meditatio at the water's edge

HUGE POST on Romans 12-13!

Here is some stuff from a study I'm doing on Romans at JCC. It's a hefty post. Students of N.T. Wright will identify his heavy influence--that's not a bad thing. After you read this, let's talk about it in the comments...


Romans 12-13
God’s Call on the Life of His People
God’s righteousness is not about getting people into heaven. It is about so much more than that. It is about God doing the unexpected and the undeserved thing to rescue the world He loves. It is about rescuing humanity from the divisions, violence, injustice, and perversions that mark its inability to live rightly with each other and from the idolatry, hypocrisy, and self-dehumanization (i.e., refusing to reflect the image of God) that mark its inability to live rightly with God.

As God rescues people from their rebellion and ruin, He calls them to re-present His new life (i.e., the life of the age to come) within the present age. Such a re-ordering of life presents great challenge: 1) for people who have previously been formed according to the pattern of the present age, and 2) for people who are surrounded by a culture that is formed according to the pattern of the present age.

How is such a challenge to be met? It is to be met by a community that 1) is transformed into the likeness of the Messiah from the inside out (mind and body) as it offers itself in worship as a living sacrifice, 2) demonstrates love and unity for each other in their life together, and 3) demonstrates love and respect to those who are not yet part of the family.

Life: Worship and Transformation
Romans 12:1-3 and 13:11-14 share a similar enough theme that we can identify them as ‘brackets’ to this larger section. They are both concerned with living within an alternative kind of life—a transformed life, a life offered up to God as an act of worship, a life lived not in the darkness of the present age, but in the light of the age to come.

The first section (12:1-2) is a very familiar set of verses, but what is missed in most translations is something very important to Paul’s view on the world—namely, his view of the present age and the (present and still coming) age to come. What is often translated as “do not be conformed to this world” is more accurately put as “do not be conformed to the present age.”

For Paul, “the present age” is always understood in contrast to the ’olam haba, “the age to come”—that is, the ‘age’ when God has put the world to rights and reigns without opposition or rebellion over the whole world. The church, then, for Paul, is to be the community of the age to come that lives within the present age—the foretaste of the reign of God. It’s worship, it’s priestly work, then, is to embody that life (i.e., ‘living sacrifices’ that discern and do ‘the will of God’) before the parts of the world that remain in rebellion and enslaved to sin within the present age.

The final part of this section (13:11-14) forms the other bracket, and calls again for the church to be the people of the ‘olam haba, the age to come. The language used here is of living in the day as opposed to living in the darkness—of putting on the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, as in putting on armor against the powers of darkness in the present age. While in fact Jesus is the protection for the people of God, we can read this passage to suggest that putting on the character of Messiah (ala the ‘renewing of your minds’ in 12:2) is itself a kind of protection—preventing us from returning to the captivity of sin ‘in the flesh’ (that is, ‘in Adam’).

Framing in what is to come in 12:3-13:10, Paul orients his readers toward the foundational activity of living the transformed life of ‘the age to come’ within the present age. This then, will be further developed with respect to relationships with those both inside (12:3-13 &13:8-10) and outside the church (12:14-21 & 13:1-7).

What difference would it make to think of our worship as “the whole of our lives as the embodiment of the age to come”?


Why do you think it is important for Paul to include body and mind in the relationship of worship and transformation?


Why do you think it is so important for us to think in terms of our identity as people of the age to come living in the present age? How can we start to think this way again?

Community: Love, Unity, & Life Together
Romans 12:3-13 and 13:8-10 are both concerned with how God’s people are to demonstrate the life of the age to come in relationship with each other. Of course love, a deep mutual concern for each other’s well being, is emphasized, but it is not left in the abstract. In 12:3-13, Paul outlines the shape of this love with respect to our attitude toward ourselves with respect to others (12:3), to our contribution (via spiritual gifts) to the care of the whole body (12:4-8), and to the specific ways that genuine love is demonstrated (12:9-13).

In 13:8-10, Paul ties his instructions for the demonstration of love in the Christian community with his earlier discussion on the fulfillment of the Torah. As we saw earlier (5:5, 8:3-17), the Spirit enables those who are ’in Messiah’ to fulfill the greatest commandment (Deut 6:4). It is here that we see Paul suggesting that the Christian community is now able and expected to fulfill the rest of the Torah—that part summed up by the command, “love your neighbor as yourself.”

There is, then, no place in the Christian community for ways of relating that represent the present age (i.e., arrogance, adultery, deception, murder, theft, covetousness, malice, contempt, disrespect, strife, etc. see Romans 1:26-32). Our life together is to re-present the life of the age to come even while we live in the present age.

Romans 12:9-13 is often read apart from 12:3-8. What might be gained by reading these sections together? What do they have to do with each other?


How does Paul’s distinction between those ‘in Adam’ and those ‘in Christ’ help make sense of his instruction about how those ‘in Christ’ are to relate to each other?


Where have you seen the command to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ embodied and fulfilled in the church?

Outsiders: Love and Respect
Romans 12:14-21 and 13:1-7 both address how God’s rescued people are to relate to those ‘outside.’ As a people who have been rescued from captivity to sin—those who are now ‘in Messiah’—we cannot relate to those who still remain ‘in Adam’ in any way other than the character of Messiah.

To our neighbors(12:14-21), some of whom may be hostile toward us, we demonstrate love by blessing them instead of cursing them, by sharing in our neighbors joys and sorrows, by living in peace with them “so far as it depends on you” (i.e., not being the cause of strife), and to refuse the pursuit of vengeance. In other words, to refuse to participate in the cycle of evil at work in the world—thereby perhaps breaking that cycle.

To those in authority over us (13:1-7), we show nothing but respect for them—understanding their place of authority under the sovereignty of God. The perspective of “the people of the age to come” on the authorities in “the present age” is that they have their authority (through perhaps not their endorsement) given to them by God.

The attitude toward authorities is not one of violent rebellion (or any other posture contrary to the character of Jesus), but one of obedience—insofar as those authorities require order and behavior that is consistent with God’s concern for justice and peace. Under authorities that do not act accordingly, the Christian community’s disobedience (as in Christians’ refusal to worship Caesar when Rome commanded it) is to be done without participating in the cycle of evil (i.e., violence, private vengeance, bribes, etc.).


Where has the Christian community’s attitude toward 'outsiders' failed to live up to its intended standard? When we have failed to ‘love our enemies,’ what have been some of the causes for our failure?


Have Christians ever used ‘loyalty to God’ as an excuse to engage in destructive (evil) action in opposition to authorities? What are some examples?