Day 5 Having a Sober Judgement of Ourselves and Our Gifts
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Romans 12:3-5
In 12:1,2 Paul encapsulated the gospel imperative: honouring God at all times through a transformed life that is in keeping with His will through the renewing of our mind. Only a renewed mind can discern and approve God’s will and only a renewed mind can help us evaluate ourselves, our identity and our gifts. We need to know who we are and have a balanced, healthy self-image.
‘For by the grace given me I say to every one of you’ (12:3). Paul introduces what he is about to say with the self-conscious authority of an apostle. The ‘grace given’ him qualifies him to write as he does (1:5; 15:15f).
‘Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment’ (12:3). The main point of this section is the command: Christians are to ‘think of (themselves) with sober judgement.’ Understanding the diversity of gifts and their uses within the one body of Christ in 12:4-8 provides the basis for this command. Understanding that Christians belong to one another in one body and have in common the same grace of God (12:5) and faith (12:3,6) will help stifle exaggerated ideas about one’s own status or ministry. And recognition of the significant contribution made by each member of the body of Christ will prevent one from thinking too highly or too lowly of ourself. We must think of ourselves with a renewed mind, not over-inflating our view (nor under-inflating it). We are to have a ‘sober judgement’ which here is qualified first by our faith and secondly by our gifts.
We are to think of ourselves ‘in accordance with the measure of faith God has given’ us (12:3). The standard of measurement, ‘the measure of faith,’ can have one of two meanings. It can mean that God gives varying amounts of faith to different Christians. One person will have more and another less. Each believer has to recognise this and pursue the ministries appropriate to their faith. Another possibility is that ‘the measure of faith’ is the same for all Christians. If so, Paul is asking us to look carefully at ourselves in the light of our saving faith in Christ.
If the gospel is the first measure by which we should evaluate ourselves, the second is God’s gifts. To enforce this Paul draws an analogy between the human body and the Christian community. ‘For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function’ (12:4), although the different functions are necessary for the health and enrichment of the whole, ‘so in Christ’ by our union with Him, ‘we who are many, form one body’ (12:5). As one body, ‘each member belongs to all the others’ (12:5). We are dependent on each other and the “one-another-ness” of Christian fellowship is enhanced by the diversity of our gifts. Working from the assumption of unity of the body, Paul argues for the need to recognise a healthy diversity within that one body. The overall thrust of the letter and the specific exhortation in 14:1-15:13 might suggest that Paul has in view the conflict between Jew and Gentile but he gives little evidence of it here. It seems rather the diversity of gifts and temptation to comparison and false pride that comes with that diversity is the main focus here.
This metaphor of the human body enables Paul to hold together the unity of the church, the plurality of its members, and the variety of their gifts. Recognising that God is the giver of all gifts is essential to our having a ‘sober judgement’ of ourselves.