influence.

"Which is your spiritual (reasonable) service."

18. A clear distinction is here made between the services rendered God
by Christians and those which the Jews rendered. The thought is: The
Jews' service to God consisted in sacrifices of irrational beasts, but
the service of Christians, in spiritual sacrifices--the sacrifice of
their bodies, their very selves. The Jews offered gold and silver;
they built an inanimate temple of wood and stone. Christians are a
different people. Their sacrifices are not silver and gold. Their
temple is not wood and stone; it is themselves. "Ye are a temple of
God." 1 Cor 3, 16. Thus you observe the unfair treatment accorded
Christians in ignoring their peculiar services and inducing the world
to build churches, to erect altars and monasteries, and to manufacture
bells, chalices and images by way of Christian service--works that
would have been too burdensome for even the Jews.

19. In brief, this our reasonable service is rightly called a
spiritual service of the heart, performed in the faith and the
knowledge of God. Here Paul rejects all service not performed in faith
as entirely unreasonable, even if rendered by the body and in outward
act, and having the appearance of great holiness and spiritual life.
Such have been the works, offerings, monkery and stringent life of the
Papists, performed without the knowledge of God--having no command of
God--and without spirit and heart. They have thought that so long as
the works were performed they must be pleasing to God, independent of
their faith. Such was also the service of the Jews in their works and
offerings, and of all who knew not Christ and were without faith.
Hence they were no better than the service and works of idolatrous and
ignorant heathen.

"And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed
by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and
acceptable and perfect will of God."

20. As before said, the world cannot endure the sight or hearing of
this living sacrifice; therefore it opposes it on every side. With its
provocations and threats, its enticements and persecutions, it has
every advantage, aided by the fact that our minds and spirits are not
occupied with that spiritual sacrifice, but we give place to the
dispositions and inclinations of the world. We must be careful, then,
to follow neither the customs of the world nor our own reason or
plausible theories. We must co