DO NOT BE CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD

This is Not Charades – by Abby Kelly

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2 ESV

The verse is painfully familiar—not quite John 3:16 caliber, but all the same, one we mutter so mindlessly that its power of often diluted. It doesn’t catch our attention very much anymore. Perhaps that’s because we haven’t peeled back the English language to see what Paul really said to his original audience. 

In the Greek, the word conform is “syschēmatizō”. It means to change oneself to another’s pattern and bears the connotation of being squeezed into a mold. Transform is “metamorphoō” and means actually becoming something different, to be changed from within. 

It is much easier to conform than it is to be transformed. Sure, it may be uncomfortable but it’s like charades—often immediate and temporary. The Pharisees were excellent conformers. They fit into the mold of “a good person”, but their hearts were far from God. When they rejected Jesus, they refused to drop the act and be transformed. 

In Romans, Paul implies that the transforming is done to us. We are the recipients of transformation. As you can see, too, the word for transform is very close to our word for metamorphosis—usually a process and the result is conspicuously different from the original. When we are transformed from the inside by Christ in us, there will be no mistaking us for we used to be. It is a complete, conspicuous, irreversible, inside-out, character overhaul.