Romans: The Story of God Bible Commentary

images/img-37-1.jpg LISTEN to the Story

¹Therefore, 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. ²Do 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.

Listening to the texts in the story: Leviticus 1:1 – 2:16; Psalm 27:6; 50:14, 23; 96:8; 107:22; 116:17; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Testament of Levi 3.6.

Romans 12:1 – 15:13 can be likened to “Christ College” where Paul attempts to engender certain attitudes and behaviors appropriate for those for whom Romans 1 – 11 is true. In essence, Paul begins to expound the “imperative” that follows from the “indicative” of the gospel. Or, because of what God has done for us in Christ, this is how we ought to live before God. Paul wants those who are declared righteous and united to the Messiah to exhibit a set of distinctive behaviors that show that they live under Jesus’ lordship and are led by the Spirit. Call it ethics, applied theology, or Christian living, label it whatever you like, but remember that Paul’s goal is to bring Gentiles to the obedience of faith (1:5; 15:18; 16:26), and he shows us now what this obedience looks like in real life. Paul is outlining how the gospel is lived out in faithful obedience among the tenements, markets, and hustle and bustle of ancient Rome.¹

This is simply the outworking of the covenantal renewal that Paul has kept referring to with his assorted citations of Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Deuteronomy, which is realized in the sacrificial bodies and consecrated community of the Roman believers.² In the biblical story, God’s people always stand out from the crowd because they stand on God’s word and look ahead to God’s promises.

We are not to think of Paul’s exhortation here merely as an appendix listing a number of do’s and don’ts, nor as a general compendium of his ethical instruction. It is more like a synthesis of his theological, christological, eschatological, and ecclesiological convictions given in the letter that are then integrated and worked into the Romans’ own context. In many ways this is the goal of Paul’s letter: that those who bear Christ’s name will learn to walk in Christ’s way (hence the many echoes of the Jesus tradition throughout).³ This is an important preface to Paul’s call for mutual acceptance within the Roman churches. Paul urges the Roman Christians, whether Jew or Gentile, to not only obey the pattern of teaching they were entrusted with (6:17), but to accept one another as Christ has accepted them (15:7). The Roman Christians, diverse as they are, must join in a common life together, in work and witness, in fellowship and hardship, and intentionally embody the values of righteousness, peace, joy, and above all love. The Roman community’s ethos will then be defined by mutuality rather than by mistrust and represent a unified front to a hostile environment.

In sum, Paul spells out in 12:1 – 15:13 how the Roman Christians are to be God’s people in a pagan world. Romans 12 – 13 lays a general foundation for the specific exhortations to reciprocation and mutuality in 14:1 – 15:13. Coming to Romans 12 in detail, (1) Paul embarks on an introduction to his exhortation with its accompanying call for transformation (vv. 1 – 2). (2) He next urges the Romans to use their spiritual gifts for each other’s benefits (vv. 3 – 8). (3) This is followed up with a series of ethical aphorisms that will produce Christlike behavior in believers (vv. 9 – 21).

Paul opens his new section in vv. 1 – 2 with a much-quoted call for Christians to appropriate God’s mercy by offering their bodies as sacrifices to God and not to imitate the world around them. Paul highlights the importance of dedication to God in both body (v. 1) and mind (v. 2). This exhortation brings together several earlier threads of Romans, including the reversal of having a depraved mind (1:28). It reiterates the command for Christians to “offer yourselves” to God as “those who have been brought from death to life” (6:13, 19), and assumes the transforming work of the Spirit in those who “live according to the Spirit” (8:4 – 5, 13).

“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” (v. 1). The “therefore” shows that the exhortations constructed in Romans 12 – 15 are built on the theological foundations of Romans 1 – 11. Paul alerts his readers to the gravity of his call with the expression, “I urge you”; the underlying Greek word parakaleō carries the sense of “I appeal” (ESV, NRSV), “I plead” (NLT), or “I exhort” (NET) and signifies an urgent matter posed as a request. The basis of the exhortation is “God’s mercy”; mercy in Romans is the cause of God’s gracious action (9:15 – 16), the purpose of election (9:18; 11:31 – 32), the grounds for unity between Jews and Gentiles (11:31 – 32), and a fitting summary for the experience of salvation (15:9).

It is “in view of” (lit., “through” [dia]) God’s mercy that believers must “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” That is not a unique idea since Greco-Roman and Jewish authors could use sacrifice as a metaphor for religious devotion.⁴ However, generally speaking, Christianity looked strange to Greeks and Romans because it was hard to conceive of “religion” apart from temple, priesthood, and sacrifice.⁵ What we find in Romans 12:1 is part of a wider phenomenon in the New Testament where the language of temple, priesthood, and sacrifice is used without the actual physical apparatuses associated with them. New Testament authors often take up Old Testament cultic imagery in order to apply the themes of temple, priesthood, and sacrifice to the Messiah and his people. For instance, “sacrifice” (thysia) is metaphorically applied to Christian service in 1 Peter 2:5 with “offering spiritual sacrifices,” in Hebrews 13:15 with “sacrifice of praise,” and in Philippians 2:17 Paul refers to his imprisonment as comparable to “being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith.”

In a similar vein Paul calls on believers to offer their “bodies” as “sacrifices” to God. The language of “offering” recalls Romans 6, where believers are to offer their members to God “as those who have been brought from death to life” and “an instrument of righteousness” and “as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness” (6:13, 19). The difference is that Paul now utilizes language of “offering” in its more technical sense of making a sacrifice, flesh surrendered to God for death.⁶ Paul’s reference to “bodies” designates physical and material existence rather than just some spiritual plane, where their consecration to God is embodied in location and exercised in action. Sacrifices are offered on behalf of others, so Paul means more than a mode of corporate worship, but probably refers to self-giving deeds for the well-being of others. In the hardship of Roman street life, this was essential for survival.

This sacrifice is described by three adjectives that should not be separated: “living,” “holy,” and “pleasing.”⁷ First, a “living sacrifice” is one that does not die by bloodletting, it is not burned up or consumed like regular sacrificial offerings, but its life continues to endure.⁸ So believers are living sacrifices in the specific sense that they have been crucified with Christ (6:6) and live as slaves of righteousness leading to holiness (6:19).

Second, “holy” denotes something set apart and dedicated to God as opposed to something common or profane. The Roman believers are “called holy” (1:7) because of the Holy Spirit “given” to them (5:5), who has “sanctified” them (15:16), and who empowers them for righteousness, joy, hope, peace (14:17; 15:13).

Third, “pleasing to God” expresses the result of sacrifices that are “living” and “holy,” in that they receive divine favor (see Phil 4:18). A good commentary on this language occurs in Romans 15:16, where Paul describes the goal of his apostolic ministry as to make the Gentiles “become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Put in that light, Sarah Whittle is correct that “this is more than a contextualising of Greco-Roman sacrifice or a ‘replacement’ for Israel’s cult. Rather, this is fulfilment language, and these cultic motifs from Israel’s Scripture help Paul to develop the role and status of the Gentiles in Israel’s salvation history.”⁹

What is difficult to determine is the precise meaning of the subsequent description of the sacrificial body as “your true and proper worship.” The problem is that the word logikos is notoriously difficult to specify and it is usually translated as something like “rational,” “logical,” or “reasonable” (see 2 Pet 2:2).¹⁰ Hence is the variety of translations: “your reasonable service” (KJV), “spiritual worship” (RSV, NRSV, ESV), “spiritual service of worship” (NASB), “appropriate priestly service” (CEB), and “the kind of worship for you, as sensible people” (NJB). Wider usage of the word in Greek philosophy and Hellenistic Judaism seems to support a designation of logikos along the lines of rationally true, authentic, and fitting.¹¹ If so, the NIV’s “true and proper worship” is an apt description. It means that the “worship” that is “true and proper” is that which is a living-holy-pleasing sacrifice of the body.

This “true and proper worship” does not take place through the veneration of finite images found in Greco-Roman idolatry (1:24), nor in the quest for virtue by the philosopher or rabbi (2:1 – 16), nor by the service of the Jerusalem temple (9:4). Such is replaced by the sacrificial death of Christ (3:24 – 25) and the bodily service of a community in their living-holy-pleasing way of life.¹² Nijay Gupta sums up well: “What Paul is calling for in Romans 12.1, then, is an invitation to live out the freedom of Christ (especially freedom from unrestrained passions) by surrendering oneself wholly, especially bodily, to God in worship.”¹³

Paul adds two further commands: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (v. 2a). The imperative verbs dominate the verse with “do not conform” and “be transformed.” The verb syschēmatizesthe could be passive (“do not be conformed”) or middle (“do not conform yourselves”). In either case the result is the same; do not allow yourselves to become like your surroundings.

Paul urges his audience not to imitate “this age,” a term that often describes the present yet transitory state of human wickedness in its opposition to God, (see 1 Cor 1:20; 2:6 – 8; 3:18; 2 Cor 4:4; Titus 2:12; cf. Gal 1:40). What Paul calls “this age” is analogous to “life according to the flesh” (see Rom 8:4 – 5, 12 – 13). On the ground in Rome, “this age” would mean the Greco-Roman way of a life, a way of wickedness described in 1:18 – 32. Despite the historical grandeur, cultural wealth, and promotion of virtues like justice in the Roman Empire, truth be told, the Romans were often little more than Latin-speaking savages dressed in a toga. The Roman Empire was cruel, repressive, and merciless, especially to non-elites and those on its margins. The Calendonian chieftain Calgacus, who fought the Romans in Britain, said about them, “They ransack the world, and afterwards, when all the land has been laid waste by their pillaging, they scour the sea. . . . They plunder, they murder, they rape, in the name of their so-called empire. And where they have made a desert, they call it peace.”¹⁴

In this context, Paul says Christians are consciously to resist and to reject the attempt to bring them into concord with their surrounding culture. On the contrary, they are to be “transformed.” As far as I am aware, no moral philosopher in the ancient world ever touted the virtues of a moral reconstruction of the self. You can find teachers advocating conformity to nature, advocating the necessity of self-mastery, or disengaging from the desires of the world. But the idea of “transformation” as a moral do-over was not a category anyone seems to have been seriously entertaining.¹⁵ Yet Paul is urging a fundamental renovation of a person at the deepest level of his or her desires, intellect, and will.

Paul calls for transformation conceived as a “renewing of the mind.” The word “renewal” (anakainōsis) appears only in Christian literature and buttresses the view that Paul is making a distinctive claim. This renewal comprises a “mind” that has shifted away from the “debased mind” of pagans (1:28), from the “mind of the flesh” typifying sinful humanity (8:7), and becomes instead a mind governed by the new way of the Spirit (7:6; 8:27) and that is conformed to the image of the Son (Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 2:12, 16; 2 Cor 3:17 – 18; Phil 4:2).

The purpose of a transformed self and a renewed mind is then spelled out: “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will” (v. 2b). A renewed mind is able to recognize and appreciate that which belongs to God proper. The word dokimazō means to approve of something or to uncover its true quality.¹⁶ The mind renewed by the Spirit is able to discern the good, the pleasing, and the perfect purposes of God with a view to aligning their own attitudes and values with it.

In its barest elements Romans 12:1 – 2 is about worship, worship with the body and worship with the mind — worship that is sacredly somatic and noetically sanctified. Paul urges us to dedicate our bodies to God and to conform our minds to the will of God. Worship of this order is fundamentally about offering ourselves to God and transforming ourselves into the image of the Son of God. This is what Charles Talbert calls “a liturgy of life.”¹⁷

The other day I learned a very disturbing fact. During the 1980s, the song that spent the most number of weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 American music charts was Australian singer Olivia Newton-John with her hit number “Physical,” which was number one for ten consecutive weeks. The chorus line is, “I wanna get physical . . . let me hear your body talk.” Do not watch the clip on YouTube unless you really like 1980s fitness fashion apparel. But if you think about it, striving to “get physical” might be a catchy way of summarizing what Paul is talking about when he says to “offer your bodies as sacrifices” to God. Worship that is living, holy, and pleasing to God does not take place on some spiritual plane, but occurs through what we do with our physical bodies.

This completely rules out any kind of crass dualism between body and spirit that was prevalent in the Hellenistic world and as so often passes nowadays for spirituality. On the contrary, Paul says the “life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal 2:20), so as to make it absolutely clear that his embodied and fleshly existence is the locus where his faith is exercised. Similarly, when some of the Corinthians were trying to use a body/spirit dualism in order to justify sexual immorality, Paul responds that one cannot treat the body with indifference, because “Do you not now that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Cor 6:19 – 20). What we do with our bodies shows what we value with our soul.

The logic of worship as Paul describes it is that it is entirely fitting for believers to train their bodies with the discipline needed to please God. Given that Western culture is highly consumer oriented and driven by the constant need for instant gratification, I seriously wonder if ingraining a bit of asceticism into our lives might not be a bad idea. Yes, I know that asceticism can be harsh and legalistic (see Col 2:23), but there is good evidence that the spiritual practices of Jesus included elements of self-denial and self-discipline that can properly be called asceticism.¹⁸ I’m not saying that everyone should take a vow of silence, embark on a two-week fast, and even married folks should go on a celibacy binge. One of the things we can simply do is to trim our lives of excesses, whether that is in food, drink, entertainment, or anything that is self-indulgent. We should live in such a way as to make clear that our bodies belong to God and not to Starbucks, Netflix, Forever21, or Apple.

The other thing we can do is to live sacrificially for others. Sacrifice presupposes the idea of one life given for another. Applied metaphorically sacrifice means bearing the cost of other people’s burdens (Gal 6:2). It entails showing generosity at your own expense (Heb 13:16). Sacrifice is acting selflessly when you see the needs of others (Jas 2:15 – 16). Such a perspective will manifest itself in the various attitudes and behaviors that Paul goes on to speak about at length in Romans 12:9 – 21. A person who makes their body a living sacrifice is one who tries to share the pain of another person’s loss, grief, rejection, and need as if it were their own.

In sum, if our worship is to “get physical,” then we must consciously treat our bodies as a vessel of holiness rather than as temples of self-indulgence. In addition, sacrifice is always for others, expressing itself in doing good itself even at our own personal expense. To this end Chrysostom asked, “How should the body be a sacrifice?” to which he answered:

Prevent your eye from looking at something evil; it has become a sacrifice. Do not let the tongue say something shameful; it has become an offering. Do not let the hand perform a lawless action; it has become a whole burnt offering. Yet these things are not enough; we must also perform good works: let the hands give alms, let the mouth bless those who abuse, let the hearing devote itself continuously to listening to divine speech. For sacrifice has nothing impure about it; sacrifice is the firstfruits of all other actions. Let us then make a sacrifice to God of the firstfruits of our hands, feet, mouth, and all the other members of our body.¹⁹

In addition to “getting physical” with our worship, we also have to pursue worship that is noetically renewed by the Spirit and cognitively attuned to God’s will. To put it simply, we have to get our minds aligned with God’s purposes and plans. To pursue such a pattern entails refusing to conform to the intellectual fashions of our day and pursuing transformation through the renewal of our minds.

Wherever we go, we are bombarded with messages in advertisements and in the media to adopt a certain perspective on things, whether that is fashion, cars, politics, or entertainment. We are given information not simply to inform us about something, but to cajole us into thinking about something in a certain way. Marketing experts want us to change the way we think about ourselves or a certain product in order to lure us into purchasing that product. Media outlets and movies often aim to engender sympathy for a certain person or to provoke prejudice against a certain argument. It is all rhetoric, the art of persuasion, vying for attention, mining for recognition, and courting influence over the hearts and minds of the masses. Christians are part of the contested territory that ideologues, journalists, actors, academics, writers, comedians, and politicians are striving to sway. Our TV, newspapers, and internet are awash with a constant battle of ideas with people competing for our adherence to their ideas.

Understandably, there is no shortage of political pundits and postmodern pontiffs trying to shape what we believe about God, family, faith, sexuality, sports, truth, church and state, and the life to come. I’ve noticed that what really, really annoys some folks is that Christians seem unwilling to budge. Some time ago British Prime Minister David Cameron said that the church needs to “get with the programme” when it comes to supporting women bishops.²⁰ Former Church of England Bishop, N. T. Wright, who is strongly in favor of women bishops, took issue with Cameron’s reprimand of the church for refusing to conform to the myth of cultural progress. Wright responded in The Times with a piece saying:

It won’t do to say, then, as David Cameron did, that the Church of England should “get with the programme” over women bishops. And Parliament must not try to force the Church’s hand, on this or anything else. That threat of political interference, of naked Erastianism in which the State rules supreme in Church matters, would be angrily resisted if it attempted to block reform; it is shameful for “liberals” in the Church to invite it in their own cause. The Church that forgets to say “we must obey God rather than human authorities” has forgotten what it means to be the Church. The spirit of the age is in any case notoriously fickle. You might as well, walking in the mist, take a compass bearing on a mountain goat. What is more, the Church’s foundation documents (to say nothing of its Founder himself) were notoriously on the wrong side of history. The Gospel was foolishness to the Greeks, said St Paul, and a scandal to Jews. The early Christians got a reputation for believing in all sorts of ridiculous things such as humility, chastity and resurrection, standing up for the poor and giving slaves equal status with the free. And for valuing women more highly than anyone else had ever done. People thought them crazy, but they stuck to their counter-cultural Gospel. If the Church had allowed prime ministers to tell them what the “programme” was, it would have sunk without trace in fifty years. If Jesus had allowed Caiaphas or Pontius Pilate to dictate their “programme” to him there wouldn’t have been a Church in the first place.²¹

The David Cameron vs. N. T. Wright melee is specific to the British context. Yet what I detect happening in more secularized countries like Australia and parts of northern Europe is a rank antagonism against Christians for maintaining Christian beliefs. That is because such beliefs are perceived as the final obstacles preventing society from becoming more inclusive and tolerant. Lest this seems foreign, I ask my American friends not to think they are immune from this trend since the expulsion of InterVarsity college fellowships from Georgetown University and California State University on the pathetic grounds of “equal opportunity access” should be proof enough that the illiberal tendencies of secular liberalism are coming to a town near you soon.

And therein lies the problem! The church is not called to get with any program, whether it is to exit stage left, to sponsor a certain political party, or to endorse a particular social vision. We measure our faithfulness fundamentally by a refusal to conform to the pattern of this world. Yes, we contextualize our message and the expressions of our faith, but we do not mix and match beliefs to fit with anyone’s program. So if you are going to stand up for your faith, be prepared to stand alone. Do not be surprised when a contemporary Caiaphas says your views on the uniqueness of Christ are blasphemous to a pluralist society and he tears his Armani tunic in disgust. Get ready for postmodern Pilates to mockingly ask you, “What is truth?” Be prepared to have the secular Sanhedrin forbid you from speaking about Jesus. All this comes from a refusal to be conformed to the world.

It is sobering to consider how much of our values and habits already are conformed to worldly culture rather than to a kingdom culture and we just don’t know it. We can happily resist the political left and the political right, depending on our own political disposition. But what if we’re wrong and we’re blind and we can’t see it? What if the “conservatism” that we so prize is really a cultural construct and our faith has been manipulated to provide religious capital to neoconservatives, big corporations, and libertarian tendencies just because we like them? What if the “progressivism” we champion is because we want to avoid the shame of secular elites, who want to dismantle the enduring structures of society like family so that they can create a vacuum in which their own social ideology may flourish? What if Jesus really does want us to give free health care to poor people? What if God really is angered by the killing of the unborn?

We have to wonder if many of our cosy middle class values like “security” and “mobility” really matter all that much to God or whether they have been imposed on us by our culture and we’ve not only accepted them, but we’ve baptized them. Whether you are conservative or progressive, you have to keep asking whether your faith and practice are really conformed to a kingdom culture or whether you are being played for a pawn in someone else’s game of ideological chess. Be wary of the ideologues to the left or right who have complete confidence that God is on their side all the time.

Instead of being conformed to our surrounding culture, we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds; that is to say, we must cultivate a habit of thinking that reflects the biblical vision and the catholic core of the Christian faith. Fill your head with Scripture, hymns, novels, art, and songs which will strengthen your cerebral capacities to understand and articulate your faith. Christian faith cannot bide intellectual laziness.

No, I’m not saying go get a PhD in theology, but put some effort into growing in your knowledge of all things pertaining to God. If you would engage in professional development to enhance your career, why not engage in some spiritual development to enhance your faith? Then you’ll be better able to discern between the things of this world and those that belong to God. You’ll be equipped to test all things and hold onto that which is good (see 1 Thess 5:21). As D. A. Carson writes: “Here the assumption is that the transformation of character and conduct brought about by the renewal of the Christian’s mind is precisely what equips such a Christian to test and approve God’s will — that is, to discover personally and experientially that his ways are best.”²²

1. Highly instructive is Oakes on what Romans 12 would look like in a Roman house church (Reading Romans, 98 – 126).

2. Thus I demur from Wright (“Romans,” 10:702) that Romans 12 – 15 has no “underlying biblical references, allusions, and echoes” of a “larger scriptural narrative.” The citation of Deut 32:43 in Rom 15:10 leads me to think that Deuteronomy 32 has been in the background the whole time, as argued cogently by Sarah Whittle, Covenant Renewal and the Consecration of the Gentiles in Romans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 13 – 16.

3. Cf. Michael Thompson, Clothed with Christ: The Example and Teaching of Jesus in Romans 12.1 – 15.13 (JSNTSup 59; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991); Seyoon Kim, “Jesus, Sayings of,” in DPL 477 – 81.

4. Cf. Isocrates (Nicocles, 20 cited by Jewett, Romans, 727 – 28): “In the worship of the gods, follow the example of your ancestors, but consider that the noblest sacrifice and greatest service is to show yourself the best and most righteous person, for such persons have greater hope of enjoying a blessing from the gods than those who slaughter many victims”; Psalm 51:17: “My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise”; Sirach 35:1 – 5: “The one who keeps the law makes many offerings; one who heeds the commandments makes an offering of well-being. The one who returns a kindness offers choice flour, and one who gives alms sacrifices a thank offering. To keep from wickedness is pleasing to the Lord, and to forsake unrighteousness is an atonement.”

11. Cf. Epictetus, Discourses, 1.16.20 – 21; 2.9.2; Philo, Sacrifices, 88; Moses 2.108; Special Laws, 1.201, 272, 277, 287, 290; and esp. T. Levi 3.6, which refers to angelic worship in heaven where angels make an “offering to the Lord a sweet-smelling aroma, a reasonable and a bloodless offering.”

12. Barrett, Romans, 232; Dunn, Romans, 2:711; Jewett, Romans, 730 – 31.

13. Nijay K. Gupta, Worship That Makes Sense to Paul: A New Approach to the Theology and Ethics of Paul’s Cultic Metaphors (BZNW 175; New York: de Gruyter, 2010), 123.

15. The closest one finds is Seneca, Epistles 6.1; 94.48 (cited in Jewett, Romans, 732), but even then the transformation is limited mainly to new insight.

18. Cf. Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 172 – 216.

20. Jerome Taylor and Nigel Morris, “ ‘Get with the Programme’: David Cameron Condemns Church of England Decision to Block Women Bishops,” www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/get-with-the-programme-david-cameron-condemns-church-of-england-decision-to-block-women-bishops – 8340352.html. 21 Nov 2012. Independent.

21. N. T. Wright, “Women Bishops: It’s about the Bible, Not Progress,” Virtue Online. 23 Nov 2012. www.virtueonline.org/women-bishops-its-about-bible-not-progress-tom-wright-updated-retort.

22. D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 102.