Reflections on Spiritual Formation in Paul's Letter to the Romans

I've just finished teaching a class on Paul's Letter to the Romans. One of the challenges of reading Romans is not losing the forest for the trees; that is, not losing the aim of Paul's message as we try to pay attention to all the important details of the letter, and the questions that emerge as we do so.

At the end of the semester I asked the students to step back for a minute, and look at the letter as whole--to take in the big picture. Then I asked them to think about this question: according to Paul in Romans, What is spiritual formation? Here is a brief outline of what we came up with:

1. Spiritual Formation is narratival formation. For Paul, you cannot understand who you are and what you are to do in this world without understanding who you are in light of God's story, God's mission in this world. The word Paul uses to summarize this story or mission of God is "gospel". He bookends his letter to the Romans with a call to align your life to this gospel (Rom 1.1,9,15-16 / Rom 16.25-26). For Paul, all of life is to be analyzed, critiqued, and shaped through the lens of the gospel concerning Jesus Christ. At the core of this gospel is the universal story of how the God of Israel is reconciling and putting back to rights all things in and through Jesus Christ. For Paul, all problems are recognized and solved through the gospel. At the end of the day, the question is not how can God help me accomplish my dreams and plans, but rather how can I more faithfully align myself with what God is accomplishing through Jesus.

2. Spiritual formation is ecclesial formation. Paul cannot imagine spiritual formation that does not entail community formation, and more specifically formation as the body of Christ. The whole argument of Romans moves toward the end goal of learning how to faithfully respond to the gospel by welcoming one another (Romans 15.7), and using your gifts for the service of mutually edifying one another--with the ultimate goal of participating in the mission of Jesus Christ for the life of the world.

3. Spiritual formation is Trinitarian formation. In the grand scope of Romans, God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--fully participates in our spiritual formation (see Romans 8.1-4). The Father sends the Son to reconcile us to the life of God; The Son, in faithful obedience to the Father, embodies God's righteousness and offers His life as a means for redemption from our sin and corruption unto death. The Spirit applies the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to our lives, bears witness to us that we belong to God, and conforms us to the image of Christ. In short, we cannot be what we are made to be without God's full participation.

4. The Core Dispositions of Spiritual Formation: according to Paul, as we are being formed by God, we will exhibit the following dispositions or postures towards the world: humility, gratitude, faith (or trust/interdependence), hope, and love.

5. The Core Practices of Spiritual Formation: for Paul, the core practices of spiritual formation are hospitality (Rom 14.1; 15.7), enemy love (Rom. 12.14-21), worship (described as offering our bodies as instruments of righteousness for God's service), attentiveness to the leading of the Spirit, and attentiveness to the ways in which we are being conformed to the destructive patterns of this world.

We finished our reflection with this questions: how does Paul's vision of spiritual formation compare with the way we are conditioned to think about spiritual formation in our time? We all agreed, that for the most part our modern conception of spiritual formation is quite alien to what Paul puts forth in the Romans.