Keep Crawling Off the Altar
A family in Rome, gathered to pray. Scripture: Rom. 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. Observation: Therefore — we bear in mind all the preceding 11 chapters of Romans. They have brought us to this moment in time, and we celebrate all that Christ has done for all of us, Jew and gentile alike. Because of his great work and mercy, we come before him and offer our bodies as a sacrifice. This sacrifice is profoundly different from that of the world and pagan worship where the sacrifice is dead. Our sacrifice is to be living, holy and acceptable. All of this becomes our spiritual worship before God. The first-century Roman world had an understanding of sac