In this final clause the Apostle, in some sense, repeats the maxim
with which he began the series of special exhortations in this
chapter. He there enjoined 'every one among you not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think'; here he deals with one
especial form of such too lofty thinking, viz. intellectual conceit.
He is possibly quoting the Book of Proverbs (iii. 7), where we read,
'Be not wise in thine own eyes,' which is preceded by, 'Lean not to
thine own understanding; in all thy ways acknowledge Him'; and is
followed by, 'Fear the Lord and depart from evil'; thus pointing to
the acknowledgment and fear of the Lord as the great antagonist of
such over-estimate of one's own wisdom as of all other faults of mind
and life. It needs not to point out how such a disposition breaks
Christian unity of spirit. There is something especially isolating in
that form of self-conceit. There are few greater curses in the Church
than little coteries of superior persons who cannot feed on ordinary
food, whose enlightened intelligence makes them too fastidious to
soil their dainty fingers with rough, vulgar work, and whose
supercilious criticism of the unenlightened souls that are content to
condescend to lowly Christian duties, is like an iceberg that brings
down the temperature wherever it floats. That temper indulged in,
breaks the unity, reduces to inactivity the work, and puts an end to
the progress, of any Christian community in which it is found; and
just as its predominance is harmful, so the obedience to the
exhortation against it is inseparable from the fulfilling of its
sister precepts. To know ourselves for the foolish creatures that we
are, is a mighty help to being 'of the same mind one toward another.'
Who thinks of himself soberly and according to the measure of faith
which God hath dealt to him will not hunger after high things, but
rather prefer the lowly ones that are on a level with his lowly self.
The exhortations of our text were preceded with injunctions to
distribute material help, and to bestow helpful sympathy. The tempers
enjoined in our present text are the inward source and fountain of
such external bestowments. The rendering of material help and of
sympathetic emotion are right and valuable only as they are the
outcome of this unanimity and lowliness. It is possible to
'distribute to the necessity of saints' in such a way as that the
gift pains more than a blow; it is possible to proffer sympathy so
that the sensitive heart shrinks from it. It was 'when the multitude
of them that believed were of one heart and one soul' that it became
natural to have all things common. As in the aurora borealis,
quivering beams from different centres stream out and at each throb
approach each other till they touch and make an arch of light that
glorifies the winter's night, so, if Christian men were 'of the same
mind toward one another,' did not 'set their minds on high things,
but condescended to things that were lowly, and were not wise in
their own conceits,' the Church of Christ would shine forth in the
darkness of a selfish world and would witness to Him who came down
'from the highest throne in glory' to the lowliest place in this
lowly world, that He might lift us to His own height of glory
everlasting.