Some items from church:
Sunday school covered Romans 12:1-2. In the KJV, that reads: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
—-The pastor treated “by the mercies of God” as the key to understanding and applying Romans 12-14. Apart from that phrase, he said, those chapters become a bunch of laws. “By the mercies of God” provides them with a Gospel context. Because of, in light of, and shaped by the mercies of God, Christians love each other, their enemies, and outsiders (Romans 12). “By the mercies of God,” they behave as good citizens (Romans 13). “By the mercies of God,” they take into consideration where each other is spiritually and take heed not to make their Christian brother or sister stumble (Romans 14).
That reminds me of what the pastor said last week about Romans 11: that Christians are not to look down on one another because all of us are sinners in need of God’s mercy. That Gospel is to shape how we see ourselves and one another.
Looking at the Greek, though, “by the mercies of God” is dia plus a genitive. Dia plus a genitive is “through the mercies of God.” Dia plus an accusative is “on account of.” The pastor’s interpretation would make more sense if the phrase were dia plus an accusative. But how do we understand it when it is dia plus a genitive? Is Paul’s point more consistent with a Roman Catholic concept: God, by means of infusing grace, enables Christians to do all of these things? Or is the pastor’s interpretation consistent with “through the mercies of God”: through God’s mercy and our reception of it, Christians have the mindset that helps them to do those things?
—“Reasonable service.” The word translated “reasonable” is logike. The pastor said that is a hapaz legomena: it only appears in Romans 12:1, though II Peter 2:2 has a similar word. It is almost as if Paul made it up. The reason that the KJV renders it as “reasonable” is that it is related to “logos,” which denotes structure, order, and the organizing principle of the cosmos, what gives order to all else. The pastor proposed another interpretation, however. He said that he personally dates John’s Gospel earlier than most scholars do. In light of that, Paul may have known of John 1’s identification of Christ as the logos. Therefore, logike in Romans 12:1 means Christ-effected and Christ-shaped worship and service. A student offered that perhaps “reasonable” still makes sense, though: in light of Christ’s mercy to Christians, it is appropriate and reasonable for Christians to offer themselves as living sacrifices.
—-The pastor noted that “conformed” and “transformed” are passive. These things happen to us. Due to our ruined nature and the messages that come to us, we become conformed to the world, the flesh, and the devil. In so doing, we are allowing something that is passing away—-the world—-to shape and influence us, our desires, and our choices. But, because of the mercies of God, the Holy Spirit transforms Christians. Light breaks into the crevices of our hearts when the law breaks and convicts us, but the Gospel of God’s love and grace is what transforms us.
—-The pastor defined Greek anthropology as a trichotomy of mind, spirit, and body. The mind is the seat of intelligence and will. The spirit is what animates the body. The body is the physical part of human beings and the seat of their passions. When people die, however, it is their spirits that go to Hades or the good realm. Can a spirit exist apart from the mind, however? I should note that Plato treated reason and the passions as parts of the soul.