Question 1.
DECISION-MAKING DISCUSSION
Analyze the effect of better understanding your learning style, personality style, and spiritual gifts in context of decision-making.
Instructions
A major driver for our decisions is based on our preferred learning style, personality, and even our preferences for the types of services we like to perform for God! We will articulate those in this activity, and discuss how they influence you.
• Take the personality style assessment at the link below:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp
• Take the learning style assessment at the link below:
https://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html
• Complete the Spiritual Gifts Test available at the link below.
http://www.spiritualgiftstest.com/test/adult
• Prepare to discuss the questions below.
• Report the results of each assessment and explain how accurate you think they are.
• Explain why it would valuable for co-workers, family, and fellow college peers to have an awareness of these aspects.
• Discuss whether you use your spiritual gifts, and if so, how you use them. If you don't use them, discuss whether you intend to pursue them, and if so, how you plan to use them.
• Determine if you feel that you'll make better decisions now that these assessments have been articulated.
Question 2.
KNOW YOURSELF DISCUSSION
Examine the implicit command to "know yourself" found in Romans 12:3-4.
Instructions
To live in truth, we must know who we truly are. And this is only possible if we know who we are. An honest assessment of how God has uniquely designed us, and knowing we never need to try to be more than this, or on the contrary, live less than this, allows us to live a life of faith that pleases God.
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 measure of faith God has given you.(Romans 12:3-4)
When you hear the phrase, "think of yourself with sober judgment," what comes to mind? In today's world, we commonly hear the word "sober" in the context of drinking alcoholic beverages or drug use. And, actually, this might be a helpful way to approach Paul's words in Romans 12.
There can be two extremes, depending on a person's physical and psychological makeup, when a person is not sober and "under the influence." Many times they either become really loud, boisterous, and cocky, or they become quiet, melancholy, and even sorrowful. And this can be a picture of all of us if we do not judge ourselves soberly.
When we hear the words "judge" or "sober," feelings of fear or guilt may be associated with them. But, this passage isn't negative or critical of its readers, but rather it advises us (maybe even gives us permission) to simply be all that we are supposed to be. Nothing more or nothing less.
Thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought or thinking or feeling less of ourselves doesn't help us or others. So, Paul is telling us to be sober, to not be under the influence of whatever causes us, or pressures us, to be something we are not.
And it is helpful to note that the word is "sober" and not "somber." Paul's implicit command to rightly, or soberly, "know yourself" isn't a rigid or overly stern command, but rather it is a way of seeing ourselves that frees us to discover and enjoy who we truly are, and to also offer this to our world.
Prepare to discuss the following questions.
• If you are familiar with this portion of scripture, did you look at this passage in this way before?
• If not, how have you interpreted it or possibly heard it interpreted?
• How does this speak to your own life, to the way you have seen yourself?