1. Do you find it difficult to "go down" in humility and repentance, and why or why not?

2. In today's passage, the Pharisee might be described as the "ideal" religious man. Yet is was the "sinner" who was justified (declared righteous in the sight of God). What word best describes the heart of the Pharisee in today's text, and why? What word best describes the heart of the tax collector, and why? What's the point Jesus is making?

3. Christian writer C. S. Lewis called pride "The Great Sin." He wrote:

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves…. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others…. It was through Pride that the devil became the devil."

What makes pride rear its head in your life? Why is pride so dangerous to you personally?