Romans chapter 12

vs 1

Ahh, Romans 12. One of the most preached on chapters in the Bible. So practical! So Christiany! I don't pretend I'm going to say or think anything new on these verses. But I must say at least that it has been nice to work up to here through the last 11 chapters, especially the most recent one regarding the Jews. One could say that the start of the practical Romans is seeped in the idea of the gentiles being ingrafted branches. How many sermons rely on that?

The TNIV has decided, along with pretty much every other version under the sun, to change vs 1. The wording, anyway. "True worship", eh? It's funny, the more different ways you read this verse, in one way, the less you care what it actually means. But in another way these different wordings do help us to get an idea of what is being said. Obviously 'worship' is an important aspect. However, the idea of service is also very strong. The NASB tries to fit them both into the verse, whereas the KJV doesn't talk about worship, and the (T)NIV doesn't talk about service. "True worship" - I would like to read the translations notes of the committee who decided that.

Anyway, God's mercy has been, most recently and specifically, to ingraft the gentiles into his family, at the (temporary) expense of the Jews. The fitting response to this is offering up our bodies as sacrifices. Whether that is service or worship or the words mean the same thing, the fact is Paul tells how to do it very clearly. Perhaps we like to argue about the wording of the second bit so much because we aren't really all that keen on the idea of everything we do and are being about pleasing God.

vs 2

I like this verse. I like the idea that we can test and approve God's will. The NASB seems to want to suggest that God's will is those things that are good, pleasing and perfect. It's outvoted. It's important that our minds get renewed along with the rest of us. This is the idea that our minds can grow in the knowledge of God, and that indeed they are growing. It's interesting that it's played off against conforming to the pattern of this world, as if this world's pattern is to prevent you from having your mind renewed, which stops you from being transformed as a whole. Indeed, the transformation seems to start at the mind, and then work its way up from there.

The suggestion that conformation to this world prevents our minds from being renewed shows the corrupting nature of the world (I should state here that I think there are two reasonable definitions for 'world' in this sense - either the world of human nature, or the world as it exists apart from God) on our minds and indeed whole person. I wonder if this does something to describe people's general inability to approach God in even the most minute fashion when they are seeking to conform to the ways of the world?

vs 3

Paul is in no way saying that faith is a limited resource. Although I guess from our perspective it could be seen that way. No, rather God has chosen in his wisdom to limit it to us. We receive it by his grace, and it is therefore the only way we should seek to judge each other, or even ourselves by. I don't even know that we judge others by it - this letter is written to a church, remember, so there could be the suggestion that the church judges its faith corporately. This gentle warning of not thinking of yourself to highly is far more gentle than that given to, say, Corinth.

vs 4

Very true. Thank you for the very short anatomy lecture.

vs 5

It's interesting to note that this idea of body means that not only do we form a body under Christ (who we are told elsewhere "forms the head" in true typical nerd anime fashion) and so belong to Christ, but we also belong to each other. See, when I think of my body, I think that it all belongs to me. I don't think of my toenails belonging to my hand. And yet that is the point that Paul is making here and not the other.

vs 6

Such a novel idea, that we each have gifts. I think in reading this, we have to realise that Paul is trying to give a short list that shows just how many more gifts could be put on this list if we really put our minds to it. Instead, as a church, we have taken this a little too literalistically, looked at the lists of gifts in the various books, put them together in a bundle, and said "Pick one of these if you want to serve in the church". Thankfully I think that model is finally dying (although it caused some pretty big stuff-ups if you ask me, and you could almost blame certain clappy denominations' genesis on this wrong thinking), because the idea that you "pick a gift" means you aren't actually trusting that God has given you a gift at all.

Anyway, let's start off with an easy one, prophecy. Because we all know what that means. I assume the Romans knew, and the Corinthians for that matter. Do we really know though? I have no idea for sure what it means. It's interesting that, of all the gifts, this is the one which is limited to the amount of faith God has given you (in reference to v 3). It could be that Paul means that to be tagged onto all of the gifts, but only put it on the first one for sake of time. Of course, if he really wanted it to be on all of them, he could have either written it on all of them, or just written at the end "and do all these in accordance with the faith God has given you".

The TNIV brings an interesting little aside to the translation, saying that it could also be read "the" faith. So is the idea then that your prophecies should be in line with the established body of faith perhaps? Interesting idea, but I think that sense of 'proportion of faith' exists there which the TNIV has dropped out.

Anyway, it's interesting that Strong's definition of the word propheteia includes some sort of future-telling in pretty much every definition. The only one that doesn't is "2. of the endowment and speech of the Christian teachers called prophets" which doesn't really seem to say anything.

vs 7

All the others seem relatively straightforward. I will note that teach exists here and so must be reasonably distinct from prophesy - although, to counter this point, how vague can you get with "serve"?

vs 8

Nothing new here except that when we get to giving, you don't just give, but you give with some sort of adjective - as you do with leadership and showing mercy. See, I would have never said that mercy was a gift. But hey, I didn't make them up.

vs 9

It is these sorts of pat statements that make for memory verses. That's why basically all of chapter 12 is one big memory verse. The idea that love requires sincerity is an interesting one to explore, though. We are often told that since we can be commanded to love, that the love we are being commanded to is more than just soppy feelings, it is some sort of measurable action. However, it apparently also needs to be sincere, which I would say means you can't just act it out. How's that for confusing.

vs 10

I really, really struggle with honouring people above myself. I want to say that we all do, but I bet there are plenty of Christian people out there who really live their life for God and other people. I try, I really do. But it just doesn't recharge me. I get exhausted by it. I will keep trying though, like we all should, because it's our job.