2 Corinthians 13:5: Examine your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don’t you know as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless indeed you are disqualified.
In the above verse, the Holy Spirit through Paul commands Christians to examine ourselves. This is a responsibility each of us has.
What can be much easier than examining oneself is examining others. While Scripture does not demean the importance of helping others make needed correction, the one each of us should foremost examine is self.
This is the key teaching in the first five verses of Matthew 7. After saying, “Judge not, that ye be not judged” in verse 1, our Lord explains what He means by this in the next few verses. His point is summarized in verse 5, which says, “You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
In other words, help others receive the cure for sin (cf. Gal. 6:1; Jas. 5:19-20), but look in the mirror first. When “looking in the mirror” to examine oneself, it’s important to do so according to God’s standards, rather than using the standards of the world.
Part of the Holy Spirit’s “charge” for “those who are rich in this present world” in 1 Timothy 6:17-19 is “that they not be arrogant.” While humility is essential for everyone, it is easy to have an inflated view of self based upon earthly successes. Possessions, popularity, prestige, accomplishments, and the like can give one a false sense of security if this is the “standard” used in examining oneself (cf. Rev. 3:17).
The same could be said for self-examination that is based on comparing oneself to other people.
In 2 Corinthians 10:12, Paul said, “For we are not bold to number or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves. But they themselves, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves with themselves, are without understanding.” Looking to others’ positive examples can be helpful (Heb. 13:7). This is far different, though, from the “self-examination” condemned in 2 Corinthians 10:12. Such is a recipe for self-righteousness and self-deception (cf. Luke 18:11). Whether or not we are right with God is not based on how we measure up to other fallible people, but how we measure up to the perfect standard of God’s Word and our Savior.
When we examine ourselves in view of God’s perfect standard, we must do so with honesty. To see ourselves as God does, we must have a sincere approach to self-evaluation, instead of a pre-determined conviction that we have nothing to change.
Such sincerity is exemplified by the Bereans in Acts 17:11. These Bereans are said to be “more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” The Bereans’ nobility is explained by their “readiness of mind,” a mark of their sincere desire to know the truth. Notice their simple purpose in examining the Scripture: “to see whether these things were so.” Like the Bereans, we must seek to know and practice what is right, whether it agrees with prior convictions or not. Such honesty is crucial to profitable self-examination, and should be applied to all of God’s truth. The Word of God provides the spiritual nourishment we need to grow as we must (1 Pet. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:18) and make needed corrections (2 Tim. 3:16). We must enable this growth, though, by examining ourselves in light of His Word with a sincere desire to let God mold us and make us according to His will.
– Michael Hickox