You're Not Worthy To Quantify Your Good Works

With [Romans] 12:1-2 begins a new section of Romans.  But Romans 12-16 is not the 'paraenetic appendage' described by those who, under the influence of a theory-practice paradigm, divide Paul's letters into 'Part I: Doctrine' and 'Part II: Parenesis.'  Nor is it, then properly, called 'ethics,' in the understanding of that term as designating that division in a philosophical system (comparable to metaphysics or epistemology) which deals with humans' behavior.  This segment of Romans, rather, deals with worship.  It is directly related to the thesis of Romans 1:16-17, as it is a testimony to and an appeal to demonstrate the power which the Gospel is.

This recognition that Romans 12-16 is about worship rather than ethics - or about ethics redefined as worship in everyday life - is seen by those who refrain from reading Paul through the eyes of philosophers and who cut through the deepest heart of what it means that God is the God who justifies the ungodly..  Paul's encouragements are meant to be read as apostolic ministry (2 Cor. 5:6-7), the bringing of a gift of power from God, not as the practical requirements entailed in some philosophical - or theological - system or as the fulfillment of an epistolary format.  Generated by all that the merciful God of the Gospel is and does, these encouragements are an invitation, an enabling invitation, into a new worship for the new people of God.

-Excerpt from: The Justification of the Ungodly: An Interpretation of Romans (Second Edition) by Jonathan F. Grothe (p. 525-526).

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