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Welcome back! This week, I finished refining my understanding of Romans 12 verses 3 and 16, and here’s what I discovered:
Last Week’s Work
CROSS-REFERENCES
These references stood out this week:
- Micah 6:8 lists humility among the three most important tasks believers can accomplish!
- James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 both quote Proverbs 3:34, reinforcing the truth that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. As I reviewed several commentaries, it seemed what Paul is advocating here is balance: to be effective for the gospel, we must balance our self-evaluation—not too high so as to treat others poorly nor too low to beat ourselves up all the time.
- Philippians 4:11-13 and 1 Timothy 6:6-9, which both mention Christian contentment: finding satisfaction no matter what our situation. I believe humility helps us achieve and maintain contentment
OTHER TRANSLATIONS
Regarding verse 3, I felt drawn to the NLT version, which I believe practically summarizes my whole study:
Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.
As much as these mindset commands were directed to Jews, Gentiles, and Romans of all social strata, I see it applicable to us in contemporary congregations, too. And verse 16 provides some examples of what it looks like when we sincerely think that way: in the AMP version, we’re told to live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty [conceited, self-important, exclusive], but associate with humble people [those with a realistic self-view]. Do not overestimate yourself.
COMMENTARY
Confession: I spent entirely too much time in commentaries this week because I didn’t have a single, clearly defined goal there. Predictably, I just wandered through them, sampling everything, which meant I came away with too much to write about. From that excess, I pulled these ideas:
- Seeing faith as a gift of God helps me realize my self-worth doesn’t have to depend on worldly conditions that can change (my job, my health, my wealth, my social status, etc.) but, as Barnes put it, on our attachment to God, and the influence of faith on our minds.
- I also appreciated Bonifay’s perspective in Contending for the Faith, which indicates we
… must be “fair-minded” in [our] judgment of things, determining [our] proper relationship with God and [our] fellow [believers]. Each Christian must learn to make an [sic] humble but fair-minded and sober assessment of his spiritual gifts and ethical obligations. Then [we] must use them to the glory of God’s name and not [our] own. - And we should [measure ourselves] by the objective standard God has given in the gospel, which forces [us] to think on things in which [we are] on the same level with fellow Christians rather than those things in which [we] may be either superior or inferior to them. Each Christian must recognize his dependence on and submission to Christ.
- Finally, when examining v3, I loved the sense of community envisioned by Gerrish (Light of Israel Bible Commentary) We are living sacrifices together; we are transformed together; we are the Body of Christ together; and we make up the holy temple of God together. There is no such thing as “Lone Ranger” Christianity.
Here are a few of my findings for verse 16:
- Again from Gerrish: harmony is possible in the church when believers gain a proper perspective of themselves in Christ.
- Price (Living by Faith Commentary of Romans and 1 Corinthians) defines harmony as having the same attitude towards one another. We view each other with the same level of importance and we are dependent upon the other members in the body.
- I also liked Calvin’s (Calvin’s Commentary on the Bible) suggestion to give honor to others, not [ourselves]. Tall order, huh?!
- Finally, I had to include this observation from Barclay (Barclay’s Daily Study Bible): [In the Roman Empire] the Christian Church was the only place where master and slave sat side by side. It is still the place where all earthly distinctions are gone, for with God there is no respect of persons. I reviewed several commentaries this past week. From my notes, these observations stood out:
Dig-In Challenges
This coming week, let’s wrap up our study of Luke 15:11-32 and align with what we’ve discovered here:
- PRAY: Read the prayer created in Step 1.
- ALIGN: Review our study notes and other work, focusing specifically on what we’ve learned in this study.
- ALIGN: Then, considering those “lessons learned,” think about how the Spirit has convicted us through this study. In other words, where has He shown us misalignment between what we’ve discovered and how we practice our faith?
- ALIGN: Next, let’s look to God’s Word for guidance to correct that misalignment. This is often—but not always—a verse from the study text or from one of the cross-references.
- ALIGN: And finally, reflect on how we can change thoughts or actions to align more closely with what we’ve discovered here. To make this work, I commit to change something and do my best to act on that commitment every day for at least three weeks.
If you haven’t been able to work through everything with me in the last seven weeks, I encourage you to read through my previous posts in this series and ask the Holy Spirit to work with you on steps 3-5 above. I know the Lord will bless your efforts to understand and apply His Word!