Is self-importance a sin?
Self-importance is an often-overlooked sin that breeds dissension and crashes into the heart of the gospel. It fans the flames of controversy. When James and John approached Jesus to ask for the seats of highest honor in his kingdom, the other ten disciples “became indignant” (Mark 10:41). This wasn’t the first time the topic came up. Earlier, on the way to Capernaum, the disciples had been “arguing with one another about who was the greatest” (Mark 9:33). Indignation. Quarreling. Dissension. Self-importance is a subtle sin that leads to conflict. A Check on Self-Importance Strong agreement with the statement “I am an extraordinary person” almost always indicates narcissism. Of course, Christian anthropology holds that we human beings really are extraordinary—“remarkably and wondrously made” in the words of the psalmist (Psalm 139:14). But, as Theodore Dalrymple claims, Christianity “manages the difficult feat of assuring a man of his supreme importance without giving him a swollen hea