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Continuing in Romans

 Over the past months I have been reading slowly through Romans. Slowly. 

When I got to 8, it was a stroll to smell every flower and look into every leaf. 

In 9-11, it was an uphill climb to fathom the perfect, unmistaken sovereignty of God and how Israel fits into it. I haven't reached the top on that one. 

Now, I come to 12:1-2, which in my generation was the go-to text for speakers to young audiences. Despite all those sermons, it still perplexes me: knowing and proving the perfect will of God? 

Well, he has just been writing about the will of God. Our sacrifice of our active bodies and inner selves (in contrast to the fatal sacrifice of physical animal bodies like those of centuries in the temple) to a service to God that is only rational in light of what he has just written, which ended with this:

11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?”
35 “Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”

36 For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

The "therefore" in 12:1 is, of course, referring to these verses. God's way are unsearchable, so rationally speaking, your service is to someone  who you can't figure out and should submit to fully, who can reform your paganized (or today, secularized) mind. 

More on the rest of verse 2 coming. 

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