Proportion of faith

(Romans 12:6). Paul says here that each one was to exercise his gift of prophecy, i.e., of teaching, "according to the proportion of faith." The meaning is, that the utterances of the "prophet" were not to fluctuate according to his own impulses or independent thoughts, but were to be adjusted to the truth revealed to him as a beliver, i.e., were to be in accordance with it.

In post-Reformation times this phrase was used as meaning that all Scripture was to be interpreted with reference to all other Scripture, i.e., that no words or expressions were to be isolated or interpreted in a way contrary to its general teaching. This was also called the "analogy of faith."

Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (n.) The relation or adaptation of one portion to another, or to the whole, as respect magnitude, quantity, or degree; comparative relation; ratio; as, the proportion of the parts of a building, or of the body.

2. (n.) Harmonic relation between parts, or between different things of the same kind; symmetrical arrangement or adjustment; symmetry; as, to be out of proportion.

3. (n.) The portion one receives when a whole is distributed by a rule or principle; equal or proper share; lot.

4. (n.) A part considered comparatively; a share.

5. (n.) The equality or similarity of ratios, especially of geometrical ratios; or a relation among quantities such that the quotient of the first divided by the second is equal to that of the third divided by the fourth; -- called also geometrical proportion, in distinction from arithmetical proportion, or that in which the difference of the first and second is equal to the difference of the third and fourth.

6. (n.) The rule of three, in arithmetic, in which the three given terms, together with the one sought, are proportional.

7. (v.) To adjust in a suitable proportion, as one thing or one part to another; as, to proportion the size of a building to its height; to proportion our expenditures to our income.

8. (v.) To form with symmetry or suitableness, as the parts of the body.

9. (v.) To divide into equal or just shares; to apportion.