Theology in Scotland 33, 1 (2026) on Theology and Mental Health

The latest issue of Theology in Scotland is devoted to theology and mental health. The articles are available as pdfs from here.

Editorial

Katie Cross

Theology and Mental Health

‘Together, the collection of articles, reflections, and creative work that makes up this issue of Theology in Scotland constitutes an important offering to wider discourse around theology and mental health, while being rooted in the particularities of Scottish experience.’

Articles

Cody Crawshaw

Scottish Nature, Anxiety and God: Connecting to the World Around us as a Benefit for our Mental Health

From mountain peaks to sandy beaches, we in Scotland are lucky to inhabit an area of such natural beauty. Spending time in nature, at the coast or in a local park, is recognised as a benefit for our mental health. Considering the experiences of Christians with mental health concerns, how might seeing nature as a connection with and self-manifestation of God, present in the natural world as we experience it, further these benefits? In my doctoral research into the lived experiences of Christian women experiencing anxiety, a recurring theme was the importance of connecting to nature, and so to God, during times of poor mental health. In this paper, the words of my research participants will be explored alongside an understanding of the presence of God expressed through the natural world, drawing from the fields of mental health and environmental theology. I will first discuss how participants understood God as present in the natural world around them. An exploration into how this connection between God and nature interacts with feelings of anxiety will then be undertaken, asking if God’s presence is calming or concerning. Finally, drawing together the conversation between anxiety, nature, and God, the possible anxiolytic effects of connecting to Scottish nature will be considered.

Margery E. Bray

From the Keening to the Chanter: Feminine Lineage in Scottish Lament

This paper explores the theological and cultural lineage between the women’s caoineadh (keening) traditions of pre-Reformation Scotland and the later development of the pìobaireachd lament. It argues that the suppression of keening by the seventeenth-century church silenced a feminine mode of communal grief-transformation, a function preserved in part through the bagpipe’s cumha repertoire. Restoring balance between masculine and feminine energies in ritual music, it suggests, may recover heart-resonance and communal healing. The article traces the displacement of communal lament into Gaelic song and pìobaireachd as continuing vessels for grief and transformation.

Anne Marie Foster

Trauma, Silence, and Survival: Bathsheba’s Story as a Theological Resource for Mental Health

The story of Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11–12 and 1 Kings 1–2 confronts readers with themes of sexual violence, grief, silence, and resilience. Traditional or hegemonic interpretations have often minimized Bathsheba’s experience, centring instead on David’s sin and repentance, thereby perpetuating a theological culture that marginalizes the voices of the traumatised. Such readings not only obscure the psychological realities of trauma but also risk reinforcing patterns of silencing that echo in contemporary contexts of mental health struggles. This article proposes a re-reading of Bathsheba’s narrative through feminist and womanist hermeneutics, drawing on the work of J. Cheryl Exum, Wilda C. Gafney, and Suzanne Scholz, among others. These approaches foreground Bathsheba’s perspective, reframing her story not as a tale of passive complicity but as one marked by coerced vulnerability, survival, and enduring presence within Israel’s royal history. This hermeneutical shift creates space for survivor-centred theological reflection, aligning the biblical text with contemporary insights from trauma studies and mental health discourse. By engaging the intersections of theology, psychology, and pastoral care, the study highlights how Bathsheba’s story can inform a richer understanding of lament, resilience, and healing. It argues that reclaiming silenced voices within scripture can foster theological practices that respond more compassionately to mental health crises today. In particular, it suggests that survivor-centred hermeneutics may serve as a resource for communities of faith seeking to support those navigating trauma, shame, and the long-term impact of abuse.

Jonathan Shamshad

Be Still and be Present: Psalm 46 and the Challenge of Super-modern Anxiety

This paper explores Psalm 46 as a theological response to the pervasive experience of anxiety in super-modern life. Drawing on Kirk A. Bingaman’s concept of ‘new anxiety’ and Marc Augé’s theory of super-modernity, this interpretation views contemporary restlessness as both a psychological and spiritual condition arising from over-stimulation, disconnection, and uncertainty. Against this backdrop, Psalm 46 offers an alternative vision of stability grounded in divine presence and trust. A close literary and theological reading of the psalm reveals a movement from chaos to calm: God as refuge in turmoil (vv. 1–3); God’s sustaining presence in the midst of instability (vv. 4–7); and God’s sovereign command to ‘be still’ (vv. 8–11). This stillness is not passive withdrawal but an active posture of faith – an invitation to re-centre the self in God’s unshakable reality. By reframing anxiety through the lens of divine presence, Psalm 46 offers a theological framework for resilience, stillness, and hope. It speaks to the intersection of theology and mental health by affirming that peace emerges not from control or certainty, but from communion with God. The psalm functions as both a pastoral and theological resource, offering individuals and faith communities a means to encounter healing, stability, and renewed presence amid the relentless pace of modern life.

Axolile N. M. Qina

A Cross-cultural Reading of Romans 12:1–2: A Theological Reflection on Mental Illnesses Incurred from my PhD Studies in Scotland

My PhD programme in Scotland started in 2019, after completing master’s degrees in South Africa and the USA. Here, I was almost immediately medically diagnosed with anxiety, then with dyslexia through the University Disability Office, and in 2021 I started medical treatment to help overcome Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression. The support I received from my medical practice, disability office, and university faculty allowed me to access learning adjustments, including additional time to complete my studies. Since I am a Xhosa Christian, I turned to the Bible for spiritual encouragement to help make sense of these mental health challenges. Such clarity was required because in my own South African Xhosa cultural background it is common to interpret instances of misfortune and illness as the result of a troubled spiritual dimension that can be rectified through propitiation. After a long cycle of therapy and counselling, in 2023 I meditated on Romans 12:1–2, which lead me to the questions: how can I ‘renew my mind’ spiritually to heal my mental illnesses, and how do I honour God as a ‘living sacrifice’ if my mind is struggling to hope? This paper provides a cross-cultural theological reflection on how I answered these questions and found meaning through a Xhosa Christian spirituality bound in community, prayer and Bible study. This meditation helped me to understand that it was ‘the will of God’ to continue my PhD journey, which I successfully completed and graduated in 2025.

Kate Bowen-Evans and Mark Bowen

A Conversation on Faith and Mental Health: Breath, Presence, and the Imago Dei

Arts and Culture

Christopher N. West

Michaelmas Fragments

Faith need not rest on literal or factual truth alone; there are emotional and psychological truths that speak more powerfully through poetic and creative form. “Michaelmas Fragments” weaves found poetry and narrative prose drawn from personal journals to explore the complex realities of being both a survivor of suicidal crisis and an Anglican priest, ordained on the Feast of St Michael and All Angels. Through evocative juxtapositions – sacrament and hunger, vocation and despair, hope and fruitfulness – the piece invites readers to encounter the tensions at the heart of faith and survival.

Review Essay

Alastair McIntosh

A Literary Reinstatement of Indigenous Gaelic Cosmology

Reviews

Romans 12: God’s New People #11 – An Acceptable Offering

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.

Romans 12:1

I have written to you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:15-16

As Paul moves beyond what we know as chapter 12 of his letter to the Christians at Rome, he continues to write about their relationships with others – in submitting to the governing authorities (13:1-7) and in loving neighbours (13:8-14). Such submission and love is forged in the community of faith where Jews and Gentiles learn – in spite of ethnic and cultural differences – to ‘accept one another... in order to bring praise to God’ (15:7).

Then, as he moves towards the end of the letter, Paul discloses something of his own role as ‘a minister of Christ Jesus’. He describes it with the phrase ‘priestly duty’ and uses several words which carry priestly associations – ‘minister’, ‘offering’, ‘acceptable’, ‘sanctified’ – taking us back to the ‘living sacrifice’ of 12:1. Paul pictures himself as a ‘priest’ presiding over the ‘offering’ of the Gentiles. Through his proclamation of the gospel, he seeks to ensure they are ‘acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit’.

The language might remind us of the formation of Israel as God’s covenant people in Exodus 19:4-6. It’s there that Israel’s identity as ‘a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ is established. Amazingly, Gentiles too can now be included as members of God’s people – through the preaching of the gospel and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. It would be an unusual mixture of people gathering together in first-century Rome – Jews and Gentiles, men and women, elites and non-elites, children and slaves. Yet, strange though it would seem to anyone looking in, these are the ones in whom God’s age-old purpose for all things has come to pass.

But their existence, like that of Israel, is for the sake of others.

That commission remains ours today. As Paul lays it out in Romans 12, sacrifice is now relocated in offered bodies and renewed minds which bear witness to the transforming work of the Spirit. Our life together and our love for each other testify to God’s desire to reconcile all people in Christ. How we’re shaped in our relationships within the community of faith then spills out in our interactions with others – in counter-cultural ways, in love which overcomes evil with good.

In all these ways, we are not merely passive recipients of the gospel but those who embody it and proclaim it, extending to others the mercies of our great God.

Romans 12: God’s New People #5 – An Amazing Possibility

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

It’s a gloomy picture, and it doesn’t make for pleasant reading, but Paul won’t have it any other way. Back in the early part of his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul writes about bodies being degraded, minds being darkened, and men and women suppressing the will of God. All this, he makes clear, amounts to a refusal on the part of humanity to glorify and serve God, to worship God acceptably.

But what we have here at the start of Romans 12 is a reversal of that story. With the gospel comes the remaking of human beings – bodies and minds and wills – into God’s new people. And when God puts us back together, he does so in order that we might worship him, might give him his proper due.

The prophet Jeremiah looked forward to the day when God would make a new covenant with his people by putting his laws into their minds and writing them on their hearts, when all would know him (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Likewise, Ezekiel spoke of God putting his Spirit in his restored people and moving them to follow his decrees and keep his laws (Ezekiel 36:27). Paul’s language here echoes these promises and invites us to see that what the prophets looked forward to has now come to pass in the creation of a new people – Jew and Gentile – in Christ.

As we might expect, there is continuity as well as discontinuity with what went before. Christian life and worship is no longer focused on the sacrifices in the temple, and no longer determined by the law. There is still sacrifice, and there remains a desire to know and do the will of God; but these now come through the ongoing sacrifice of our whole selves, through the constant renewal of our minds, and through the alignment of our wills with God’s will – ‘his good, pleasing and perfect will’.

The vision offered here for working out the will of God is not following a list of dos and don’ts, but of God’s people – individually and together – walking in God’s ways.

As John Stott wrote, ‘if God has a purpose for the lives of his people, and if his purpose is discoverable, then nothing could be more important than for us to discern and do it’.

The apostle Paul holds out that amazing possibility.

Romans 12: God’s New People #4 – Changing Our Minds

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

‘There is no longer a Christian mind’, wrote Harry Blamires in his classic book, The Christian Mind, first published in 1963. The high number of publications on the topic since then suggests it’s an ongoing issue. Perhaps that’s a good thing, as each generation seeks to discover afresh what it means to love God with all our mind.

For Paul too, the ‘true and proper worship’ to which we are called involves not just the offering of our bodies but the renewing of our minds. The two go together. It’s possible, though admittedly not easy, to be disciplined with one’s body – to control it, to exercise it, to curb its appetites. But what’s in view here is not merely an outward rule over the body without also an inward renewal of the mind.

Negatively, it means not being conformed to the pattern of ‘this world’ where (as Paul describes in Romans 1:18-32) our minds and hearts are turned away from God. Positively, it involves being ‘transformed’, a verb Paul uses elsewhere only in 2 Corinthians 3:18, where he writes about believers being progressively transformed into Christ’s image. In both places, what’s in view is nothing less than a fundamental makeover at the deepest level of our humanity – a new creation!

So, being renewed in our mind is not first and foremost about being clever. It’s a whole new mindset, a radical shift where everything is viewed differently because of who we are in Christ. That in turn involves a whole new desire to live a different way, which may well go against the prevailing current, and a whole new set of habits.

To be sure, the old habits are still around, and I may well spot some of them at work in me today: preserving the ongoing rift in the family because of my pride; jealousy and insecurity with the more-talented colleague; self-pity; chronic ingratitude. But where the mind’s habits and dispositions used to go one way, following the pattern of this present age, they can now be reshaped according to the new age which has broken in with the events of the gospel.

Such a transformation – a change of mind – comes about not by screwing up our effort or focusing ever inward, but by drawing on God’s mercy shown in Jesus, who makes it possible to live a renewed life from the inside-out.

Romans 12: God’s New People #3 – Body Matters

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

Paul uses the language of the temple here – in words like ‘offer’ and ‘sacrifice’ and ‘worship’. But that earlier way of doing things is now transformed.

What is it we offer? Our bodies, says Paul.

As Christians, we can have a lingering ambivalence about our bodies. It’s all too tempting to think that the ‘real’ me is something ‘inside’ me – the ‘soul’ bit or the ‘spiritual’ bit. But Scripture often insists and everywhere implies that the ‘real’ me is embodied.

So, as Paul writes in Romans 3, human fallenness reveals itself through our bodies: in tongues which practise deceit; in lips which spread poison; in mouths which are full of bitterness and cursing; in feet which are swift to shed blood; in eyes which turn away from God. Then, several times in chapter 6, Paul calls us to ‘offer’ (the same word as in 12:1) our bodies as an ‘instrument of righteousness’, while in 8:23 he looks forward to ‘the redemption of our bodies’.

If Christianity involves a recovery of what it means to be truly human, it should come as no surprise that the body is caught up in that restoration. God has saved us – the whole of us. And the whole of us is to be offered back to him – hands, feet, eyes, ears, and mouth. The challenge is to take seriously what we will do, even today, with our hands or our eyes or our tongue or our brain. The delight is that all that makes us who we are and are becoming in Christ – all the joys as well as the limits of bodily life – can be seen as an ongoing act of worship to God.

But there is something more going on here. We are physically embodied, but we are also socially embedded. Paul’s appeal that we offer our ‘bodies’ (plural) as a ‘living sacrifice’ (singular) suggests he has in mind the whole community of Christians in Rome. This is not a sacrifice made by a wealthy patron on behalf of others in the church, but an act in which all God’s people take part.

So, it’s not just that the body matters, but that every body matters! And there is something about the goal of this sort of worship that allows the church – you and me, even today – to be the embodied presence of Christ in the world.

Romans 12: God’s New People #2 – Where We Start

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

I wonder if you could guess what word is used most in Paul’s letter to the Romans? Once we disregard commonly-occurring words like ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘in’, and ‘he’, the word most used is not ‘law’ or ‘sin’ or ‘faith’ or ‘justified’ or ‘Jew’ or ‘Gentile’, or even ‘Jesus’. The word used most in Romans is ‘God’.

What is Romans all about? The gospel? Salvation? Justification? Faith? Jesus? Yes, all of these and more, but only as they are understood in relation to God. That’s where we start.

In particular, we start with the mercy of God.

The argument of the letter reaches a peak towards the end of chapter 11, where Paul refers four times to God’s mercy (11:30-32), making it clear that no-one, Jew or Gentile, can make any claim of entitlement on God, and that the ultimate basis of God’s actions in salvation is mercy.

It’s for that reason – ‘in view of God’s mercy’ – that Paul now urges us to live out the call to be God’s new covenant people. The starting point is not primarily community cohesiveness (live this way in order to get on with each other) or even missional effectiveness (live this way in order to display the faith to outsiders). Paul’s appeal to live this kind of life is grounded first and foremost in God’s mercy.

That’s where we start. And that could be worth remembering at the beginning of a new working week, in an uncertain political scene which seems to be changing daily, in the difficult patch in the relationship with the teenager in the household, in caring for the spouse suffering with ill-health.

There’s great encouragement to be had here. In all the particularities of life, many of us read passages like Romans 12 and think we could never live up to the demands that seem to be required. And then we remember what Paul has already described for us: the mercy of God in bringing us into covenant relationship with himself, without reference to our family history or ability to keep the law; the mercy of God seen in the good news of salvation available to all who call on the name of the Lord.

The gospel is about what God has done in Christ for the world. Christian lifestyle and mission flows from that, but it begins with God not with us. Start there.

An Acceptable Offering

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

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.

Romans 12:1

I have written to you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:15-16

As Paul moves beyond what we know as chapter 12 of his letter to the Christians at Rome, he continues to write about their relationships with others – in submitting to the governing authorities (13:1-7) and in loving neighbours (13:8-14). Such submission and love is forged in the community of faith where Jews and Gentiles learn – in spite of ethnic and cultural differences – to ‘accept one another... in order to bring praise to God’ (15:7).

Then, as he moves towards the end of the letter, Paul discloses something of his own role as ‘a minister of Christ Jesus’. Even without the phrase ‘priestly duty’, he uses several words which carry priestly associations – ‘minister’, ‘offering’, ‘acceptable’, ‘sanctified’ – taking us back to the ‘living sacrifice’ of 12:1. Paul pictures himself as a priest presiding over the offering of the Gentiles. Through his proclamation of the gospel, he seeks to ensure they are ‘acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit’.

The language might remind us of the constitution of Israel as God’s covenant people in Exodus 19:4-6. It’s there that Israel’s identity as ‘a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ is established. Amazingly, Gentiles too can now be included as members of God’s people – through the preaching of the gospel and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. It would be an unusual mixture of people gathering together in first-century Rome – Jews and Gentiles, men and women, elites and non-elites, children and slaves. Yet, strange though it would seem to anyone looking in, these are the ones in whom God’s age-old purpose for all things has come to pass.

But their existence, like that of Israel, is for the sake of others.

That mandate remains ours today. As Paul lays it out in Romans 12, sacrifice is now relocated in offered bodies and renewed minds which bear witness to the transforming work of the Spirit. Our life together and our love for each other testify to God’s desire to reconcile all people in Christ. How we’re shaped in our relationships within the community of faith then spills out in our interactions with others – in counter-cultural ways, in love which overcomes evil with good.

In all these ways, we are not merely passive recipients of the gospel but those who embody it and proclaim it, extending to others the mercies of our great God.

An Amazing Possibility

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

It’s a gloomy picture, and it doesn’t make for pleasant reading, but Paul won’t have it any other way. Back in the early part of his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul writes about bodies being degraded, minds being darkened, and men and women suppressing the will of God. All this, he makes clear, amounts to a refusal on the part of humanity to glorify and serve God, to worship God acceptably.

But what we have here at the start of Romans 12 is a reversal of that story. With the gospel comes the remaking of human beings – bodies and minds and wills – into God’s new people. And when God puts us back together, he does so in order that we might worship him, might give him his proper due.

The prophet Jeremiah looked forward to the day when God would make a new covenant with his people by putting his laws into their minds and writing them on their hearts, when all would know him (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Ezekiel too spoke of God putting his Spirit in his restored people and moving them to follow his decrees and keep his laws (Ezekiel 36:27). Paul’s language here echoes these promises and invites us to see that what the prophets looked forward to has now come to pass in the creation of a new people – Jew and Gentile – in Christ.

As we might expect, there is continuity as well as discontinuity with what went before. Christian life and worship is no longer focused on the sacrifices in the temple, and no longer determined by the law. There is still sacrifice, and there remains a desire to know and do the will of God; but these now come through the ongoing sacrifice of our whole selves, through the constant renewal of our minds, and through the alignment of our wills with God’s will – ‘his good, pleasing and perfect will’.

The vision offered here for working out the will of God is not following a list of dos and don’ts, but of God’s people – individually and together – walking in God’s ways.

As John Stott wrote, ‘if God has a purpose for the lives of his people, and if his purpose is discoverable, then nothing could be more important than for us to discern and do it’.

The apostle Paul holds out that amazing possibility.

Changing Our Minds

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

‘There is no longer a Christian mind’, wrote Harry Blamires in his classic book, The Christian Mind, first published in 1963. The proliferation of publications on the topic since then suggests it’s an ongoing issue. Perhaps that’s a good thing, as each generation seeks to discover afresh what it means to love God with all our mind.

For Paul too, the ‘true and proper worship’ to which we are called involves not just the offering of our bodies but the renewing of our minds. The two go together. It’s possible, though admittedly not easy, to be disciplined with one’s body – to control it, to exercise it, to curb its appetites. But what’s in view here is not merely an outward rule over the body without also an inward renewal of the mind.

Negatively, it means not being conformed to the pattern of ‘this world’ where (as Paul describes in Romans 1:18-32) our minds and hearts are turned away from God. Positively, it involves being ‘transformed’, a verb Paul uses elsewhere only in 2 Corinthians 3:18, where he writes about believers being progressively transformed into Christ’s image. In both places, what’s in view is nothing less than a fundamental makeover at the deepest level of our humanity, a new creation.

So, being renewed in our mind is not first and foremost about being clever. It’s a whole new mindset, a radical perceptual shift where everything is viewed differently because of who we are in Christ. That in turn involves a whole new desire to live a different way, which may well go against the prevailing current, and a whole new set of habits.

To be sure, the old habits are still around, and I may well spot some of them at work in me today: preserving the ongoing rift in the family because of my pride; jealousy and insecurity with the more-talented colleague; self-pity; chronic ingratitude. But where the mind’s habits and dispositions used to go one way following the pattern of this present age, they can now be reshaped according to the new age which has broken in with the events of the gospel.

Such a transformation – a change of mind – comes about not by screwing up our effort or focusing ever inward, but by drawing on God’s mercy shown in Jesus, who makes it possible to live a renewed life from the inside-out.

Body Matters

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

Paul uses the language of the temple here – in words like ‘offer’ and ‘sacrifice’ and ‘worship’. But that earlier way of doing things is now transformed.

What is it we offer? Our bodies, says Paul.

As Christians, we can have a lingering ambivalence about our bodies. It’s all too tempting to think that the ‘real’ me is something ‘inside’ me – the ‘soul’ bit or the ‘spiritual’ bit. But Scripture often insists and everywhere implies that the ‘real’ me is embodied.

So, as Paul writes in Romans 3, human fallenness reveals itself through our bodies: in tongues which practise deceit; in lips which spread poison; in mouths which are full of bitterness and cursing; in feet which are swift to shed blood; in eyes which turn away from God. Then, several times in chapter 6, Paul calls us to ‘offer’ (the same word as in 12:1) our bodies as an ‘instrument of righteousness’, while in 8:23 he looks forward to ‘the redemption of our bodies’.

If Christianity involves a recovery of what it means to be truly human, it should come as no surprise that the body is caught up in that restoration. God has saved us – the whole of us. And the whole of us is offered back to him – hands, feet, eyes, ears, and mouth. The challenge is to take seriously what we will do, even today, with our hands or our eyes or our tongue or our brain. The delight is that all that makes us who we are and are becoming in Christ – all the joys as well as the limits of bodily life – can be seen as an ongoing act of worship to God.

But there is something more going on here. We are physically embodied, but we are also socially embedded. Paul’s appeal that we offer our ‘bodies’ (plural) as a ‘living sacrifice’ (singular) suggests he has in mind the whole community of Christians in Rome. This is not a sacrifice made by a wealthy patron on behalf of others in the church, but an act in which all God’s people take part.

So, it’s not just that the body matters, but that every body matters. And there is something about the goal of this sort of worship that allows the church – you and me, even today – to be the embodied presence of Christ in the world.

Where We Start

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

I wonder if you could guess what word is used most in Paul’s letter to the Romans? Once we disregard commonly-occurring words like ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘in’, and ‘he’, the word most used is not ‘law’ or ‘sin’ or ‘faith’ or ‘justified’ or ‘Jew’ or ‘Gentile’, or even ‘Jesus’. The word used most in Romans is ‘God’.

What is Romans all about? The gospel? Salvation? Justification? Faith? Jesus? Yes, all of these and more, but only as they are understood in relation to God. That’s where we start.

In particular, we start with the mercy of God.

The argument of the letter reaches a peak towards the end of chapter 11, where Paul refers four times to God’s mercy (11:30-32), making it clear that no-one, Jew or Gentile, can make any claim of entitlement on God, and that the ultimate basis of God’s actions in salvation is mercy.

It’s for that reason – ‘in view of God’s mercy’ – that Paul now urges us to live out the call to be God’s new covenant people. The starting point is not primarily community cohesiveness (live this way in order to get on with each other) or even missional effectiveness (live this way in order to display the faith to outsiders). Paul’s appeal to live this kind of life is grounded first and foremost in God’s mercy.

That’s where we start. And that could be worth remembering at the beginning of a new working week, in an uncertain political scene which seems to be changing daily, in the difficult patch in the relationship with the teenager in the household, in caring for the spouse suffering with ill-health.

There’s great encouragement to be had here. In all the particularities of life, many of us read passages like Romans 12 and think we could never live up to the demands that seem to be required. And then we remember what Paul has already described for us: the mercy of God in bringing us into covenant relationship with himself, without reference to our family history or ability to keep the law; the mercy of God seen in the good news of salvation available to all who call on the name of the Lord.

The gospel is about what God has done in Christ for the world. Christian lifestyle and mission flows from that, but it begins with God not with us. Start there.

There’s More...

I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

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. 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.

Romans 12:1-2

Where do we see the power of God at work? According to Paul, in how God puts the world to rights, not least in saving people – everyone who believes, Jew or Gentile. That’s where Paul begins his letter to the Christians in Rome – with the gospel, the good news of God’s reign, which is centred on Jesus and rooted in the biblical story.

So it is that the letter takes in our rebellion against God and our alienation from each other; what Christ has done on our behalf, supremely in his death and resurrection; the importance of faith as the means by which we’re made right before God, brought into covenant relationship with him; our new life in Christ; the work of the Spirit in our lives; the hope extended to all creation. We get to the end of chapter 8, where Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from God’s love, and we breathe a deep and gratified sigh. Some of us may even allow an ‘Amen’ to break our lips! What a great letter this is, and what an amazing finish.

Until we turn over the page, and discover there’s more... In fact, we’re only half-way through.

Paul now writes about the place of Israel in God’s purposes. Although we might not fully understand the discussion, it’s clear that God is working out his plan, and we’re grateful to read the outburst of praise at the end of chapter 11: ‘Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! ... To him be the glory for ever!’ And here the ‘Amen’ is supplied for us! We sink back with a sense of being overwhelmed at how great God is. There can’t be anything more to add, can there?

And then we turn over the page and read... Therefore.

There’s yet more. God’s ‘more’ in this case is seen in a community of Christians from diverse backgrounds who offer the worship of their very selves to God, and who embody a set of values characterised by mutuality and love, not only in their relationships with one another but in their witness to others in the world around them.

This is where the letter has been heading towards: those of us who follow Christ walk in his footsteps. Wonderfully, and strange though it may seem, this too is part of God’s great plan for the world.