009); The Holy Bible, New International Version (Colorado Springs, CO: Biblica, Inc., 2011). ↩︎

This is the first of seven core characteristics of Jesus we’ve been called to imitate and thus disciple our kids toward using the ACT Bible Study Method. Learn more about this family discipleship method here.

TLDR: Jesus loves us with a humble, sacrificial, scandalous love. It is a love without bounds. This is the love we have been given and the love we are to help our kids give to others.

The Passover meal Jesus shared with his disciples in the upper room just hours before his arrest began in a shocking way. God incarnate took off his outer clothing, tied a towel around himself, and washed his disciples’ feet (see John 13:1–20).

Washing someone’s feet was one of the lowliest acts of that day. We might recoil at the idea of washing another person’s feet because we don’t see feet as being that pleasant. They can smell less than ideal at times. But what we think of as unpleasant and aromatically challenging pales in comparison to what feet were like in ancient Israel. Remember people wore sandals then—or perhaps walked with bare feet. And they didn’t walk on paved sidewalks or plush grass, but rather on dirty streets and paths. It wasn’t just a matter of their feet getting muddy, though. There were animals around, too. Lots of animals. Doing what lots of animals do after eating and doing it wherever those animals needed to do it. You get the idea. Back then, feet weren’t just unpleasant; they were disgusting.

When you were invited to a gathering in that day, you would have likely bathed beforehand. You would have been sparklingly clean…at least for a moment. Once you left your home or the public bathing facility, you would have dirtied your feet on the walk. By the time you arrived where you were going, you would have been clean above the ankles or calves, but dirty—filthy maybe—beneath them.

Then, we have to account for the posture people assumed when eating. They didn’t sit at a raised table in chairs (sorry, da Vinci). They would have laid down on their left sides at an angle from a barely raised table on the ground. The result was that someone else’s feet could have been pretty close to your head while you ate. Thus, a good host would have provided for the washing of his guests’ feet when they arrived. The host, however, wouldn’t have washed them himself. That would have positioned him in a posture of dishonor before his guests. Nor would he have required his guests to wash their own feet or those of each other. Again, that was dishonoring. Instead, a slave would have been summoned to wash everyone’s feet. But not just any slave, the lowliest of slaves.

Getting back to Jesus’ supper with his disciples, it seems that no slave was around to wash anyone’s feet when they arrived. Instead, they all reclined at the table and began the meal with dirty feet. Until Jesus took care of it. For a higher-ranking servant to wash feet would have been noticeable. For one of the disciples to wash the feet of his peers would have been remarkable. But for Christ, the Master, to wash his servants’ feet…well, that was just unthinkable.

Humility…and More

An amazing act of humility, right? Without a doubt. But notice how John, one of those disciples who had his grubby feet washed by Jesus, introduces this account:

Having loved his own who were in the world, he now loved them to the very end.

John 13:1 (NET)

Something struck John even more than Christ’s humility. Another of Christ’s attributes resonated within John more profoundly: love. John saw Jesus’ kneeling down to wash his friends’ feet first and foremost as an act of love. Humility was surely present (see v. 16), but it wasn’t the driving force of Christ’s actions. Love was. Humility was love’s vehicle.

Any doubt of love’s emphasis in this account fades away when we see what Jesus says in the closing bookend of the action:

“I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”

John 13:34–35 (NET)

Notice the parallelism between verses 14 and 34:

• “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet” (v. 14).
• “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (v. 34).

Humility progresses to love. Humility might be the muscle making the impact in the moment, but love is the skeleton upon which that muscle clings. 

A New Command?

But what made Jesus’ commandment new? God’s people were always to love others. Jesus pointed this out to the Pharisees in what he considered the two greatest commandments undergirding the entire law (Matt. 22:34–40). In what way, then, was Jesus’ commandment new?

Some see the recipients of love as being what made this command new. Here, Jesus seemed to focus on his followers loving their fellow believers. Earlier, however, Jesus had told the parable of the Good Samaritan which emphasized that there is no “ingroup” or “outgroup” concerning who his followers are to love (Luke 10:25­–37). Jesus’ followers are to love everyone, which certainly includes fellow disciples.

What was new about Jesus’ command wasn’t its recipients, but its standard. We are to love in a new, better way. For believers to love is for us to love as Jesus loves. We are to love with his love, not our own love. If we are right to connect the foot washing to the command to love, we see this clearly in how Jesus explains the foot washing: “For I have given you an example—you should do just as I have done for you” (v. 15). As I have served, you serve. As I have loved, you love.

Imitating Jesus’ Love

So how does Jesus love? Here, we see a call for a humble love, but we can’t miss sacrifice as the backdrop to the entire account. Sacrifice was the theme of the Passover they were celebrating (see Ex. 12–13). Just a few hours later the disciples would see the ultimate sacrifice on a Roman cross. Up to this point, even the most generous of loves had not yet reached this degree of absolute sacrifice. The love that Jesus would model is a love that is poured out completely. Nothing is withheld. This is the caliber of love Jesus has called us to imitate. We don’t love in part. We don’t even love abundantly. We love scandalously. We are to love so freely and to such an astonishing degree that it costs us. To love with Christ’s love is to put someone else’s needs above our own. Each and every time, whether that person “deserves” it or not. As the expression goes, “love hurts.” This was true of Jesus’ love, and it must be true of ours.

NEXT: The Humility of Jesus

TLDR: The Bible is more than a story, it’s a drama showing us how to be saved and who we are in Christ and the role we play in living like Jesus. As such, the way we study and teach the Bible with our children should focus on acting.

“All the World’s a Stage.”

William Shakespeare

God made us to be actors. Not the kind that pretend to be someone they aren’t. The kind that recognizes God has given us a role to play in his ongoing dramatic story of redemption. We were made to serve him. We were made to act.

This is at the core of the gospel. When we trusted in Christ, we were made new in his image. From that moment on, we are in an ongoing process of learning who Jesus is and how we can live more like him. Not his divinity—we can’t copy that—but rather his perfect humanity. That we can copy. And as we grow and live more like Jesus, we glorify God and make much of him before the watching world—our audience.

Family discipleship has never flourished in America, and I believe the reason why—at least in large part— is because we’ve missed this focus on acting—at least acting in light of who Jesus is. We might focus on acting “right” or acting “like a good Christian,” but I’m not sure most parents have connected all the dots so the picture looks like it is supposed to: like Jesus.

That’s why I’ve written Family Discipleship that Works: Guiding Your Child to Know, Love, and Act Like Jesus, due out with InterVarsity Press (IVP) this fall, and created the ACT Bible Study Method. In the next several posts, I’m going to introduce this method and several characteristics of Jesus we should aspire to live out. Then, I’ll begin to walk through the dramatic story of Scripture using this method to help parents implement it in their homes.

So let’s get to it.

The Drama of Scripture

But first…

Before we dive into the ACT Method, I want to provide an overview of the drama of Scripture as I see it. This will be important for Step 1 of the method.

You might be familiar with the Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration metanarrative of Scripture. It’s a good one. But I’m not sure it’s detailed enough. It’s hard to fit much of the Bible into that matrix. So, here’s a way I see this story arc running through all of Scripture:

• ACT 1: God Creates (Gen. 1–2)
  • ACT 2: People Disobey (Gen. 3)
    • ACT 3: God Promises Jesus (Gen. 4—Mal. 4)
    • ACT 4: God Provides Jesus (Matt. 1—John 21)
  • ACT 5: Believers Obey (Acts 1—Jude 1)
• ACT 6: God ReCreates (Rev. 1–21)

I formatted the six acts so you can see the parallelism. Acts 1 and 6 go together, as do Acts 2 and 5 and Acts 3 and 4. Hopefully you can see Jesus at the center of it all too. This structure should give you your bearings in any passage of Scripture you study with your kids.

The Act Bible Study Method

All right, now it’s time. Here we go.

The ACT Bible Study Method is built off the acronym ACT—Analyze, Connect, and Translate.

Analyze the Passage

STEP 1: Introduce the Passage

First, we want to introduce the passage we’re studying to our kids. What book is it in? Who wrote it? What sort of book is it? What was going on in it? And, of course, where does it fall in the six acts of the drama. This will give us our bearings.

STEP 2: Read the Passage

We then read the passage using the translation that works best for your family. I’ll be using the NET in my posts.

STEP 3: Summarize the Passage

Next, summarize the passage as a family. That summary can be pretty broad, or it can get more detailed depending on the age of your kids, your familiarity with the Bible, and so forth. The goal here is to make sure everyone has at least the gist of the passage.

STEP 4: Interrogate the Passage

This is where everyone, even parents, get to ask questions about what was read. No question is off limits! Some of these you might be able to answer as a family. Some you might need to research. Some, you might learn in future times of study. Some you may never answer. That’s OK. One of the big wins here is to give ourselves permission to ask questions and admit we don’t have this all figured out.

STEP 5: Wonder about the Passage

The final step of Analyze, is to make wonder statements. These aren’t questions. They’re seeds of curiosity, wonder, and awe of God and his ways. What makes you curious about the passage? Again, nothing is off limits here.

Connect the Passage to Jesus

Step 6: Find the World in Front of the Text

The “World in Front of the Text” is the world as it’s supposed to be. Every passage in Scripture should prompt oughtness in us. Things aren’t as they’re supposed to be. Things ought to be different. This ideal world is what God created and what Christ’s work will bringing about again one day. For now, we live in its shadows, and these shadows are what we look for.

Step 7: Find the World of Jesus of the Text

This “World of Jesus of the Text” is where we see what Jesus has done to bring the World in Front of the Text closer to reality and/or where we see who Jesus is in ways that if we as believers imitated, we would draw ourselves and others closer to that ideal world. While you as a parent can and should consider your own characteristics of Jesus for this section, I’ll use my framework of looking toward Christ’s love, humility, compassion, generosity, hospitality, forgiveness, and obedience for us to imitate. We’ll explore those in the weeks ahead.

Translate It to Your Context

Step 8: Connect the World of Jesus of the Text to Your World

Our final step is to consider how we can live like Jesus in our context. How can we take the character of Christ that we discovered in the passage and live it out the week ahead. How will we act like Jesus?

Well, that’s it; that’s the ACT Bible Study Method. If you and your family don’t have a plan for regular family worship time, I hope that you will consider giving this a try and I pray that if you do, it bears tremendous fruit in your family.

NEXT: The love of Jesus.