LIVING LIKE JESUS

Distinctives of Christian Conduct
Romans 12:9-21)

Paul is sometimes thought to have subverted the movement Jesus founded, turning it from a dynamic movement into a conformist institution. This passage of Romans, containing many echoes of Jesus’ ethical teaching, shows how misplaced this view is. Paul teaches that Jesus’ followers are to live in a radically different way to those around them, challenging and transforming the prevailing values of their society. Rob Yule preached this message at Greyfriars’ Classical Service on 14 October 2007, showing why it was that the early Christians’ way of life finally won over the Roman Empire itself.

Conformed or transformed?

Are you a chameleon, or a lion? A chameleon is a lizard that changes colour according to its surroundings. The lion, the king of the beasts, is is a regal animal that is in charge of its environment.

Christians are called to be lions, not chameleons. ‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.’ (12:2). Christian ethics, Christian conduct, is not an ethic of conformity but an ethic of conversion — the result of the change Jesus Christ brings about in our hearts by his saving grace. It isn’t a matter of being conformed to the environment around us, but of being transformed from within by an inner renewal of our minds.

In the 1960s ‘Situational Ethics’ was in vogue — doing whatever seemed right in a particular situation. But Christian ethics, says Paul, is not a situational ethic — your situation or context controlling you — but a salvation ethic — your conversion transforming your environment. We’re not to be controlled by external factors (peer pressure, fashion, advertising, the seductions of worldliness), but by internal factors (conscience, the renewing of our mind, obedience to Jesus Christ, the guidance of the Spirit).

Having laid this general principle in verse 2, Paul applies it specifically in verses 9-21. The key verse is verse 21: ‘Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’ Don’t be conformed, be transformed. Don’t let evil influence you. Instead, let your goodness influence others.

The Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Mediterranean

There are many comparisons here with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Mathew 5-7).

None of the Gospels existed when Paul wrote this letter to the Romans in about 57 AD. But these comparisons are evidence that the teaching of Jesus was already known by this time — in oral or possibly written form — in Christian churches as far away as Corinth, where Paul wrote Romans.

They didn’t have fax machines, internet or email to speed communications then — only personal courier by land or sea. But by AD 57 the Sermon on the Mount had become the ‘Sermon on the Mediterranean’!

The benevolent teaching and example of Jesus had an enormous impact on people. The splash of his overflowing goodness, even towards those who opposed him, hated him, and finally killed him, sent ripples across the Mediterranean Sea to Corinth and ultimately to Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire itself. It has even sent waves across the centuries and across the oceans to wash on these distant shores at the ends of the earth.

The Ethical Teaching of Jesus and Paul

Ethical Injunction	Paul’s ‘Sermon on the Mediterranean’ (Romans 12)	Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)
Benevolence to persecutors	‘Bless those who persecute you’ (12:14)	‘Pray for those who persecute you’ (5:44). ‘Bless those who curse you’ (Luke 6:28)
Non-retaliation to evil-doers	‘Do not repay anyone evil for evil’ (12:17)	‘Do not resist an evildoer.’ (5:39)
Peaceableness towards others	‘If it is possible…live peaceably with all’ (12:18, cf. 14:19)	‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ (5:9). ‘Be at peace with each other’ (Mark 9:50)
Kindness to enemies	‘If your enemies are hungry, feed them’ (12:20)	‘Love your enemies’ (5:44). ‘Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you’ (Luke 6:27)

Salvation ethics

Paul identifies several distinctive aspects of the ‘salvation ethic’ of Jesus. It is:

1. An ethic of mercy

‘I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy’ (12:1). Our love is reflexive. We love, because God first loved us. As Paul writes earlier in Romans, ‘God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ (5:8). As God has shown mercy to us when we did not deserve it, we are to show mercy to others, even if they don’t deserve it. As Jesus loved us and died for us when we were unlovely and undeserving, so we are to love others even if they are unlovely and undeserving.

This love is practical. ‘Contribute to the needs of the saints.’ (12:13a). ‘Extend hospitality to strangers.’ (12:13b). We’re to ‘rejoice with those who rejoice’, and ‘mourn with those who mourn’ (12:15). We’re even to feed or give drink to our enemies (12:20).

I confess that I struggle with an aspect of this: giving to people who beg for money. But Jesus tells me that I should: ‘Give to everyone who begs from you’ (Matthew 5:42, NRSV).

2. An ethic of extravagance

The ethic of Jesus is the opposite of a mean-spirited, calculating ethic, legalistically measuring everything out, or giving people what they deserve. We are to bless others, because God blesses us. It is an overflowing ethic, coming from the fullness of a heart touched by the Holy Spirit. ‘Outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit [or better, in the Spirit, RSV], serve the Lord.’ (12:10-11, NRSV). This is an ethic full of the joy and generosity of the Holy Spirit.

Tony Campolo, a Christian Sociology professor in the United States, loves to live by this ethic of extravagance. He crosses a toll bridge on the way to work each day. He tells of a characteristically generous gesture when he paid ‘For my friend in the car behind’ — then watched the reaction in his rear vision mirror, as the attendant at the toll booth had to explain this unexpected act of generosity to the driver of the following vehicle!

I think of the lavish ministry gift given to me by John Wimber’s ministry after I spoke at seminar at their last conference in New Zealand in Christchurch in April 1994. It was hundreds of dollars — a very large sum then, ten times larger than the ministry gifts we’re accustomed to in New Zealand. It was so generous that I couldn’t keep it and gave it away! It formed the initial gift when we launched our new building fund at St. Albans Church in Palmerston North.

3. An ethic of hope

‘Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.’ (12:12, NRSV). The Christian ethic lives beyond our present circumstances, hurts or difficulties, trusting in God’s justice and goodness and above all in God’s power to change people and situations.

Hope trusts God, instead of taking things into our own hands. This is expressed in Paul’s quote from Deuteronomy 32:41: ‘Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.” (12:19). This text forms the epigraph at the beginning of Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina — which describes the outworking of the consequences of the adulterous relationship between Count Vronsky and the heroine Anna.

It is not just evil, but goodness that has consequences. Hope trusts God’s justice.

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish priest arrested by the Nazis and interned in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. In July 1941, a man from Kolbe’s barracks disappeared, prompting the camp commander to pick 10 men to be starved to death to deter further escape attempts.

One of the men selected let out a cry of anguish, ‘My poor wife!’ he sobbed. ‘My poor children! What will they do?’

When this happened, Kolbe stepped forward, took off his cap, stood before the commandant and said, ‘I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.’

During the time in the death cell, Kolbe led the men in songs and prayer. After three weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe and three others were still alive. Kolbe was finally executed with an injection of carbolic acid, dying a martyr on 14 August 1941, at the age of 47. The man alleged to have escaped was later found drowned in a camp latrine.

4. An ethic of surprise

The most distinctive aspect of the ethic of Jesus is its surprise value, its unexpectedness.

You expect people in a Nazi concentration camp to be only interested in protecting themselves — and a man steps forward to protect the lives of others. It’s boringly predictable that people will retaliate and take revenge when bad things are done to them. Jesus tells us to do the unexpected thing of turning the other cheek and ending the cycle of violence. It’s entirely expected that people will resent being coerced by the armed forces of an authoritarian regime. But Jesus tells us to carry the soldier’s pack! It’s boringly predictable that people will demand their rights. But Jesus tells us to go the second mile and to give beyond what’s expected of us.

This is revolutionary stuff. If we lived like this, people could never view Christians as kill-joys or spoil-sports. We would be world-changers, like the early Christians whose way of life finally won over the Roman Empire itself.

Rob Yule, 14 October 2007
© 2007, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church