World, Christians Have Same Behavior Patterns

Quoting James Montgomery Boice . . .

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world." This sentence in Romans 12:2 has two key words: "world," which is actually "age" (aion, meaning, "this present age" in contrast to "the age to come"); and "do not conform," which is a compound having at its root the word "scheme." So the verse means, "Do not let the age in which you live force you into its scheme of thinking and behaving." The idea is that the world has its ways of thinking and doing things and is exerting pressure on Christians to conform to it. But instead of being conformed to the world, Christians are to be changed from within to be increasingly like Jesus Christ. The chief problem with the evangelical church is that we have been increasingly conformed to this world's patterns and that, if we are to see a new reformation, we will have to break away from these patterns and seek to recover the authentic biblical gospel, learning again to think and act in God's way.

The first phrase of Romans 12:2 is a warning against worldliness, of course. But as soon as we use the word 'worldly' we have to make clear what real worldliness is. When I was growing up in a fundamentalist church I was taught that worldliness was such pursuits as smoking, drinking, dancing, and playing cards. A Christian girl might say, "I don't smoke, and I don't chew, and I don't go with boys who do." But that is not what Romans 12:2 is about. To think of worldliness only in those terms is to trivialize what is a far more serious and far more subtle problem.

The clue to what is in view here is that in the next phrase Paul urges, as an alternative to being "conformed" to this world, being "transformed by the renewing of your mind." This means that he is concerned about a way of thinking rather than merely a way of behaving, though right behavior will follow naturally if our thinking is set straight. The worldliness we are to break away from and repudiate is the world's "worldview," what the Germans call Weltanschauung, a comprehensive, systematic way of looking at all things. We are to break out of the world's categories of thinking and allow our minds to be molded by the Word of God instead.

In our day Christians have not done this very well, and that is the reason why they are so often "worldly" in the other senses too. In fact, it is a sad commentary on our churches, verified by numerous polls, that Christians in general have nearly the same thoughts, values, and behavior patterns as the world around them."

From: Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace?