Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2
This will sound strange, but I believe you haven’t really lived until you’ve toured a mayonnaise factory.
My friend Mike Rose owned such a plant that was right in the middle of the industrial district of our town. And because I had told him I love visiting manufacturing plants to see how stuff is made, he invited me to visit.
When I drove up to the building, pulling my car into one of the “Visitors” parking spots right next to the front door, I noticed a huge silo standing next to the building. It reminded me of the tall steel cylinders next to my grandfathers’ and my uncles’ barns. I found out later that this silo was filled with egg yolks. Seriously? Yuck.
For the next hour, I was introduced to the manufacturing of mayo. I saw it belching out of a two-and-a-half-inch stainless steel pipe at breakneck speed—an interesting spectacle. I also witnessed the cleanest factory I had ever seen—as spotless as the lobby when you check into an expensive hotel.
But the most interesting piece of equipment to me at the factory had nothing to do with the white stuff we spread on bread or spoon onto a salad. It was the machine that made the industrial-sized white plastic mayonnaise jugs you might see on the shelf in a restaurant kitchen. These jugs were made from little plastic plugs about the size of small Tootsie Rolls® that were shipped to Mike’s company by freight-car loads. This fascinating machine took those plastic pellets and melted them into a thick, milky liquid that got sucked into a mold—a blob of goo that became a plastic jug in the twinkling of an eye. Mike had to drag me away from this intriguing machine.
When the apostle Paul’s words for today have been put in contemporary translations, they sound like this: “Don’t let the world suck you into its mold.” Wow. Shades of making plastic jugs at Mike’s factory. And what a powerful word picture this is of what it’s like to live in our world. Like those plastic slugs, we can become something we had no intention of becoming with almost no effort at all.
So, what’s a man to do? Thankfully, Paul helps us out. He challenges us to “not be conformed to this age”—to avoid being sucked into someone else’s mold—but instead to “be transformed” (v. 2). To change the metaphor, it’s like going from being a caterpillar crawling around on its belly to becoming a spectacular butterfly, soaring to places where the fuzzy little critter could have only dreamed of going. Here Paul pointed to the same concept you and I learned in high school biology: metamorphosis.
And how do we go through this metamorphosis? Again, Paul tells us directly: “by the renewing of your mind” (v. 2). What we read, what we watch, what we listen to, what we click on, whom we follow on social media—all of these things affect what rests in the crevices of our minds. When we choose to think about things—and do things—that are God honoring, we are on our way to being transformed to the likeness of God’s Son.
This is up to you. Why be a mayonnaise jug when you could be a butterfly? Be careful. The sucking sound we hear is the big machine waiting for us. It’s just around the corner.