by Beth Snodderly
Societies experience well-being, safety, health, and peace to the extent that God’s people are influencing (for the good) the way people relate to each other within that society.
Romans 12 lists seven gifts God has given the body of Christ for creating shalom. After listing the gifts and how to use them, Paul gives examples of practical applications of each gift. To notice the correlation of the examples with the gifts, the reader needs to know about the memory aid of chiasm, commonly used in the oral world of the Ancient Near Eastern. A chiastic structure is a form of ancient poetry of “rhyming” similar thoughts, for example, ABCCBA.
Reading Romans 12:5-21 with this literary device in mind helps us see more clearly what a society and inter-personal relationships should look like when God’s people are actively using the gifts God has given them.
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