Theological Commentary: Click Here
Paul starts this
chapter by reminding us that we are to live as sacrifices to God. This should take us back through our
theological training. Why are we
sacrifices? We are sacrifices because we
are slaves to God. We are slaves to God
because the alternative is being a slave to sin, which is not a good option! We are we slaves to sin? We are slaves to sin because of our
flesh. If we put this all together, what
we see Paul encouraging is for us to be willing to sacrifice our sinful
self-centeredness and exchange it for being His servant and living according to
His ways.
In this
light, it is easy for us to hear the rest of the words of this chapter. Live humbly, Paul says. How do we live humbly? We live humbly because we are God’s
servants. We live humbly because we are about
the greatness of God, not the greatness of ourselves. We live humbly because as God lifts us up, we
look to lift others up in the same way.
We live humbly to be a benefit to others.
We also live
humbly to allow the gifts of others to rise up.
God has gifted His whole body, we should make room for many to
work. If I think so highly of myself
that I do everything, then I don’t allow others to use their gifts. We live humbly so that we can all experience
being a part of God’s plan.
Finally, I
love what Paul says about love being sincere.
When we give space for others to use their gifts, we need to do it
sincerely. We should want others to be a
part of God’s plan. We should want to
give space to others to utilize their talents and abilities. We should not live humbly in a begrudging
fashion, because doing so robs us of the very joy of being in Christ in the
first place. No, true humbleness comes
out of a love for God and a love for others.
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