Self-Promotion

If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. (James 3:13-16) 
 
Teachers and elders were prominent figures in the early church. They shouldered the great responsibility of preaching and sharing the word of God to new converts and the faithful. Some teachers began to create and develop followers and followings.  
 
Some of this growth was beneficial for the Church, but some of it was the result of the selfish ambitions of these teachers. Over time, some of these teachers began to associate the size of their following with the size of their legitimacy and value. Doesn’t this sound similar to what people do on social media in modern times? We assume that a person with a million followers is more legit or substantive that someone with a thousand.  
 
But in our key passage, James is concerned with the tendency of teachers to make claims about their own importance and significance, which was all based upon superficial indicators of success. The zeal they had was not for God and for winning souls. James said it's “selfish ambition” causing them to use their platform to promote themselves (and their careers), and not to promote Christ and advance the kingdom.  
 
We have to be so careful not to make the same mistake these teachers made. We can’t get so caught up with who’s following us that we forget our goal is to solely follow Jesus. We can’t make it all about us, promoting ourselves out of selfish ambition. Instead, let us be so intentional to humbly point others to Jesus, reminding them that He’s all we’ll ever need.