A Word in Season: Sober Self-assessment (Romans 12:3)

Sober Self-Assessment in Light of Romans 12:3

How do you think of yourself as a Christian? What's your self-perception, your estimate of yourself? That's not a wrong question to ask, certainly not a foolish question to ask, although it doesn't buy into the world's notion of a boosted self-esteem.

Paul says to the Romans in chapter 12 and verse 3 of that letter, through the grace that is given to him, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

Paul speaks here with apostolic authority, as a man who has a right to direct each of us in the way that we should think. He speaks to everybody in the church at Rome as part of that body. He's very conscious at this point in the letter that he's writing to what ought to be a united, but diverse group of men and women, each of whom is called to serve God in accordance with their graces and their gifts.

And to everybody who belongs to that church, Paul says how they're not to think of themselves, how they are to think of themselves. They are not to think of themselves more highly than anyone ought to think.

That is, they're not to put themselves on a pedestal. They're not to assume to themselves more in the way of grace or gift than they actually possess. That they are not to lord it over others. They're not to look down their noses at other people who they think are less in some way than them.

That they're not to jump to conclusions about the kinds of gifts that they've been given and the kind of service that they can render. On the one hand, then, Paul is very concerned that we don't buy into what is typical in every age, an inclination to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, to become puffed up, to assume that we have something and can do something that actually we cannot do because we do not have God not having given it to us.

Thinking Soberly Rather Than with False Humility

Now, on the other side, we're told how we ought to think of ourselves. We are to think soberly as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. Now, that last phrase is a difficult one. It may have to do with faith in its more normal use, God giving us a trust in him and perhaps related to that, a knowledge of him and how we might serve him.

Or it may be used in the context almost as a synonym for a gift, as if to say according to whatever God has given you, whatever you have been granted, whatever gifts you have received from the hand of the Most High, think in those terms and do so soberly.

Now, here's the other side of the coin because the flip side of that open pride is a kind of inverted pride that says, in effect, I can't do anything. I've got nothing to offer. I can't do much. I'm not this.

I'm not that. I'm not like him. I'm not like her. Who am I and what have I got to give? That is equally a kind of pride. It's inverted, it's upside down, but it's still a denial of what God is doing in us.

Consulting Others and Testing a Call to Serve

What we need to do is to think soberly. We need to think stable and sane thoughts about ourselves. Perhaps we do this best in consultation with mature and trusted Christian friends. It's why, for example, a call to the ministry internally convicted still needs to be externally validated.

The man who says, I believe I'm called to preach the gospel still needs the approval of the congregation that he actually possesses those graces and gifts. In similar fashion, we ought not to just take to ourselves too quickly assumptions about what we are or are not or what we have or have not.

But we ought to think carefully. What has God bestowed upon me as a Christian to serve in this place and at this time? And so Paul would have me and you under his apostolic authority through the word of God to think as Christians, as church members not proudly, not taking to ourselves more than we should but to think humbly, soberly, modestly accurately assessing what God has put in our hands with which to serve him and then serving as we are able.

So let us consider carefully, consulting and counselling if we must what has God given to me that I may serve him in the church to which I belong.