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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
12:1-15:13 God's Righteousness in Everyday Life. The gift of God's saving righteousness leads to a new life. In this section Paul works out some of the practical implications of God's saving mercy.
12:1-2 Paradigm for Exhortations: Total Dedication to God. These verses summarize the response to God's grace and serve as the introduction for all of 12:1-15:13. They encapsulate what it means to live in a way that pleases God.
12:1 Therefore points back to the entire argument from 1:18-11:36. mercies of God. Christians are to give themselves entirely to God because of his saving grace, as shown in 3:21-11:36. Sacrificial language from the OT is used to denote the new life of Christians, and this means that the word bodies here refers to Christians as whole persons, for both body and soul belong to God. They are a living sacrifice, meaning that they are alive from the dead since they enjoy new life with Christ (6:4). "Living" also means that they will not be put to death as OT animal sacrifices were (see notes on sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7), for Christ has fulfilled what was predicted by those sacrifices. Whereas OT worship focused on offering animal sacrifices in the temple, Paul says that spiritual worship in a broad sense now includes offering one's whole life to God (cf. Heb. 13:15-16). Elsewhere, however, the NT can also use the word "worship" in a narrower sense, to speak of specific acts of adoration and praise (Matt. 2:2; John 4:20; Acts 13:2; 1 Cor. 14:25; Heb. 12:28; Rev. 11:1).
12:2 The present evil age still threatens those who belong to Christ, so they must resist its pressure. Their lives are changed as their minds are made new (contrast 1:28), so that they are able to "discern" God's will. By testing you may discern translates Greek dokimazō, which often has the sense of finding out the worth of something by putting it to use or testing it in actual practice (cf. Luke 14:19; 1 Cor. 3:13; 2 Cor. 8:22; 1 Tim. 3:10).
