Obedience From the Heart

Observe the thanksgiving in Romans 6:17. Paul thanks God that though the Romans used to be slaves to sin, they have come to obey from the heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed their allegiance. Every phrase there is doing work. The obedience is from the heart, not merely external. It is directed to a pattern of teaching, which means there was content, a shape of doctrine they had been handed. And that pattern claimed them, rather than the other way round.

Interpret the last point especially. We usually say that we hold to a teaching. Paul says the teaching holds us. The gospel is not one option a believer selects from a menu; it is a mold into which the believer is poured. This is why sound doctrine matters for ordinary Christians and not just for pastors. What you are taught, and what you come to believe from the heart, is the shape your life will take.

Verse 18 then states the result. Having been set free from sin, you have become slaves to righteousness. Freedom and slavery are not opposites here. Freedom from one master is the same event as belonging to the other.

Apply it by examining the pattern of teaching that currently holds you. Is it the apostolic gospel, or is it something absorbed from the culture and lightly baptized? Where has your obedience become external rather than from the heart, and what would restore the heart to it? And who first handed you the pattern of teaching that claimed you, and have you thanked God for them?