In the book of Romans 12:1 the Apostle Paul writes as follows: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
This verse comes after the Apostle Paul has exposed the mysteries of God’s sovereign election, and his appeal is based precisely on the fact that God has chosen a people to belong to Him.
In this regard, chapter 12:1 is a transition verse in the whole letter. To put it simply, Paul is moving from what God has done to save His people to how Christians are to live in light of such a great salvation.
So, if you read v.1 again you will realize that Paul is saying that the whole of us, that is body and soul, should be occupied in worshipping God.
And of course the question is: how are we to worship God? Just because we say that we are to worship God does not necessarily explain what that little word means”worship” means, right?
Thankfully, the Apostle Paul will explain what he means by “worship” in the next chapters. But for our purposes here it is sufficient to say that by worship here he simply means: living according to God’s Word with the help of the Holy Spirit given to each believer. This is what Paul calls worship.
Now, think about it: how many of us think about our lives from that perspective?
It has become very common in modern evangelical circles to think about worship in terms of a song or a group of songs. So we say thinks like: “worship music was really good last Sunday,” or “I really felt like I was worshipping with that song” and similars.
But the problem with that idea is that is reductionistic. It reduces worship to “a song” or “a feeling.” In fact in our modern minds worship does not longer have to do with the preaching of the Word of God or receiving the Lord’s Supper/Baptism, but again, reduced to a time during the service in which we sing a group of songs.
But according to the Apostle Paul singing a song is not what worship is. For the Apostle Paul, as we have read in v.1 already, worship is the surrendering of our lives to Christ in every sphere of life!
To put it directly, worship is how you live your life after you have left the church building. So you worship God with your family, at work, at school and so on. And this, again, does not mean singing a “worship” song when you are working, no! It means more.
It means living differently. The wording Paul has used “living sacrifice, holy and acceptable” is not a coincidence. It calls our minds to those sacrifices in the Old Testament reminding us that what is needed of us is that we need to deny ourselves for Christ.
In other words, it reminds Christians who they are in Christ, namely forgiven, restored, justified, and moves them towards sanctification, namely, to live differently.
But lest I confuse you. I am not saying that Scriptures lack a concept of such a thing as worship. Not at all! Scriptures make a clear distinction between “Worship” and “worship.”
The first, is proper worship, and is still not just a song, by the way, but is regulated by God. It happens on the day He has chosen (Deut. 5:12-15/1 Cor. 16:2), it consists of gathering together with other Christians (Heb. 10:25) to hear the preaching of the Word, singing, praying, and brake bread (Acts 2:42ff).
So Scriptures are clear that there is such a thing as proper worship. But, the second one is also attested in Scriptures, namely, that the whole of our lives too are a form of worship, not at the expense of the first but as a fruit of it.
The Christian life is not partitioned in two worlds: one when I go to church and behave like a Christian and one in which I forget that I am a Christian.
Rather, the Christian life is one whole organic thing that encompasses everything that we are, body and soul, life and death, our family life and our work life.
This is what is encapsulated in this little verse by Paul. To be a Christian is to live differently. Is to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, strength and our neighbors as ourselves.
Hardly such a thing can be encapsulated in singing a song, or simply confined to Sunday morning! It rather means living the whole of our lives for Christ’s glory and according to His Word.
With much love,
Cristian Garcia,
Da Lucem, Domine!