Biblion Bible Commentary
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Count Others Better
Philippians 2:3-4
3 doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself; · WEB
The remedy for division is stated as an act of accounting, not of feeling.
Doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit. The first noun is the selfish ambition already attributed to the rival preachers Philippians 1:17; the second is empty glory — a good opinion of oneself with nothing under it.
Against them: but in humility, each counting others better than himself.
The verb is a bookkeeping word. It is not feel that others are better, which cannot be commanded, but reckon them so — a decision about how to treat people rather than an assessment of their merits. That keeps the instruction from requiring self-deception.
And humility itself was not a virtue in that world. The word described the mindset of a slave or a defeated man, and Greek moralists used it as an insult. Christian usage took a term of contempt and made it a requirement.
Verse 4 gives the practical form: each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. The word also keeps it from being self-erasure. One's own concerns are not forbidden, only their monopoly on attention.
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