Ephesians 5:1-7. Yesterday’s reading was sandwiched between the first verse for today and Ephesians 4:24. Both of those verses deal with being like God. Bible experts call that an “inclusio”. It’s like a literary sandwich, Ephesians 4:24 and Ephesians 5:1 are the bread and the stuff in the middle is the meat. In this case the bread gives us the basic idea and the stuff in the middle fills up the sandwich. This is a “be like God” sandwich and inside we find some attitudes and actions to help with that. As I said in the last post the examples are true examples but I think the bigger idea is the reasons behind the actions. Those reasons really had the common idea of caring about other people. That was certainly the example Jesus set for us.

Today’s reading starts out with that very idea. In verses 1-2 we are told to imitate God by imitating Jesus. There are some things to notice in these verses. First notice that we are children of God, that means we are loved by God. I’ve heard some people say bad things about adoption but the fact is that when children are adopted it is because the parents want them. Some of us may have been a “surprise” to our parent, that doesn’t mean they don’t want us, but there is no surprise with an adoption and the parents certainly chose to have those children. God wants us to be a part of his forever family. Next notice that we are to live as God’s children by loving. As the example will show, we are to love others. We also saw that in yesterday’s post. Paul then uses Jesus as our example of how to love. He actually uses the title “Christ” rather than the name Jesus. I think Paul does that to keep his readers (and us) thinking about Jesus as the one promised through out the Old Testament, he wasn’t just some random guy, he was God’s plan to make things right between us and him all along. Notice that Jesus’ love is shown by the fact that he sacrificed himself for us. Don’t miss that last part, this was a willing action by Jesus, he was not forced to die on the cross, it was voluntary. The idea of a soothing aroma or fragrant aroma goes back to the Old Testament where people would make offerings to God. Some of the offerings in the Old Testament were mandatory, as reminders of certain facts about our (broken) relationship with God.   Other offerings were voluntary and most of the references to offerings being a “soothing aroma” relate to those types of offerings. The word used in the Old Testament has the idea of smelling something that makes you sigh, takes all the stress away. We are told that, to God, those sacrifices were like walking in and smelling cookies baking, or a cake, or maybe food on the barbeque. You see God cares for and loves us and doesn’t want us to pay the price for our sins (disobedience and rebellion toward Him). In the Old Testament when someone would give an offering voluntarily it showed that they seriously wanted a good relationship with God. That attitude is what made God ‘sigh” in happiness. Jesus’ offering of himself on the cross was an important part of God’s plan to fix our broken relationship with him and so it too made God happy (even though it was painful both to Him and to Jesus).

In verses 3-4 Paul gets back to the imitating Jesus thing. Our sacrifice isn’t by going and getting crucified it has to do with how we live our lives.  In these two verses Paul uses two lists of three items to start to help the Ephesian followers of Jesus understand how they ought to act. In the first list He tells them that their lives should not involve “sexual immorality, impurity or greed”. The first word comes from the Greek (the language the New Testament was written in) “porneia”. Our English word “pornography” comes from that word. In those days the word was used for being sexually involved with someone you were not married to. The second word could just mean something dirty but in the context it is probably also referring to sexual attitudes and actions that were different from God’s design. Some Bible experts try to link the third word, “greed” with the first two and make it about sex too. They say that “coveting your neighbors wife” (Exodus 20:17) is a greedy action that involves sex. The way the sentence is built in Greek however makes that connection very unlikely. The end of verse 3 tells us that these actions are not proper for God’s holy people. That word holy means dedicated to a special purpose. It’s like special dishes that a grandma or aunt or even your own family only uses on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or maybe like a wedding dress that is only used on that one day. Keep that idea of a special purpose in mind and we will come back to it.

The second list focuses on three types of conversation. The first word is translate “obscenity” of “filthiness”. The first word generally means “intense ugliness, extreme unnaturalness”. In the context of what Paul is talking about obscenity and filthiness (or dirty talk) are probably pretty good translations. The second and third words were often used to describe the wild conversations at drunken parties. The second one also has the idea of talkativeness. And the third word was used in the culture of a quick witted person. In James we are told to be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. In Ecclesiastes 10:12-13 Solomon tells us that a wise man’s words are gracious but a fool is swallowed by his own lips. He then goes on to say that a fools words start out stupid and end up as evil madness. Interestingly the Hebrew (the language the Old Testament was written in) word translated madness is related to the Hebrew word for praise. Solomon tells us that a fools words end up being “evil praise”. I wonder if the idea there is that it gives God a bad reputation. Those verses in Ecclesiastes fit well with what Paul said in verse 3, that type of quick talkative “funny” (dirty) conversation doesn’t fit with God’s special people.

He ends verse 4 telling them they should be thankful instead. In the 1960 there was a phrase, “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Young people of that generation were trying to find peace, satisfaction, fulfillment, a reason for their personal lives in those three things. Here in Ephesians we have learned that God has made us a part of His forever family, we are special, we have a place and a purpose (See Ephesians 2:8-10). This is God’s free gift to us and it takes hold in our life when we rust and believe in it (faith). In the 60’s there was a lot of talk about love, mostly they were talking about the physical kind. Here in Paul’s day it wasn’t much different people we having wild drunken sex filled parties looking for peace and satisfaction in their lives. In some respects the 1960’s were a reaction by young people to the lives of their parents. The 1950 were pretty cushy for those young people. Their parents worked hard and had a lot of stuff, most of them anyway. There was still poverty in the world though and many of those young people blamed their parents. People were poor because others were greedy, that was the thinking. Many of those young people embraced the concept of “socialism”. Socialism decides for you what work you are best suited for and puts you to work doing it. You are a piece of the machine that makes up the society. Everything that the society produces is gathered together and each person gets a piece of it. At least that’s the theory. It is “forced sharing”. The problem is when things are forced they don’t fix us where we are really broken, inside. Remember back in Ephesians 4:28 Paul told believers to work hard so they could share with those in need. That is God’s solution and it fixes the need on the outside, the poor are fed, but it fixes us on the inside as we become more like God. Wild living doesn’t give us meaning and purpose and neither does greed. Paul is telling the Ephesian believers they have what fills up a life and gives it meaning and that they should be thankful for it.

Remember I said that yesterday’s reading was a literary sandwich. It was a “be like God” sandwich and that today’s reading explains to us how to be like God. Paul has started out by telling us to avoid greed and wild living, the things that the unbelievers do. In verse 5 he tells them that those activities don’t give people what they really want. Back in the 1960 Walt Disney built Disney World. Part of that was a place called EPCOT center. His vision for EPCOT was a modern city where people would live full happy lives; it was his vision for a utopia. The original utopia was the Garden of Eden, we broke that though, but God is in the process of restoring that, the original utopia is coming back. The Bible calls it the Kingdom of God. In it we will live forever, no more crying, no more sorrow, God will care for and provide for us for all eternity. But people who try to make it on their own won’t find it, won’t be a part of it. That is the warning in verse 5. Verse 6 tells us there is a price for disobeying God and not wanting to live in peace with Him; that price is not being a part of the kingdom. You see God doesn’t force us to be a part of His forever family, He invites us to be a part of it. The downside if, if you chose not to be a art of God’s forever family, His kingdom, you aren’t, you are on the outside. Outside, not God, inside God, and the Bible tells us that every perfect gift is from God.

Verse 7 then tells the believers not “partake” with those on the outside. That word “partake” translates a word that means “to share with” or “be a partner with”. Paul doesn’t want the followers In Ephesus to follow the losing crowd. They are winners through Jesus and he wants them, and us, to live that way. It all seems pretty negative but the reason we aren’t to be a part of that world, going the way the world goes, is that it doesn’t work. What works is becoming part of God’s forever family, that is what fills people up now and forever, that is what starts to get rid of the bad stuff in life, that is what starts to feed people on the outside and change people on the inside.

Remember above I said we have a special purpose. Our special purpose is to help the world find peace with God and an eternal place in His kingdom. That is the big idea behind Ephesians 2:10, that is the goal of the “good works” we have been created for, that is the “grace” or gift our words are to give to those who hear (Ephesians 4:25).   We can spend our lives being witty and making inappropriate joke, being the “life of the Party” but we won’t bring real life to anyone’ it will all die with us. Or we can live for God and bring eternal peace and joy to those around us by using our resources, especially our words, to bring people to God.

Lord thank you for having a plan to fix our broken world. Thank you for making that original “utopia” for us. I’m sorry for the part I have played in breaking it. Thank you for taking care of my punishment, I’m so sorry that you had to become a man and suffer death because of what I have done. Thank you for making that right, though. Thank you for building a new place, your kingdom, where peace and happiness and fullness will reign for all eternity. Thank you for offering that to all of us. Help me show people what that will be like through my actions. Help me not was time being “worldly cool” let my words and actions led people to you. Let my life encourage them to chose you. Thank you for loving all of us. I hope many many many will choose you.

Ephesians 4:25-32. Yesterday’s reading ended by encouraging the beilevers in Ephesus to put on the new self which models God (v. 24) Tomorrows section by telling the believers to be “imitators of God” (Ephesians 5:1) Sandwiched between are some examples of what that looks like. The examples are taken from human life, they aren’t pictures of God that we are to copy, they contrast what not to do with what to do. Where we really see God is in the reasons Paul gives for the different actions.

In verse 25 Paul tells his readers not to lie but rather to “speak truth, each one with his neighbor”. He is quoting Zechariah 8:16 in that verse. If you look up Zechariah 8:16 in your Bible it probably doesn’t say anything about neighbors that is because Paul was quoting from the Greek translation of the Old Testament which does say “your neighbor”. Zechariah was written to Jews during the return to and rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. So the neighbors here would have been Jews all part of the same group. So Paul is telling the believers to be truthful with each other, that doesn’t mean they could lie to non-believers though. His reason and point here is that they need to be honest because they are all part of the same team.

In verse 26 He tells them when they get angry not to sin. They need to deal with anger quickly. Some people think that this gives us permission to be angry as long as we don’t let it go to far. I’m not sure, on the one hand we do have an example of Jesus making a whip and driving people out of the temple who were using it as a place of business (John 2:13-16). His followers saw this as a fulfillment of prophecy. John doesn’t say he was angry though he says he was passionate. The only time the idea of anger is clearly applied to Jesus is in Mark 3:5 where a bunch of religious leaders are using a handicapped person to try to trap Jesus. The word used there is related to the word here in Ephesians for anger. Jesus doesn’t lose his cool though, there is no outburst it seems to be an internal anger. In the Old Testament there are several verses that talk about God’s anger. On the other hand Paul told the church at Corinth that if they wanted their actions to be useful that they needed to be influenced by love. He described that love as patient, kind, and unprovoked (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). It seems like it might be hard to have those attitudes and be angry at the same time. Down in verse 31 and over in Colossians 3:8 Paul tells his readers to get rid of anger (using another form of the same word) and in Galatians 5:20 he calls anger a deed of the flesh, meaning something we should not do. In that verse the Greek word he uses for anger is a different one, some experts say it is equal to this word and other say it is different. The reason they need to deal with anger quickly is so the Devil won’t have an opportunity. Even if Paul is saying it’s ok to be angry sometimes there is clearly a danger involved. How quick is quick? Most experts think that Paul is quoting Psalm 4:5 here from a Greek translation of the Old Testament. That Psalm was written by David and people were attacking his reputation. He describes their words as worthless and deceptive. Then he tells them “be angry and do not sin”. One Bible expert puts it together this way, “Be angry if you must, but stop sinning by continuing your empty, false speech” (Frank Thielman, Baker Exegetical Commentary on Ephesians (2010), p. 313). We have already seen that we need to speak words of truth. Now Paul is telling us not to allow our emotions to control us to the point that the Devil has an opportunity. When we are angry our words are usually pretty useless, in that sense they are empty. As we will see God wants our words to be useful and the Devil loves keeping us off that track.

In verse 28 the readers are told to stop stealing if they are doing that. Instead they need to work with their own hands doing what is good. Clearly he is talking to people who don’t have it easy, these are not rich people but people who are tempted to steal to get by. This isn’t slaves either who would have been provided for and have no need to steal. The work these people are told to do is tiring hard work with their own hands. The word “good” means “good ina useful way”. The reason for working hard was so they would have something to share with others in need. In Galatians 6:1-10 Paul tells believers in those churches to carry “each others loads” and in James 1:27 James tells us that if we really love God we will help widows and orphans, usually the most needy in a society. For sure these people need to feed themselves but God wants us to look beyond ourselves to others (Philippians 2:3-4).

In verses 29-30 Paul returns to their speech. He tells them not to let any unwholesome words come out of their mouths but to speak words that “build up according to the need of the moment”. The Greek word translated “unwholesome” is pretty nasty. It was used to describe rotting fish, rotting wood, useless stuff caught in a fishermans net, and dead flowers . Probably the most disgusting idea it was used for was the smell of the mythical figure known as “Death”, who smelled like rotting flesh. Nasty. Clearly all of these things have the common idea of being totally useless, not to mention disgusting, gross and offensive. Paul tells them that instead their words need to “build up”. He has used the idea of building so much in this letter it would be hard to hear the word without thinking of “house”, “Temple” and “body” that Paul has talked about being built, all examples of the “team” or “group” they were all part of, God’s forever family, the church. This is made even more clear When we see the first part of his reason; “so it may give grace to those who hear”. Grace has included two related ideas in this letter so far; the undeserved gift of salvation that God is offering people and it has been related to the “gifts” or abilities God has given to each believer so that we can build each other up into mature followers of Jesus who reflect his character. So the first part of his reason is all about making God’s forever family bigger and better. The second part of the reason is related it’s so we don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. What makes the Holy Spirit sad? Paul describes the Holy Spirit in this verse as the one who was his reader’s “seal for the day of redemption”. The Holy Spirit is the proof that we have turned our lives over to Jesus. He is our certificate of adoption into God’s forever family. By using this description Paul is pointing to what makes the Holy Spirit sad here. Remember that the Holy Spirit not only is our proof of being part of God’s family but that he also helps us know who Jesus is and remember what he taught. What we see here is that he is made sad when our words don’t bring that same understanding to others, when our words do not help others understand the gift of salvation and become an active part of God’s forever family.

The final two verses give a list of attitudes and actions that we are to “put away” from our lives. These attitudes and actions are bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and all malice. I think we understand most of these words. I think the last one is sort of a summary description of the list and also it keeps the list open for others things that could be described as “malice”. That word means evil, bad, wicked, things that are not as they should be. From the ideas above we see the way God wants things. God wants things that heal our relationship with him. He wants us to be a part of bring peace between God and each individual. And he wants things that bring us closer to him. That’s how things ought to be. In verse 32 we see this in what Paul wants the readers to do. Paul wants us to be kind to one another. That word has the idea of actions that are useful and helpful, back to that “need of the moment” idea above. Paul wants us to be “tender-hearted”. Literally that word means to “have a good guy (bowels)”. For the Greeks their gut was the center of their emotions not the heart. The idea here is caring about others. Next he wants them to be forgiving. We all do things that offend others and we are all offended by others. We need to let those things go. The reason Paul gives for all of this is because God in Christ forgave us. I think there is only one reason here because all of the things go together. Instead of having useless attitudes and actions that don’t bring people closer to God, Paul says we need to do things that are helpful (that do bring people closer to God), we need to care more about others (tender-hearted) and less about our selves (don’t keep score, forgive), that’s how Jesus acted toward us.

So what are we to do to grow in the image of God, to put on that new self? We need to be honest and remember we are all on the same team working toward the same goal. We need to not get angry and let our words become empty and useless, that is the Devil’s plan not God’s. We need care about the needs of others and work hard to meet them. We need to speak words that bring others to God and closer to God. And we need to forgive others because God has forgiven us. How interesting is that that being a better me involves focusing on other and not myself. Of course that is what God did, Jesus existed as god in Heaven from eternity past and one day said, “I need to become a human so I can fix this mess.” He didn’t regard equality with God as a thing he needed to hold onto so he laid aside some of his divine privileges and became a servant of us all (Philippians 2:5-8). Wow.

God help me be more like you. Help me be a servant. Let me care about people the way you care about people. Help my work be profitable so I can share. Help me forgive. Help me introduce people to you in such a way that they will want a relationship with you. Thank you for loving me help me love other more and more every day.