Scripture Prompt
Who Would Ever Want to Be a Living Sacrifice?
Trying to understand a strange biblical exhortation
The concept of self-sacrifice is incomprehensible to most people in western cultures. This is by choice. In a world filled with mystical images and animation, how could it be otherwise?
We want to escape pain, risk, and loss of any kind. Not embrace such things.
More and more people have a hard time distinguishing between the imaginary and real. Self-image (selfies anyone?), along with physical power and beauty, is idealized and idolized.
We want to be worshipped, not worship someone else.
At least, that seems to be the general sense of pop culture.
At the beginning of Romans Chapter 12, the apostle Paul gives this exhortation—
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Rom 12:1 NKJV)
It’s no wonder that offering our bodies as a living sacrifice doesn’t appeal to most people. The idea of being a living sacrifice seems strange to our western minds and postmodern culture. How can this be relevant now?
