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. (Romans 12:3)
In a time when we are being told that we are entitled to everything except a differing opinion, God uses Paul to tell us that we should think of ourselves with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith He has given us. Of course, those who tell us we’re entitled would say that said entitlement is sober thinking, meant to counter the extreme level of despair that has led to an increase in suicides of thirty-three percent over the past twenty years. And there are people who are pointing out, correctly, that this education in narcissism isn’t working. I submit that it isn’t working because it’s not a sober judgment.
Thinking with drunken, irrational judgment is easy, even without drinking any alcohol. We either tend to judge ourselves as far better than we are, or far worse. We tend to look at the term “highly” and assume that it refers to arrogance and that thinking badly of ourselves is humility. A few weeks ago, I ran into this same idea a different setting.
According to scientists, Venus has such a large axial tilt that it is nearly upside down. I was trying to figure out enough about axial tilt to write an article and Venus, Neptune, and Pluto were skewing my answers. After chewing on the problem for a while, I realized that the assumption that they had huge axial tilts was based on scientifically valid, but irrelevant information. The axial tilt is the degree to which the planet’s poles are not at a ninety-degree angle from the orbital plane. Left, right, upside-down, or right-side-up doesn’t matter. Only the deviation from zero degrees.
The same is the case with our judgment of ourselves. It doesn’t matter whether we’re off in a positive manner or a negative. The point is that we’re mistaken. I tend to be negatively drunken in my thinking, but that’s just as wrong as being positively drunken. And I suspect that the biggest help against drunken thinking cold, hard truth, not our feelings.
According to the Scriptures, we are created in the image of God, and He values us enough that He sent His Son, who voluntarily came and died because He valued us, not because we are so great, but because we are His.
Thinking with drunken, irrational judgment is easy, even without drinking any alcohol. We either tend to judge ourselves as far better than we are, or far worse. We tend to look at the term “highly” and assume that it refers to arrogance and that thinking badly of ourselves is humility. A few weeks ago, I ran into this same idea a different setting.
According to scientists, Venus has such a large axial tilt that it is nearly upside down. I was trying to figure out enough about axial tilt to write an article and Venus, Neptune, and Pluto were skewing my answers. After chewing on the problem for a while, I realized that the assumption that they had huge axial tilts was based on scientifically valid, but irrelevant information. The axial tilt is the degree to which the planet’s poles are not at a ninety-degree angle from the orbital plane. Left, right, upside-down, or right-side-up doesn’t matter. Only the deviation from zero degrees.
The same is the case with our judgment of ourselves. It doesn’t matter whether we’re off in a positive manner or a negative. The point is that we’re mistaken. I tend to be negatively drunken in my thinking, but that’s just as wrong as being positively drunken. And I suspect that the biggest help against drunken thinking cold, hard truth, not our feelings.
According to the Scriptures, we are created in the image of God, and He values us enough that He sent His Son, who voluntarily came and died because He valued us, not because we are so great, but because we are His.
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