This "puffed up" love is really a description of the false love that "vaunteth itself" (1 Corinthians 13:4). It loves the prominent seats in the church gathering; it loves the religious robes; it loves the display of wealth and fashionable clothes. This phony love enjoys religious debate. It is proud of religious knowledge and the prestige of letters of learning. It loves smug intellectual pride and its false actions of humility. It loves to treat with contempt those who dare to expose its facade of false humility. It also loves to be respected, honored, and praised. Such flattering soothes its lust for conceited self respect. How ugly is all this nonsense and prideful stupidity to God who weighs the hearts of men.
Paul speaks several times about this subject of being puffed up. 1 Corinthians 4:6 encourages us, "not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another."
1 Corinthians 4:18-20 says, "Now some are puffed up" but Paul answers, "I will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power."
1 Corinthians 5:2 says, "Ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you."
Colossians 2:18 talks about one who is "vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind."
Jesus warned in Luke 12:1, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Read also Matthew 16:6 and Mark 8:15.
Leaven (or yeast) is an agent for puffing up and represents pride. During Passover, leaven was not to be found in any homes (Exodus 12:15, 19). It should not be found in our homes either. We fathers have a responsibility to make sure it is put out of our homes.
Be encouraged.
Colin Campbell