Old Habits
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2 NASB
Renewing of your mind – When Paul calls his readers to renew their minds, what does he mean? Does he mean to change their thinking? Does he mean to alter their understanding? Their dispositions? Their paradigm? Or all of the above?
We might find a clue in the root of the verb “renew,” in Greek, kainós. Paul merely combines this root with the prefix ana (an intensifier) to create anakaínōsis, “renewing.” In Greek, “As distinct from néos, “new in time,” kainós means ‘new in nature’.” [1] One of its derivatives, used only by Paul, suggests something unusual, not the norm for first century society. Another derivative is about the regeneration accompanying baptism. Paul uses another derivative to describe daily strengthening by the spirit of God. But remember that these are Greek connections. There is another path, as we shall see. Nevertheless, these Greek connections help us answer some of our questions. For Paul, renewal is not merely a cognitive process. It involves new thinking, of course, but it is not limited to mental change. The whole person is involved; thought, action, and attitude. In other words, Paul is calling for a complete transformation, centered in a major paradigm shift.
But all of this is academic. Studying the etymology answers the exegetical question, but it doesn’t answer the question, “How?” That is the important one—and perhaps the most difficult one to answer. Just how are we supposed to accomplish this anakaínōsis?
Beatrice Chestnut describes the problem:
The behavior patterns we develop to meet early threats eventually devolve into habits of mind that trigger automatically—even when the original threats are long gone and we are not confronting anything even remotely like them in the present. . . This misalignment between our ingrained habits and our yearning to live authentically and spontaneously becomes a source for all kinds of suffering, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness. The early coping strategies we don’t need anymore become unseen prisons that constrain how we think, feel, and act in ways that feel so familiar and integral that we forget we have the capacity to choose other options. In this way, we go to sleep to ourselves while thinking we are still awake. We lose our freedom to engage creatively and consciously in the world without even knowing we’ve lost it.[2]
What Chestnut suggests is this: we were born with bad habits. Oh, they kept us alive, for sure. They were the survival mechanisms we needed to confront the world, but in the end, they became the automatic prisons of authentic choice. And as we all know, habits are particularly difficult to change—or eliminate. Paul gives us the goal—transformation—but he doesn’t provide the means. Maybe he assumed his readers would know, but two thousand years have passed and we can’t sit down with him to discuss it. We have to look somewhere else. Perhaps you’re inclined to say, “Well, we just need to rely on the Spirit to change us.” To that I have only one question:
“How’s that working out for you?”
I suspect that when it comes to the more or less trivial choices in life (like turning off the lights when you leave the room), most of us can create the habit by simple conscious action, although I am sure you realize that some trivial habits are the result of life-long patterns and even if they’re trivial, they’re still incredibly difficult to break. But when it comes to the really big ones, the ones that are deeply ingrained in our survival techniques, especially emotional survival techniques, the capacity to change may not even exist in us. Oh, we’ve tried and tried, but when emotional overload occurs, we discover that survival means reverting to those escape mechanisms—automatically—even if we are consciously aware of our choices. This is the realm of spiritual renewal. This is where anakaínōsis becomes necessary. It isn’t simply a matter of making other choices. We’re powerless. Unless God intervenes, we can’t do this. Maybe that’s why Paul does not give us a step-by-step self-improvement plan. He knows in this arena self-improvement doesn’t work. Something else is needed. What’s needed is removing the masks.
Paul’s choice of the Greek term anakaínōsis might make us think that it’s simply a matter of thinking differently, but that would be a mistake. Paul uses a Greek term but he’s thinking in Hebrew and in the LXX καινός is הָדָשׁ (ḥādāš), and as we know, ḥādāš is about renewal, not something brand new. The “new” moon is the same moon we saw two weeks ago seen again. The renewing of your mind doesn’t mean there is a brain transplant. It means the same person is now seen again in a different way. This means that those old bad habits are seen differently—seen for what they were—prisons. They didn’t magically disappear. They were just revealed in their true identity so that we could deal with them; so that God could deal with them.
Topical Index: anakaínōsis, renewal, ḥādāš, mind, kainós, Romans 12:2
[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 388). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
[2] Beatrice Chestnut, The Complete Enneagram: 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge, p. 4.
