Romans: The Story of God Bible Commentary

images/img-37-1.jpg LISTEN to the Story

³For 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 faith God has distributed to each of you. ⁴For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; ⁷if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; ⁸if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

Listening to the texts in the story: 1 Corinthians 12:1 – 31; Philippians 2:3.

After laying the foundation for his exhortation (Rom 12:1 – 2), Paul urges the Roman Christians to avoid arrogant attitudes (12:3) and to embrace the diversity of their own spiritual giftedness (12:4 – 8). These commands are given because humility and unity are among the first steps toward becoming “living sacrifices” and experiencing the “renewal of your mind.” Gospel transformation requires a modest view of self and a generous view of others.

We find numerous examples in the biblical story where God promises to raise up the humble and to bring down the arrogant (see Prov 3:34; Jas 4:6; 1 Pet 5:5). Figures like King Saul are a tragic example of how those raised to great heights can so easily fall from grace on account of their arrogance. God has also taken unassuming persons and equipped them to be his messengers. Neither Moses nor Paul were men of great eloquence (see Exod 4:10; 1 Cor 2:1; 2 Cor 10:10), yet God used them to lead and guide his people into his grace. Whenever God raises up persons to greatness by his special charisma, they are always called to humility and service, lest they too stumble over their own accomplishments. The same is true in the church; with great giftedness there should be great humility.

“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 faith God has distributed to each of you.” The conjunctive “for” (gar) suggests that Paul is unpacking his exhortation in vv. 1 – 2 by spelling out the means by which the Romans can express fitting worship and be renewed in their minds when they have sober thoughts about themselves. Paul speaks in his authority as an apostle who has been given “grace,” specifically, the grace of apostleship to bring about their obedience (1:5). The words “I say to every one of you” indicates that the command is corporate and inclusive of all persons in the Roman congregations. The main thrust is to censure inflated self-estimation, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.”

This sentence is dominated by four infinitive verbs based on “to think.” To put it clumsily but accurately: Do not over-think (hyperphronein) what you ought to think of yourself (phronein), but think of yourself (phronein) in a sober-thinking way (sōphronein). Or as the NLT puts it: “Don’t think you are better than you really are, devote your minds to sound judgment.” For Paul, Christianity embodies the very best of the Stoic ideal of sober-mindedness.¹

The significance of this seemingly benign command to humility should not be underestimated for its countercultural ethos. Humility was not an ancient virtue. Humility was for inferiors — for slaves, plebs, and retainers. You won’t find Plato or Epictetus extoling the virtue of tapeinophrosynē or humilitas as it would amount to self-debasement. Remember that social life in ancient Rome was fiercely competitive and consumed with the pursuit of honor and status; raising yourself above others was the aim of the game. Yet Paul expects believers to do the opposite: to think of themselves with self-modesty instead of self-promotion.

Paul wants believers to cultivate humility as a way of pursuing unity. The origins of this teaching is that humility was a characteristic of Israel under God (e.g., Deut 8:2; Ps 18:27; Dan 10:12); it was a virtue taught by Jesus (Matt 20:25 – 28; 23:12), exemplified by Jesus (Phil 2:8), and instructed by the apostles (2 Cor 10:1; Phil 2:3; Col 3:12; Jas 3:13; 4:6, 10; 1 Pet 3:8; 5:5 – 6). This is significant because, as John Dickson has successfully argued, humility emerged as a distinctive feature of Christian ethics and came to shape the nature of ethical teaching in Western civilization.²

The believer’s self-estimation should be “in accordance with” the “faith” that God has “distributed to each of you.” The barometer for self-estimation is the divinely given “measure of faith,” as most English translations put it (metron pisteōs). What does this mean? Here are the options: (1) Perhaps the “measure of faith” refers to the degree or intensity of one’s faith.³ Yet the notion that faith has degrees of gradation is foreign to Paul’s thought and he focuses on the object of faith and not on the intensity of one’s faith. The language of those “weak” and “strong” in faith in Romans 14 – 15 is about faith impinging itself on conscience, not about varied degrees of believing. It is also difficult to imagine God assigning quantities of faith to certain persons and not to others in the community since a common “faith” is what binds believers together.

(2) Others contend that the “measure of faith” refers to a shared faith by which Christians are to regard themselves. Here the faith is the standard by which persons are to make their self-evaluation.⁴ That sounds right, but it does not make sense of the “measuring” or “proportion” of faith that God assigns as God does quantify the “faith” to some degree.

(3) Others think that the “measure of faith” refers to different spiritual capacities that God apportions to each person and constitutes the equivalent of spiritual gifts. In light of the following context in vv. 5 – 8 about spiritual gifts that does make sense. However, the problem has always been that it seems a stretch to treat “faith” (pistis) as a synonym for spiritual gifts (charisma). Yet this objection can be blunted if we follow the argument of Jack Poirier, who translates the phrase as the “measure of stewardship” so as to understand Paul to be referring to the callings to which people have been entrusted.⁵

In support of this last option, we should note that pistis has a lexical range including a position of trust or trusteeship (see Rom 3:2, where the Jews have been “entrusted” with the oracles of God).⁶ Not only that, but in 12:6 Paul uses similar language when he says that prophecy should be performed in accordance with the “proportion of stewardship” (analogian tēs pisteōs). Paul is referring to behavior that befits prophecy in the sense of prophesying in a manner appropriate to what has been granted to them. Whereas in 1 Corinthians 12 Paul calls believers to be content with their assigned function within the church, here in Romans 12 he brings definitional focus to the callings and makes them the basis for humility.⁷ Thus, Paul is saying in 12:3 that believers should think of themselves in light of the stewardship or calling that God has placed on their lives whether that is in “prophecy . . . service . . . teaching . . . encouragement . . . giving . . . leading . . . showing mercy.”

Paul moves on to expound the unity-in-diversity of the church by way of a body metaphor (see 1 Cor 12:12 – 31; Eph 2:16; 3:6; 4:4, 25; 5:29; Col 3:15): “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, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (vv. 4 – 5). Paul probably borrows from a well-known Greco-Roman metaphor about the “body politic” to stress that all believers are “members” of the “one body,” and while the members are diverse in their function, they remain inalienably dependent on each other. The fact that no member is self-sufficient or expendable provides further reason for avoiding any boasting over others.

The precise expression of their diversity is seen in the diversity of spiritual gifts present among them: “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us” (v. 6a). The gifts are graciously given by God to persons who are to exercise their gifts for a common good. The gifts are then enumerated in a series different from 1 Corinthians 12:7 – 10, 28 and Ephesians 4:11, though it is hardly meant to be an exhaustive list. It is more of a summary for the types of gifts that churches possess.

Paul calls for the gifts to be exercised with excellence: “If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully” (vv. 6b – 8). The sentence is verbless and consists of nouns and substantive participles, so one has to mentally insert a permissive command like “let us use then . . .” (RSV) and imagine each ministry put into action e.g., prophecy to prophesying, service to serving, and so on. Paul calls on the Romans to release the grace given to them through the exercise of their spiritual gifts.

In general, the gifts include two main varieties, the didactic (prophecy, teaching, leading) and the holistic (service, encouragement, generosity, mercy), precisely what is needed for a congregation to become living sacrifices and to have their minds renewed. The chief idea behind Paul’s list is, as Wright notes, that “God gives the church grace for its multiple and mutually supportive tasks, and whatever they are they must be exercised to the full extent of one’s powers.”⁸

A genuine humility before God and before others is one of the best ways of cultivating a healthy spirituality and a wholesome view of Christian ministry. In applying Romans 12:3 – 8 to our own context and congregations, we are to exemplify a humble faith that makes much of others rather than ourselves. We should engage in regular humility self-checks to keep our priorities in order, and make a concerted effort to value the giftedness of others and their contribution to the church’s corporate life.

There are two verses I cite to myself every day: Romans 12:4 (“Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment”) and 2 Corinthians 4:5 (“For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake”). There is a reason for that. I have an ego the size of Nebraska and have a horrible tendency to engage in feats of self-promotion that would even make a Kardashian feel ashamed. This is why I love American grad students. They hero-worship their professors, and their barrage of compliments is like helium to my already swollen pride (as opposed to Aussie grad students, who treat professors with what I can only call jovial contempt). To paraphrase Marlon Brando, an academic can be a lot like an actor: if you ain’t talking about him, he’s probably not listening. So I think Mac Davis was right, “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble.” All this is to say that for me to lecture on humility is like asking Hannibal Lecter to lecture on vegetarianism.

In my defense, I haven’t gone around trying to degrade others for the sole purpose of elevating myself. I should also point out that there are certain features of my biography and psychology that molded me into becoming an overachieving blowhard. When your primary source of self-esteem is achievement and its recognition, you can easily be driven into becoming a workaholic show pony, constantly craving attention and acclaim. Self-congratulatory overachievers may exude excessive confidence and make elevated descriptions of their own significance, but deep down they are often insecure people.

Thankfully, I have reached a point of maturity in my spiritual walk where I’ve learned that “it’s not about me,” and I can find my sense of self-worth in Christ rather than in my CV. I no longer feel the need to impress others, but I find greatness in a service that will lead to others receiving recognition and praise for their own work. I enjoy finding ways to highlight the wonderful work of my colleagues and students and seeing them get due recognition for the hard work that they have done in academia and ministry. A turning point for me came after a sermon I once gave where I used probably too many personal illustrations. My pastor came to me afterward and gave a polite rebuke, “I’ve heard of Christo-centric preaching, but not Mike-o-centric preaching.” Those words initially hurt, I felt they were unfair and exaggerated, but eventually I had to accept that they were true. I must decrease, Christ must increase.

For those who are spiritually gifted, it is vital that they nurture humility in themselves. Otherwise their giftedness is not an offering to God or a tool for growing the church; instead, it becomes an idol to the cult of self. The most gifted of preachers, teachers, musicians, deacons, or janitors are like an annoying alarm clock if their giftedness is not matched with humility. We need fewer primadonnas in the pulpit and more pastors who use their gifts as servants.

An easy way to tell if you have a servant heart is how you act when you’re treated like a servant. Do you see some services as beneath your calling, are you willing to go wherever you’re needed, or would you do any job that needs to be done even if crowds won’t throng to thank you and even if your achievements go hardly noticed? Whenever I get asked for advice from churches on what kind of man or woman they should get to fill a particular ministry role, whether a preacher or a youth worker, I always tell the same thing. Get someone gifted and godly — both, not one or the other. The great evangelical Anglican priest Charles Simeon wrote a letter to his friend Abnew Brown in which he said, “The three lessons which a minister has to learn are; 1) Humility, 2) Humility, 3) Humility.”⁹

Humility is also important if we are to appreciate the giftedness of other people in our churches. The famous conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein was once asked what the hardest instrument to play is. “Second fiddle,” he replied. For people who like to lead, who like to be up front, who like to take the reins, consciously deciding to take backstage position to enable others to exercise their gifts can be difficult. But it reminds me of a story. There was once a first-time gardener who was sick and tired of going out to his raspberry bushes, gazing down on them and not seeing any raspberries growing. He was just about to uproot the bush when his neighbor told him to get down low and look for raspberries under the lower leaves. So he did. The gardener got down on his belly, looked up into the bush, and beheld several clusters of luscious and ripe raspberries. The moral of the story is that you will only appreciate the fruitfulness of some people if you get down low and look up to them, rather than look down on them in stern judgment.

1. Cf. Jewett, Romans, 739 – 41; but see Kruse on the relationship between Paul and Stoicism (Romans, 486 – 89).

2. Cf. John Dickson, Humilitas: A Lost Key to Life, Love, and Leadership (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011). See also Johnson, who makes a similar point (Romans, 195).

4. Cf. e.g., Moo, Romans, 761; Wright, “Romans,” 10:709; and esp. Kuo-Wei Peng, Hate the Evil, Hold Fast to the Good: Structuring Romans 12.1 – 15.13 (LNTS 300; London: T&T Clark, 2006), 212 – 14.

5. John C. Poirier, “The Measure of Stewardship: Pistis in Romans 12:3,” TynBul 59 (2008): 145 – 52.

9. A. W. Brown, Recollections of the Conversation Parties of the Rev. Charles Simeon (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1863), 17.