That Ye May Prove

"Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould." That is how J. B. Phillips put the first half of this verse in his paraphrase of the New Testament letters. His wording is still quoted, because it names a pressure everybody has felt. Squeezing is something done to you, and it happens slowly, without your noticing.

Most people stop there, but Paul's sentence is going somewhere. It leads to the word "prove," and that is a workshop word. The Greek word means to test something to find out what it really is, the way you would test a coin or a weld. Words from the same family appear all through Paul's letters. One of them means approved, something that has passed the test. Another is the same Greek word with "not" on the front, which the KJV translates "reprobate": the piece that failed. So what Paul asks for is the ability to tell things apart, and he says what it is for: "that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." A renewed mind is a mind that can tell the difference.

That is why the verse before puts your body on the altar and calls it "your reasonable service," and the verse after tells you "to think soberly." There is nothing mysterious about this. It is the difference between a person who always has to ask someone else whether a thing is right, and a person who can look at it and know. That ability grows slowly, in an ordinary mind, and God does the renewing while you get on with your week. You will probably notice it first as a judgment you could not have made a year ago, long before you feel anything special at all. The God who is renewing your mind is the same God whose will is "good, and acceptable, and perfect," and He means for you to know it.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 354 is Worshippers the Father Seeks (John 4:23).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two