At the beginning of Romans 12, Paul – in one of the more memorable images of the New Testament – urges the members of the church in Rome to offer their bodies as a “living sacrifice” to God.  It is with this image that Paul shifts the focus of his letter to the Romans from a discussion about how to understand Jews and Gentiles to a discussion about how Christians – whether from a Jewish or Gentile background – should live together in community.  It is, essentially, a discussion of ethics.  Because we live in a particularly individualistic culture, we often miss the fundamentally communal aspect of Paul’s witness.  (For example, even the letter to the Romans itself was read aloud to all members of the gathered community, rather than printed for individual use!)  

New Testament scholar Richard Hays reminds us that “The biblical story focuses on God’s design for forming a covenant people.  Thus, the primary sphere of moral concern is not the character of the individual but the corporate obedience of the church.  Paul’s formulation in Romans 12:1-2 encapsulates this vision…. The community, in its corporate life, is called to embody an alternative order that stands as a sign of God’s redemptive purposes in the world…. Many New Testament texts express different facets of this image: the church is the body of Christ, a temple built of living stones, a city set on a hill, Israel in the wilderness.  The coherence of the New Testament’s ethical mandate will come into focus only when we understand that mandate in ecclesial terms, when we seek God’s will not by asking first, ‘What should I do,’ but ‘What should we do?’” (Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 196-7).

Paul continues his argument by employing a practical metaphor to explain how this community is supposed to function – it’s like a body, with many parts but one purpose.  (Here in Romans the church is “one body in Christ,” while in I Corinthians the metaphor is extended such that the church is “the body of Christ.”)  The metaphor of the body highlights the vital relationship between what we might call unity and diversity.  Just because diverse members exercise diverse gifts does not entail a fracturing or dividing of the body; unity remains possible even among diversity.  At the same time, Paul exhorts his audience to discern the gifts which they have been given by God.  Thus, it takes discernment, careful attention, and practical wisdom in order for a community to really come to embody the characteristics of a thriving community.  For Paul, it also takes a measure of humility, in order that everyone would “maintain a proper sense of one’s place within God’s scheme of things” (Dunn, Word Biblical Commentary, 732).

In a culture as individualistic as our own, Paul’s instructions to the community of believers often sound difficult, even foreign.  And yet, as we learn to exercise the gifts that we have been given, we may yet grow into one body by the grace of God and the work of the Spirit.  

BY CHRIS LIU BEERS, PROGRAM ASSOCIATE,

NC COUNCIL OF CHURCHES