"Therefore, brothers & sisters, as God's mercy enables you, I urge you to offer every moment of your day-to-day, physical, concrete existence as a living and holy sacrifice which gives great pleasure to God. Living this way is the most natural kind of worship." (Rom 12:1; my Tx)
I love that! Every tiny detail of the day can turn out to be an altar. The Benedictines and monastics (Brother Lawrence with his potato peeler!) are way ahead of the Charismatic church on this! Of course, the flipside is that other gods can be placed on those same altars.
I love this verse because it puts all of my related posts (The Unexamined Life, the Discipline of God etc) in context of God's great love and mercy poured out on us ... and reminds that moment-by-moment walking in loving submission and worshipful obedience is the backbone of faithful discipleship.
I enjoy the New Wine experience, and was greatly blessed this year, but now it's back to working it out, and keeping an eye out for the "roadside altars".
Translational Notes
1. Bodies (in NIV) translates the Greek soma. Often misunderstood to refer merely to the physical body in this passage (Paul usually uses sarx (flesh) for that), it more likely refers here to our whole physical existence, and encompasses all the ways in which we interact with the world around.
So "offer your bodies" is an all-encompassing offering of every aspect of our earthly, corporeal existence. So it includes, but is not limited to being careful how we use and treat our bodies.
"soma is not to be thought of in contrast to an "inner consecration" but as the physical embodiment of the individual’s consecration in the concrete realities of daily life." (Dunn)
Eugene Peterson's "Message" translation of 12:1 captures this nuance beautifully.
2. "Most natural" = Greek 'logikos'. Usually translated "reasonable" or "spiritual", or "logical", I've taken it to mean "natural" i.e. the most natural consequence of the endless mercy of God is a life lived in worshipful response. In other words, it makes perfect sense that endless mercy poured into a life should pour back out in whole-person whole-life worship.
3. Great pleasure. Greek euarestos (= eu (good) + arestos (pleasing) is more than just "pleasing".
Refs.
- Ziesler, Pauline Christianity, p 98. (OUP)
- Dunn, J.G. Romans (Word Biblical Commentary)
- Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature. on "soma"
- Brown (ed.) The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology on "soma"
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