Bible verses about "popularity" | Moffatt

⁸ Keep cool, keep awake. Your enemy the devil prowls like a roaring lion, looking out for someone to devour.

⁴ (Wanton creatures! do you not know that the world's friendship means enmity to God? Whoever, then, chooses to be the world's friend, turns enemy to God.

¹ My brothers, as you believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Glory, pay no servile regard to people. ² Suppose there comes into your meeting a man who wears gold rings and handsome clothes, and also a poor man in dirty clothes; ³ if you attend to the wearer of the handsome clothes and say to him, "Sit here, this is a good place," and tell the poor man, "You can stand," or "Sit there at my feet," ⁴ are you not drawing distinctions in your own minds and proving that you judge people with partiality? ⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers; has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to inherit the realm which he has promised to those who love him? ⁶ Now you insult the poor. Is it not the rich who lord it over you and drag you to court? ⁷ Is it not they who scoff at the noble Name you bear? ⁸ If you really fulfil the royal law laid down by scripture, You must love your neighbour as yourself, well and good; ⁹ but if you pay servile regard to people, you commit a sin, and the Law convicts you of transgression. ¹⁰ For whoever obeys the whole of the Law and only makes a single slip, is guilty of everything. ¹¹ He who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not kill. Now if you do not commit adultery but if you kill, you have transgressed the Law. ¹² Speak, act, as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom; ¹³ for the judgment will be merciless to the man who has shown no mercy — whereas the merciful life will triumph in the face of judgment.

²⁶ Woe to you when all men speak well of you! that is just what their fathers did to the false prophets.

² Instead of being moulded to this world, have your mind renewed, and so be transformed in nature, able to make out what the will of God is, namely, what is good and acceptable to him and perfect.

⁷ He also told a parable to the guests, when he observed how they picked out the best places. ⁸ "When anyone invites you to a marriage-banquet," he said, "never lie down in the best place, in case a more distinguished guest than yourself has been invited; ⁹ then the host will tell you, 'Make room for him,' and you will proceed in shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ No, when you are invited, go and recline in the lowest place, so that when your host comes in he will tell you, 'Move higher up, my friend.' Then you will be honoured before your fellow guests. ¹¹ For everyone who uplifts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be uplifted." ¹² He also said to his host, "When you give a dinner or supper, do not ask your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbours, in case they invite you back again and you get repaid. ¹³ No, when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. ¹⁴ Then you will be blessed; for as they have no means of repaying you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."

²⁵ What profit will it be for a man to gain the whole world and lose or forfeit himself?