We Are Emmanuel

As alien as the context and content of this passage may seem to contemporary hearers - even Christians - Paul is referring to a very familiar universal trait: the human proneness to self-reliance. Explain it in any which way you will (sin, instinct, evolutionary behaviour, etc.) but human beings seem inherently self-focused and will do anything they need to do to survive and work for their own self-interest. We must come empty-handed to Christ, and the more we have in life the more we might be tempted to trust in it instead of trusting in Christ.