The Necessity of Self-Reflection

In his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr raises the idea that with the deepening influence of the internet on our lives, we risk becoming “pancake people.” By this he means our intake of knowledge is “wide and thin,” as we have such vast repositories of knowledge at our fingertips. However, the temptation will be to skim the surface of all sorts of knowledge, but never to dive deep. Furthermore, the internal spaces we have traditionally relied upon for quietude and self-reflection may be too easily filled with the trivia and noise of the world. What will we become as we lose those quiet spaces of contemplation? Carr wrote his essay in 2008. As we hurtle through 2026, perhaps we’re seeing the consequences Carr suggested we might face.

But the Bible helps us to see that mankind has always had problems keeping mental and spiritual focus. Why else would the Holy Spirit have to remind us as often as he does in the scriptures to “Be still” and to reflect on who we are and who God is (Ex. 14:14, 1 Kings 19:12-13, Psalm 37:7, 46:10, Zec. 2:13)?

In two passages, Paul directly addresses our need for self-reflection. The first is in 1 Corinthians 11:28, where Paul instructs the Corinthian brethren on the appropriate way to take the Lord’s Supper. He writes, “A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.” 

While the world tends to put off self-examination until the first day of every new year, the Lord knows that we need more regular, weekly reminders to peer inside our own hearts.  Every week, when we honor the Lord’s memorial, we examine our motives, our weaknesses, and our failures before him. We look to the cross, and we see the ultimate picture of the consequences of our own sins. It is an ugly scene—brutal, twisted, and full of hate for all things that are good. That is the reality of sin. God wants us to look upon it, and not to ignore it. He desires that we stop our business, stop our rushing, stop our planning. Just stop. Look at God, on the cross. Look at self and what self has done.

When we know ourselves truly in this way, we are then invited to feast with God, sharing his very self as our sustenance, as our life, as our victory. But the celebration can be held only after repentance.

So much of the message of Jesus focuses on repentance (Matt. 4:17, Mark 6:12, Luke 5:32, Luke 13:3).  It is what is in the heart that matters (Matt. 12:34, 15:18-19), and so we must clear out of our hearts the clutter of worldly desires, selfish thinking, and the hatreds that stem from such mindsets, in order to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matt. 22:37). Self-reflection is a prerequisite for the repentance that God desires (2 Cor. 7:10). Once repentance has done its work, and the Lord’s forgiveness is accepted, we celebrate—and feast on his provision.

Paul was not only concerned with how the Corinthian brethren were conducting the Lord’s Supper; he was even more basically concerned with the attitude of arrogance that had crept into their thinking. The Corinthian Christians were taking pride in who baptized them (1 Cor. 1:14), in which evangelist they followed (1 Cor. 1:12), in their ability to speak in tongues (1 Cor. 14:19), and to demonstrate their own knowledge (1 Cor. 3:18-20, 8:1-2). Some would even go so far as to challenge Paul’s authority and his knowledge of Christ (2 Cor. 13:3). In response to these attitudes, Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test.” 

Self-reflection is a prerequisite to having the proper attitude. Arrogance and selfishness are deeply rooted in our fallen human nature. If we fail to stop and look to God as we examine our own motives and our own hearts and our own tendency toward sin, we will run headlong into the folly that comes with arrogant, selfish, and self-righteous attitudes—just as the Corinthians did. 

Self-reflection is necessary. But if we have the proper understanding of faith, then we also know that self-reflection does not lead to the dead-end of self-indulgent navel gazing and moaning over our poor, wretched selves. Rather, we know that as we reflect on our weaknesses, we can see God in his strength. We, through faith, acknowledge Christ’s power of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit’s power to seal us (Eph. 1:13) and keep us from falling (Jude 24). What happens at the Lord’ s Supper is what should happen with all Christian self-examination. We see the wretchedness of sin, then the power of God’s love. And we take delight—cheerful, open, intimate, and full—in the presence of the Lord.   

-Nick Boone

First Published in Words of Life Bulletin