A Renewed Mind Improves Your Taste

The root of Christian living in verse 2 is a profoundly renewed mind. It doesn't just think clearly, but assesses truly and values accurately and approves strongly and treasures passionately what is good, acceptable and perfect.
The word PROVE… It has two implications: one is the idea of testing and proving something's value. And the other idea is the capacity to assess it and approve of a value when you see it. It is very hard in English to bring out both these ideas with one word. The NIV does it in fact by using two words. It refers to the renewing of your mind, then says, "Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is." That is the full idea. Test and approve. So what is the root issue in verse 2? The root issue is more than right thinking. It is right valuing. Not just right proving, but right approving. Not just right testing, but treasuring. Let me see if I can help you see the difference like this.
<> It would be possible, perhaps to teach an uneducated person to recognize some of the traits of gold without his knowing how valuable gold is. So you might give him a job panning gold with you in a stream and pay him a dollar an hour while he accurately tests the yellow stones and tosses thousands of dollars worth of gold nuggets into your bag.
That is not the kind of renewal Paul is talking about. He is not saying: read enough books or listen to enough tapes or sermons so that you can spot a good deed when you see it and then work up the discipline to do it. He is saying, be renewed so deeply in your mind that you not only can test and spot gold when you see it, but also love gold - approve gold, treasure gold. That's what the word means. (See Romans 1:28; 14:22; 1 Corinthians 16:3.)
Now you can see that the renewal involved is more than a logic lesson. If you want to find out if a certain material is sweet, you might reason logically: it is brown, gooey, comes from a bee hive, crystallizes if you drop water in it, and makes the eyes a two-year-old light up if you put it on toast. Therefore, you infer, it must be honey, and honey is sweet. That is not the main way Romans 12:2 means for you to find the will of God.
The way to know if this material is sweet, is by the power of taste, not logic.The root of Christian living in verse 2 is a profoundly renewed mind. It doesn't just think clearly, but assesses truly and values accurately and approves strongly and treasures passionately what is good, acceptable and perfect.