Chapter 4: Living Sacrifices

In chapter 2 , we explored how early Christian households functioned as workplaces, and focused specifically on the relational dynamics between its different members. The role and identity of the pater familias —who alone held patria potestas —was especially paramount, as he set the tone for how Christianity would (or would not) be lived out within the household.

In the third chapter we set our sights on Paul’s understanding of work , noting how he intentionally decided to support himself by working with his own hands. This culturally shameful practice helped him to conform his apostleship to Christ’s own pattern of suffering, and also served as an example to those who were exploiting the community instead of offering up their lives for its sake.

This brings us to our final chapter, where we come to the most difficult, delicate, and dangerous of these three words: ministry . Our approach will support the idea that every member of the church has a ministry—a notion often referred to as “the ministry of the whole people of God.” But because many Christians have had only minimal exposure to the biblical texts that speak of ministry in this way, I have decided to focus on a very well-known passage: Rom 12 :1 –8 .

Before we begin, a brief note on terminology. When we use the words “minister” or “ministry,” we are following a long tradition of biblical translation (stretching back to the King James Version and William Tyndale) that renders the Greek words diakonos and diakonia in this manner. The New Testament, however, never actually refers to what we would today call “the clergy.” That word would not have meant anything to Paul. In the New Testament, diakonos does not refer to an office, except when used in the later Pauline letters to refer to some who are called diakonoi . Today we do not translate that term as “minister,” but as “deacon.” This is a direct transliteration from Greek to English, and the word was originally rendered this way to distinguish it from the term episkopos , which also appears in the same passages.

But in its Pauline context, diakonos does not refer to an office. We usually assume that we are being biblical when we speak of “being in ministry,” or being “called to the ministry.” That’s the language that I grew up with—in fact, that’s the language that I used when, as a young teenager, I announced that I felt called to ministry. From that point on I was treated differently from the other young people in the church, because I had somehow become more special on that account. The fact that the church granted me such treatment is an indication of how poorly we read the New Testament. It would have found this notion to be completely foreign. Indeed, the word “ministry” in the New Testament is about the people of God in the service of others. Most of the time, it is used in reference to the relationships within the faith community, as well as to those who do not know Christ.

The misuse of this word is similar to what I have often said about the word “love,” which has been tragically destroyed in our culture. “Love” now refers to the feelings that I might have toward you, and it is primarily oriented around me, not you. That has very little to do with the biblical understanding of agape . I often say that love is not a noun, but a verb, and the moment that you turn it into a noun, you are in trouble. The same is true with joy. Joy is a verb. It is “rejoice,” not merely a feeling that one might happen to have. It is an activity, an action. Similarly, ministry, in the biblical sense of diakonos or diakonia , is an activity. It is not an idea, or a thing, or a noun. Even when it is used as a noun, it is verbal. And it is always chiefly about service to others.

A faithful interpretation of Romans must be predicated on the totality of Paul’s argument, which begins in Rom 1 :16 , and which concludes with his benediction in Rom 15 :13 . He presents this argument to the church in Rome, which was composed of Jews and gentiles, and which was dealing with the tensions of welcoming back Jews who had been kicked out of Rome over ten years earlier. By this time the church had become primarily gentile, and the tension between the Jewish and gentile Christians had grown into a very thorny issue. Paul’s goal was to get both parties in the Roman church to embrace his life’s calling and passion, which was the gentile mission.

From beginning to end, Romans is driven by the call to bring Jew and gentile together as the one people of God. This would happen through justification by faith, but the book as a whole does not revolve around this doctrine. Rather, it is primarily about the Jews and gentiles uniting as God’s people. And the only way this could happen was through the work of Christ in the Spirit. I would suggest that with this hint alone, you could go back to read Romans and emerge with a very clear picture of what is going on.

The story, then, is about the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. God chose the Jews precisely so that he could bless the nations. His aim has always been to restore what went wrong in Eden, so he chooses one people in order to bless the nations. The prophets never miss this—it hass always been a strong element in their thinking. One day, the gentiles will join God’s people and go up to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh. Paul understands his calling as one of bringing this covenant—and hence Yahweh’s longing to gather the nations together as his people—closer to its fulfillment.

God’s way of pulling this off, so to speak, is by bypassing the law. That is why the law gets such negative press in Romans, because God himself does an “end run” around it! The only possible way for Jews and gentiles to become the one people of God is by offering them a righteousness on the basis of grace, which is manifested in Christ Jesus and made available to them through faith alone. Think of the text that we know so well, but which we almost never quote in context: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We often cite this when evangelizing to make sure that people know they are not up to God’s standards. But Paul’s main point is that the gentiles (who don’t have access to the law) and the Jews (who do have access to it) both fall short of that glory.

The whole argument of Rom 2 hinges on the fact that the Jews think they have an advantage with God because they have Torah (that is, the Mosaic law). Paul’s rebuttal runs something like this: “The gentiles who supposedly don’t have Torah demonstrate by their actions that they actually do . Meanwhile, you who have the Torah don’t obey it, so the fact that you have it gives you no advantage whatsoever.” Everyone is equally disadvantaged by sin. Both Jew and gentile have fallen short of the glory of God, so both must receive grace through faith. Indeed, most of the first eight chapters of Romans are an attempt to establish that God had to “short-circuit” his Torah, since it did not offer any advantages for Israel and turned out to be absolutely ineffective in curbing sin. This is what Rom 7 is about—the Torah’s powerlessness vis-à-vis sin.

Chapters 3 –6 and 8 provide a wonderful demonstration of how God, by sending his Son and giving us his Holy Spirit, has accomplished what the law could not do. Paul expounds upon this through a marvelous theological move that most translators are not quite sure how to deal with. While discussing the Torah in chapter 7 , he essentially says, “The law was given but was accompanied by another law—the law of sin that leads to death.” He is fascinated by the dynamics of the law and its power, so he begins Rom 8 by declaring: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

Through this twist Paul is saying, “Oh, but there’s another law.” Think of how audacious it was for him to frame the Spirit as a kind of “law”—only he could get away with this! The law of the Spirit, Paul insists, does away with its first two predecessors. It even brings life, for what the Torah could not do, God himself did through Jesus Christ. And the purpose of this was that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

At this point, chapters 9 –11 take up the question of how God’s faithfulness relates to Israel’s unfaithfulness. Without delving into too much detail, Paul’s answer emerges toward the end of chapter 9 , where he notes that God had always planned that there would be a remnant of Israelites and gentiles who would become his one, united people through faith. In fact, Paul still holds out hope for Israel, but it is a hope that is no longer based on Torah. Instead, it is based on God’s faithfulness and mercy. In the marvelous language of Charles Wesley’s hymn, “’Tis mercy all, immense and free, and oh my God, it found out me.” This mercy is not the result of Israel’s lineage or history. Although it continues to hold these things in view, Israel’s hope now rests entirely on God’s grace.

This brings us to the last major section of Romans, which begins with the passage that will soon become this chapter’s central focus. But before we proceed, I must stress that Rom 12 –15 are not an afterthought to the doctrine of justification by faith. To the contrary, chapters 14 and 15 are where the argument has been heading all along. Theology is useless if it has no bearing on our behavior. Paul’s purpose in writing Romans was not merely to change how people thought , but how they lived .

One of the key questions for the Roman church was how kosher-keeping Jews and non-kosher gentiles could come together as the one people of God. Paul’s entire argument builds toward Romans 15 :5 –6 , which proclaims that “with one voice Jew and Gentile together will glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This was the objective of his letter. Paul then cites a string of Old Testament passages about gentile inclusion, the last of which speaks of their shared hope in Israel’s messiah, the Root of Jesse.

This in turn raised the question of how Jew and gentile could truly be united. How could they be the one people of God if some were adhering to Jewish practices (e.g., observing the Sabbath, circumcision, and food laws) while others were not? These practices were a constant point of contention for Paul, as they were integral to Jewish identity throughout the Diaspora. For now, he skips the question of circumcision as it is not relevant to salvation. Instead, he focuses on how those who have been saved can live a shared life on the basis of a common foundation: namely, by having faith in Jesus Christ and walking in the Spirit. This brings us to our key passage, Rom 12 :1 –8 .

Ministering as living sacrifices: Romans 12:1–8

Let me repeat that we must not approach Rom 12 :1 –8 as though it were some sort of tacked-on afterthought. Our lived ethical practices are not secondary to the “real stuff” of theology. This is the real stuff. If our theology does not work at this level, then something is desperately wrong with how we have received and internalized the good news.

To that end, these eight verses tie everything that Paul has previously said into the next phase of his argument. When he writes, “I appeal to you on the basis of the mercies of God,” he is referring to the entire exposition that has just preceded. This takes us all the way back to the beginning of the letter, and incorporates Paul’s whole argument through Romans up to this point. As we just saw, the main thrust of Rom 9 –11 was to show that the Jews and gentiles were on the same footing before God—both were entirely reliant upon his mercy. The gentiles had now received mercy because of the Jews; conversely, Israel’s rejection meant that they were no better off than the gentiles, as now they had become the branches who were cut off from the root. Yet in his mercy, God was now using the obedience of the gentiles to woo Israel back to himself, so that they might be regrafted into his people. Mercy has always been the one constant for both Jew and gentile, just as it is for us today. It’s as recipients of mercy that we are moved to share God’s mercy with others. Everything is grace, and God is a god of mercy.

In Rom 12 :1 , Paul urges us, in view of these mercies, to “present your bodies.” This is a direct echo of the language that he uses in chapter 6 . Pay attention to Rom 6 :12 –13 in particular: “ Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.” When Paul says “do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies,” he is not arguing that sin somehow exists in the flesh of one’s body. Rather, to speak of the “mortal body” was a way of identifying us in light of our present humanity. This is something we all share in common—we all have mortal bodies. It is in our very humanity that sin is to reign no more. Then in Rom 6 :13 Paul writes, “no longer present your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but present yourselves to God.” Here he uses the same verb, “present,” as in Rom 12 :1 . To be a living sacrifice means to present your bodies. Sin no longer reigns; present your bodies as those who are alive from the dead.

The specifics that follow spell out what it means to present oneself as a living sacrifice. This notion of “presenting our bodies” alludes to the Old Testament sacrificial system. It is one of the rare places, in fact, where Paul directly invokes the imagery of temple sacrifice. This only occurs three times throughout his letters (excluding his use of the word “blood,” which always refers to sacrifice). Since he was an apostle to the gentiles, Paul seldom needed to draw upon such vocabulary. It was not that the gentiles were unaware of this system; on the contrary, it is more likely that in Paul’s mind these sacrifices had been so completely fulfilled in Christ. So it is striking that he draws us back to this imagery and calls us to be “a living sacrifice,” holy and well-pleasing to God.

Paul then qualifies this description with a word that is nearly impossible to translate into English: logikos , which is derived from the Greek word, logos . (The English word “logical” is directly descended from this term.) When I was working on my book, God’s Empowering Presence , I remember sitting at the dining table and complaining to my wife, Maudine, about how difficult it was to translate this word. Historically, it had been rendered in so many ways that every possible variant seemed like it would send people down the wrong path. The King James Version uses “reasonable service,” which is actually fairly accurate. The problem is that in English, the word “reasonable” does not have much to do with reason anymore.

For this reason, others began to translate Paul’s phrase as “spiritual service.” Now, “spiritual” is what I call an “accordion word”: that is, a word with so many possible meanings that it constantly changes depending on how much air is blown into it. Of all the accordion words in the New Testament, “spiritual” must be the worst—it almost never really means what people think it means. Furthermore, in popular usage the word “spiritual” rarely has anything to do with the Holy Spirit. Usually it gets flattened to a sort of vague, personalized interiority.

Remember, logikos is not a Jewish word—it is Greek. So in this verse Paul is drawing upon ideas from the Jewish sacrificial system, but expressing them in very Greek terms. Unsurprisingly, logikos had to do with the activity of the mind. But the word does not just refer to mental activity, as it was mostly used to distinguish human beings from animals. Human beings were “logikos ”—they were rational beings who could think, reason, and understand. In that vein, philosophers would often use the term to describe the differences between humans and other creatures. Here is a line from the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, for example: “If, indeed, I were a nightingale, I should be singing as a nightingale. If I were a swan, as a swan. But as it is, I am logikos , therefore I must be singing hymns of praise to God.” While Epictetus certainly was not referring to Yahweh, his point was that we owe “God” a response that reflects our capacity for thought, reasoning, and understanding.

I am convinced that Paul deliberately uses logikos to refer back to the first chapter of Romans. This is especially evident in his description of gentile sinfulness in Rom 1 :20 –23 :

This is the ultimate downfall of the logikos mind. We have been created in God’s image to glorify him, but instead we make gods out of material things and declare, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt!” Paul’s use of logikos is a direct reference to this tendency. To highlight this, Maudine suggested the translation, “the sacrifice that makes sense”—that is, the sacrifice that makes sense for human beings who know what God has made them to be. This is close to what Paul was trying to convey, which was the service or ministry of a rational mind that has been created in God’s image and renewed by the Spirit. Paul is speaking of what such a mind can offer to God. But this does not easily lend itself to a one-word translation.

All this, of course, builds toward verse 2 , which contains Paul’s key point. First, we present ourselves as living sacrifices, which is what a new creation with a renewed logikos mind would do. Then Paul says that we are not to be “conformed.” Our minds are to stand over and against this present age in a very countercultural way. This is easily one of the most difficult texts that I have wrestled with as a pastor, professor, and follower of Jesus, because this age is hell-bent on conforming us to its mindset. And this happens to us mostly through the insidious process of osmosis.

I have a strong aversion to the commercial nature of American and Canadian television, but I have learned to sit through the ads in order to come face-to-face with what the world is selling: namely, a shared consumerist mentality that dominates our culture. This is frightening beyond imagination, and we are constantly imbibing these messages at every turn. We live in a society where getting ahead is widely considered to be an essential part of what it means to be human. This fallacy is broadcasted incessantly, and it is now our culture’s highest value. No wonder cruciformity is so difficult for Christians to hear and understand! Those of us who teach in churches must understand how inimical our society is to the way of the cross. We are utterly immersed in a culture that tries to conform us to a pagan worldview that will soon pass away.

For good reason, then, Paul’s concern is that we would become living sacrifices with minds that are renewed and transformed by the Spirit, so that we can continually be remade in God’s image. And no, God doesn’t care if we get ahead or not. What he cares about is whether we live out his ministry in this world—whether we live out his call to active, humble service.

“Be not conformed, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Friends, we cannot do this just by singing charismatic choruses. I am not going to delve into any church music debates, but music is an educative process in itself. Ultimately we learn to follow God by exalting him, and in doing so we are reminded that our minds must be continually renewed and shaped into his image. And we know what that image is, because his Son bears the perfect image of the Father in his humanity. Just a few chapters before this, in Rom 8 :29 , Paul says that we are being conformed into the image of his Son—that is our goal! Our task as pastors is to be immersed in the Spirit so that through our lives, God might create communities of people who enthusiastically lay hold of their ministries. This means giving themselves sacrificially to the world and to each other. That is ministry; that is what Jesus was about. And to be conformed to his likeness means that our minds must be captured by God, not by the advertising industry. This demands nothing less than the constant giving of ourselves.

What is the reason for all of this? Let’s come back to Rom 12 :2 : “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” When the apostle speaks of knowing “what God’s will is,” he is not talking about where to work or who to marry. Rather, he is concerned with whether or not we are living godly lives in this world. To know “what God’s will is” refers to God’s purposes for the human race, for Jew and gentile. It is in light of these purposes that Paul now directs us to the imagery of the body, which he also uses in 1 Corinthians.

Notice how he begins: “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Such “sober judgment” requires that we assess ourselves not in comparison with one another, but in relation to God’s own image, Jesus Christ. Likewise, to evaluate ourselves “in accordance with the faith God has distributed” is to affirm the distinct apportionment of faith that God has granted to different people. Here Paul is not talking about saving faith, but the specific gifts that God allocates to us as we place our faith in him—gifts which should ultimately be shared with Christ’s body, the community of faith.

Paul’s argument is that each person, whether Jew or gentile, must conform their lives to Christ. Once this is in place, then each person is free to exercise their gifts to their fullest extent. If your gift is prophecy, prophesy! If it’s teaching, teach! If it’s showing mercy, then show mercy! And so forth. Note that Paul isn’t even attempting to be comprehensive with these examples—he’s offering an ad hoc sampling of the rich diversity of ministries found within the body of Christ. In addition, these gifts also have a strong incarnational dimension. Christ was born in a body like ours; he suffered, was crucified, was raised to life, and now—as prophesied in Psalm 110 —he sits at the right hand of God, crushing his enemies under his feet. Yet at the same time, his body, the church, still remains on earth. The incarnation is still present in the world. Christ ministers here and now through us, his church.

In Rom 12 :6 –8 , Paul makes no comparisons between gifts. God’s gifts, he affirms, are so diverse and bountiful that the body needs each of them in order to function and be whole. Each part is essential, which means that the church must stop thinking in terms of “clergy” and “laity.” We must stop equating “the ministry” with what pastors do. Instead, we must learn to speak of the ministry of Christ’s body in the world, so that we can celebrate the full, manifold expression of God’s gifts to his people. An encouraging example of this are churches that do not merely recognize those who serve in official ministries (e.g., Sunday School teachers), but who also publicly pray for and bless those in other occupations. Imagine laying hands on the lawyers in your church, and commissioning them to practice law as a form of ministry in a world where the word “lawyer” is almost equivalent to an expletive. To pray for them is to recognize their work as a place where Christ’s ministry can be exercised in our world.

It is time for the church to sanctify these kinds of callings, as they challenge us to be fully present in the world, and to embody Christ there. Such a task requires a renewed mind and a public, unequivocal affirmation that we are his body. There is only one head to our body, and it is not the local pastor, regardless of what he or she may think. That head is the Lord Jesus Christ. His desire is that we would function under him who, as our head, supplies us with everything that we need to live as God’s people in both the church and the world. That is ministry: the person who, with a renewed mind, conforms themselves to the image of Christ by offering their life in service to the world.