A Renewed Thinking
Romans 12 The Message 1-2
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your
everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and
walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God
does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to
your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your
attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what
he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you,
always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of
you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1-2 The Voice Brothers and
sisters, in light of all I have shared with you about God’s mercies, I urge you to offer
your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice to God, a sacred
offering that brings Him pleasure; this is your reasonable, essential
worship. 2 Do not allow this world to mold you in its
own image. Instead, be transformed from the inside out by renewing
your mind. As a result, you will be able to discern what God wills and whatever
God finds good, pleasing, and complete.
Romans12:1-2 Niv Therefore, I
urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as
a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and
proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able
to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect
will.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary Romans
12:2
The mind must be renewed for him.
This is pressed (Rom. 12:2): “Be you transformed by the renewing of your mind;
see to it that there be a saving change wrought in you, and that it be carried
on.” Conversion and sanctification are the renewing of the mind, a change not
of the substance, but of the qualities of the soul. It is the same with making
a new heart and a new spirit—new dispositions and inclinations, new sympathies
and antipathies; the understanding enlightened, the conscience softened, the
thoughts rectified; the will bowed to the will of God, and the affections made
spiritual and heavenly: so that the man is not what he was—old things are
passed away, all things are become new; he acts from new principles, by new
rules, with new designs. The mind is the acting ruling part of us; so that the
renewing of the mind is the renewing of the whole man, for out of it are the
issues of life, Prov. 4:23. The progress of sanctification, dying to sin more
and more and living to righteousness more and more, is the carrying on of this
renewing work, till it be perfected in glory. This is called the transforming
of us; it is like putting on a new shape and figure.
On Facebook, and when we update our Status on
Facebook, it asks its users the question “What’s on your mind?”
In the English Language we have one
word for Mind, and that word is Mind, I’m sorry for stating the obvious, The
Bible was written in two languages, the first of these was Hebrew which
the Old Testament was originally written in, although it was later translated
into languages like Aramaic, Greek and so on. The second language was Greek,
which the New Testament was originally written in, although it was again
translated into other languages, in many ways for the Roman Empire and other
Empires of that time especially in the Eastern Mediterranean area, The Greek
Language was the lingua franca, we call the Greek Language used then as Koine
Greek.
The users of Koine Greek would have
used 3 different words that we today would read in our Bibles as the English
word “Mind” these are:-
1. Sophrono or right mind, Strong’s ref 4993
To be of sound mind, sane, self-controlled, serious, moderate, sober-minded,
restrained, disciplined, able to reason. From sozo.”
, to save” and phren, “ the mind” see
Mark 5:15
2. Dianoia or a thinking
through Strong’s ref 1271 Dianoia combines nous,
“mind” and dia, “through” The
word suggests understanding, insight, meditation, reflection, perception, the
gift of apprehension, the faculty of thought. When this faculty is renewed by
the Holy Spirit, the whole mind-set changes from the fearful negativism of the
carnal mind to the vibrant, positive thinking of the quickened spiritual mind
see Mark 12:30
3. Sophronismos or a sound mind Strong’s ref 4995,
A combination of sos “safe”
and phren, “the mind” hence
safe-thinking. The word denotes good judgement, disciplined thought patterns,
and the ability to understand and make right decisions. It includes the
qualities of self-control and self-discipline see 2 Timothy 1:7
For many of us, our thought
patterns have been influenced by what our society and culture think or indeed
think of us!, the influence or propaganda of a non-Christian world view
or group think has had or indeed having an undue influence on the way we think
as Christian Believers, it’s time we changed the way we think.
Colossians 3:1-3 Esv
3 If then you have been raised
with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the
right hand of God. 2 Set your
minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you
have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
1 Peter 1:13-15 Esv
13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action,
[a] and being sober-minded, set
your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of
Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of
your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in
all your conduct
Ephesians 4:17-18 Niv
17 So I tell you this, and insist on
it in the Lord, that you must
no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18
They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God
because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.
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