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.

Ephesians 4:17-24. Yesterday’s reading ended with Paul encouraging each and every believer to do the part that God had designed them to do to help build up the “body of Christ”, their local group of believers. They were to “speak the truth in love” to each other so that they would all become mature and the church they were a part of would be mature too. WE also saw that this truth was being brought to them by four groups of people that God had given to them to help them learn that truth. All for were teachers of a sort but each group had their special focus. There were apostles, probably what we call missionaries today who go out and teach people getting them started as a group. There were prophets who’s teaching often focused on tuning up these groups and people helping them see problem areas in their relationships with God and what to do to make them better. The there were evangelists who’s teaching helps people find, and understand Jesus personally and get started as a part of God’s forever families. Finally there were pastor-teachers who would spend quite a bit of time with a particular group teaching them over the long haul.

Today Paul gets a little tough, maybe a little prophet coming out in him, he starts out with a pretty direct address it’s sort of “Hey listen up I have something to say, something that God and I think you need to do”. Sounds pretty serious to me. And what is it that they need to do? Don’t live your lives like the gentile live. He goes on to say that the (nonbelieving) gentiles were empty headed and as far as understanding life the “lights were off”. Because of this they, the nonbelieving gentiles, did not have a part in the new eternal relationship that God was offering. They didn’t have a part in God’s forever family because they were ignorant. The Greek word translated “ignorant” is “agnoia” we get the English word agnostic from it. In life there are many people who say they are athiests” they say there is no God (well they would probably use a little “g” since they don’t believe in any type of god). In truth the non-existence of God is impossible to prove because we don’t have full access to the universe and that access would have to be everywhere at the same time (otherwise God could play ultimate hide and seek with us and we wouldn’t be able to prove he existed), so if a person really wants to claim to be an atheist is has to be a decision based on faith not fact, they are religious. The best a person could honestly be, going in that direction, is agnostic, a person who says they don’t really know if God exists or not. They would claim to have never seen God but acknowledge that he could be out there somewhere they haven’t looked. In reality though God is there and there is evidence if we want to look at it honestly (See Romans 1:18-20 and also Romans 2:14-15). In Ephesians 4:18 we see that these people are ignorant because they want to be. It’s a heart thing, their hearts are hard toward God and so they pretend he doesn’t exist.

Unfortunately that sort of hard attitude toward God, denying the truth of his existence spreads in our lives. We become callous and unfeeling with respect to what is right an wrong, and start living lives that show we don’t care what God thinks. The word “sensuality” seems to indicate a sexual kinds of disobedience or disrespect toward God. In Romans 1:26-31 talks about the same sort of process and lists several types of sin there too. In verse 26 he clearly describes homosexuality as a result of the same type of denial of God. In Ephesians 4:18 this “sensuality” is called “uncleanness”. This is not talking about soap and water this is talking about “dirty” with respect to how God sees it. In the Law of Moses if a person sinned often they were called “unclean” and they staid that way until they went to the Temple and made certain offerings. The offering didn’t actually “clean them” and they weren’t actually “dirty”. It was symbolic language that they had done something offensive to God (unclean) and by making the required sacrifice they were showing that they agreed with God that they had done something wrong, they were then considered “clean”. The idea of greed here is more of the idea selfishness, it the idea of more but not necessarily stuff, it more of what ever I want. It’s like the girl in “Willie Wonka” she wanted more of this and that but it was really about of fulfilling her desires. Or it could be like petting a cat or dog no matter how much you pet they always seem to want more.

In verse 20 Paul tells them that that wasn’t what they learned when they heard about Jesus. In verse 21 when he says “if you have heard of him and been taught about him” he isn’t saying that they haven’t, it’s not like he is doubting that they are not believers but he is just putting a little question out there to make them think. There is away a possibility that there are a few who didn’t get the whole message. Many of these people had not been taught by Paul and there we plenty of false teachers out there. It’s good to check what we believe against the truth about God and Jesus. At the end of verse 21 Paul reminds them that it’s the truth about Jesus that is important. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witness claim to be Christians but their belief systems don’t match up with the Bible, those two groups especially deny who Jesus is (God almighty) and what he has done (paid the price to access Heaven for us). As we know the consequences of staying on the outside of God’s forever family are severe. We don’t want to miss out. But remember that Paul is talking about unity and using their many different gift together so that they each individually grow but also grow as a part of the team. Jesus was the ultimate team player. In Philippians 2:3-8 Paul tells the member of the church in Philippi not to be selfish and conceited but to be like Jesus who, even though he was God in Heaven, was willing to let go of control and become a servant of us by dying on the cross. He never stopped being God he just gave up control (See Luke 22:42). In this case that is the truth about Jesus that Paul wants them to focus on.

In verses 22-24 we see how this applies to them. Instead of living in the dark and following their selfish desires that make us useless and unacceptable (corrupt) Paul wanted them to take off that old self. They needed to let their minds be renewed. Although the spirit mentioned here is probably talking about heir inner being, we do know that the Holy Spirit has a big part in renewing our minds (Titus 3:5) and part of how the Holy Spirit does that is teaching us about Jesus (John 14:26). In verse 24 Paul continues the picture of taking clothes off and putting on different clothes when he tells them to “put on the new self”. This new self looks like God and is “created” in righteousness (the right way to live if you love God) and holiness (this word has the idea of being respectful of what God wants). Both of these parts of our new “clothes” are based on truth the one seems to stress outward actions and the other our attitude toward God.

Although nothing specific was mentioned by Paul as he began this letter it is clear that the gentile believers were have a bad time of it. In the beginning he talked a lot about power and how they were equal members in this new thing God was doing. He has talked a lot about how God was carefully putting all of the believers together and building a body, a temple and an house where he would be present. He talked a lot about each of those pieces contributing and of being united, a team with each part doing it’s part. He also has mentioned teaching and love. And always more of God’s power always guided by God knowledge of us and his ultimate plan. Here in today it seems like some of the gentile believers were starting to slip away, go back to their old habits. But God had a plan for them, they were part of his new family and part of his church that was going to show Jesus to the world. To them Paul says don’t be tricked put off that old useless self. Let the truth regenerate you minds and shine like Jesus both inside and out. It’s cool that God want to recreate us. It’s easy to slip away and forget how we have learned Jesus, to forget the truth about how he gave up so much to save us, to forget his example of love for God and love of others ahead of himself. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to continue to work in us, e need to listen when he helps us remember Jesus. We need to let him renew our minds and in that way be change inside and out into a people and a team that shows Jesus to the world.

God thank you for making me a part of your team. Thank you for living as Jesus as an example to us. Thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit renewing is every day. Help me put on that recreated me each day so the world can know Jesus. Help me, humbly do my part, be a part of your team the church. Bring many people to yourself.