Verse 5 takes up the thought begun in verse 4 and expands it. Exegetically the verse is not difficult; Paul is simply saying that the way in which one lives is determined by that on which one focuses one’s thoughts. He is speaking of the contrast between a life which is controlled by one’s own human nature and the life which is controlled by God’s Spirit. The New English Bible implies that the contrast is between one’s “lower nature” and one’s “spiritual nature,” but this does not seem to be what Paul means. In this verse, as in the following verses, the word mind(s) is used as a comprehensive term to refer to one’s will and affections as well as one’s reason.

In this verse, in the rest of the chapter, and in a number of other contexts, it may be necessary to translate Spirit (with initial capital letter) as “the Spirit of God” or “the Holy Spirit.” Capitalization alone is usually not sufficient to indicate clearly to the hearer that the reference is to the Holy Spirit. This is especially true if the term for Spirit may be either completely neutral in connotation or possibly have the implication of an evil spirit when the context does not mark it otherwise.

For many languages the equivalent of human nature in this context is “the body”—for example, “those who live as their body commands have their minds controlled by what their body wants,” “… what their body wants controls their thinking,” “or … causes them only to think of that.” Similarly, the second sentence of verse 5 may be rendered as “those who live as the Spirit tells them to live think only about what the Spirit wants,” “what the Spirit wants controls what they think,” or “… occupies all their attention.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .