Romans 12:16

Be of the same mind one toward another. [A general repetition of the special command just given. Enter into the mind or feeling of your brother, whether in joy or sorrow. In the mental and sentimental sphere keep the Golden Rule with him.] Set not your mind on high things, but condescend to things that are lowly. [Luke 12:15. This injunction also has loving concord for its object. Class distinctions, high positions, situations, social eminence, etc., are to be avoided as tending to sever your sympathies, interests and desires from your humble brethren. "The greatest enemy to concord is pride" (Tholuck). Christ was meek, and we should be like the Master. Avoid such things as lead one "to flatter the great, to court the rich, and be servile to the mighty" (Plumer). It is a question whether we should here read "lowly things," or "lowly people." Either reading is correct, and commentators are about equally divided on the point. Meyer, who favors the neuter, reads: "Yielding to that which is humble, to the claims and tasks which are presented to you by the humbler relations of life." He illustrates by Paul's following the trade of tentmaker. Against this, Gifford says: "The adjective tapeinos (lowly) is used in the New Testament frequently of persons, never of things. It is better, therefore, to follow the same usage here, and understand it of lowly persons as in the Authorized Version." But Paul doubtless used the adjective in its fullest sense, combining both persons and things, making it, as it were, a double command; for he wished his readers to do all things needful to keep them in brotherly accord. If we keep in touch with the lowly, we must yield ourselves to be interested in their lowly affairs; and if we keep our hearts warm toward humble things, we will find ourselves in sympathy with humble people. So even if the command be made single, it will either way affect the double result of a double command, and without the double result either command would be insufficient. "Honor all your fellow-Christians, and that alike," says Chalmers, "on the ground of their common and exalted prospects. When on this high level, do not plume yourselves on the insignificant distinctions of your superior wealth or superior earthly consideration of whatever sort." Moreover, let your condescension be invisible; let it be so hid in love that no one, not even yourself, is conscious of its presence, for condescension without love is as spittle without healing-- John 9:6] Be not wise in your own conceits. [Proverbs 3:7. Setting our hearts on high things as our proper sphere, and despising lowly things as unworthy of our lofty notice, begets in us a false idea of our own importance and wisdom, and a conceited spirit full of pride and vanity. This is the besetting sin of those having large mental endowment--those whom the world counts wise. The culmination of this self-conceit is that spirit which even cavils at God's precepts, and lightly criticizes and rejects his revelation. The proper spirit before God is childlike, teachable (Matthew 18:1-4; Mark 10:15), and it is better to be wise in the sight of the all-wise God than to be a Solomon in your own foolish estimation. As conceit grows, love ebbs, and all loveless life is profitless (1 Corinthians 13:1-2). We now approach a sphere of duties relating to forbearance in persecution, and life-relations outside the church.]