Bite 80: Labels Are Neutral

Before We Begin

It occurs to me as I have stopped including our whole passage in each article, that I want to tell you that I’m chatting with you with an assumption. In ascending order of preference, I’m assuming one or more of the following:

1. You have your Bible open to the passage (today that’s Ephesians 5:15-6:9) as we discuss
2. Next to this article, you have a print-out of the sentence diagram we talked about last time we met (you can access it here)
3. You have a sentence diagram you created in front of you to compare as we chat

You may be asking, “Why that order?”

If you only use your Bible, you will not have the ability to color, make lists nearby, or jot notes to yourself as freely. Using my diagram, you have limited the benefits of the process of actually wriggling around in the text for yourself. Which explains why, as your fellow student of the Word and your friend, I prefer option #3.

Since I’m trying to make these articles more manageable by assuming you have the scripture in front of you, I wanted to take a moment to let you know my assumption. Our time together will be more profitable if we are both looking at the text.

Categories

Have you heard the complaint from people that they don’t want to be “labeled”? Some of these labels or categories in our culture are professionals and blue collar workers. Or Democrat, Republican, and Independent. In the church, we also have categories like Calvinist and Arminian. Or charismatic and reformed.

These labels aren’t fundamentally wrong. They serve to explain in one term a concept. A generality. Not necessarily a judgment but a means of organization. Paul uses categories in our passage and as I used lists in my own observation, I saw these categories as Paul’s effort to convey information. Using the labels, he is able to direct specific instruction. Labels aren’t bad but neutral.

Paul’s Categories

Do you remember as we were organizing our sentence diagram that we tried to line up all the subjects on the left side? Whether it was understood as “you” or specifically identified as wives, husbands, etc, we stacked up the groups.

At first I titled the list as “Paul addresses” but then as I was thinking about Paul’s organization over all, that didn’t cover what I saw.

The Lists

Be Wise

Starting at the beginning of the passage, I see do not commands set in opposition to but be commands. I actually thought this was going to be a longer list, but when I looked at the details, the rest of the paragraph has to do with being filled with the Spirit. New list.

Married Folk

I’ve said it before, there is a lot of space Paul uses to talk about the covenant of marriage. In like manner, I took a lot of space to make lists in order to organize Paul’s teaching. Not that his teaching is disorganized, but my brain is and needs the concrete ordering of information.

As you look at theses lists considering what an optimal marriage relationship looks like, do you notice any points of contact between our first lists and these ones? I started to see this thread I’m hinting at in the lists organizing the comparison between wife and Church and the list comparing husband and Christ.

Side Note

The lists for husband/wife are as far as I got before I was overwhelmed by this thread I saw. Everything Paul teaches, every point, every detail all connects to, has its purpose in, or originates in the Trinity. One or other person of God.

Why do anything? God the Father. How to do anything? Like Jesus. By the Spirit.

This is the point at which I pulled something out of my backpack to compare it what I’ve just seen in observation. For my whole Christian life I’ve heard people throw around the idea that everything is to or for the glory of God. And that makes sense, I intellectually agree, in a general reading and understanding of scripture. But in making these lists and seeing Paul’s emphasis on the connection between all that is done by every kind of person and God? The realization of what I thought I could see staggered me.

I didn’t go on to the next type of person in the text but instead made my next list with a different focus. That’s how overwhelming this revelation was in my puny brain. End side note.

Ultimate Reality

My next list was to go through the whole passage and note every time there was a mention of Christ with relationship to what or how to do or be. I didn’t do the whole Trinity because I was making the list simpler and very clear to my brain. Focusing on Christ provided an ample list.

Remaining People Groups

These are pretty self-explanatory, but I was intentional about what I’ve noticed from above. How is the Trinity involved in Paul’s teaching? As you make your own lists, what observations do you make?

Even though it is obvious, I like to identify what I notice. I never know what will profoundly touch my heart, so I make sure I allow opportunities for the mundane to be addressed.

What I saw from these lists is that when man goes his own way, the result is counter-productive. For example, a father provoking a child yields anger. As a parent, it goes without saying that I’ve provoked my kiddos to anger. With that result, there was further frustration on my part because they were acting badly which led to more provoking on my part and so forth. Dumb. My way is dumb.

Again, God is ultimate reality. Source and reason.

The Plan for Study

We’ve already accomplished some of this plan, but have you ever read Frog and Toad? Toad wakes up in the morning one day and decides to make a list for the day.¹

So my list of objectives as we study together looks like this:

At least that’s the current plan. With the Spirit teaching, I may change course based on what I learn next.

Reflection

What a glory to be a student of the Word with you and have this kind of profound learning taking place as we study together. I understand if this doesn’t affect you the way it has affected me; I’ve said before that this is why we study for ourselves. Hearing it from someone else doesn’t yield the same impact as rummaging around for yourself. That’s why we’re here. I want every child of God to have even these simple tools to use as a student of the Word for himself.

My Thought-Patterns are Different

And then as we learn and grow, what we have to offer the world changes. I have a precious child who is currently trudging through a trial. As if this panic-demic isn’t hard enough, she’s trying to get on her feet as an adult during this time. Job-finding is hard, relationships are hard, life is hard. My reflection after studying and being taught was essentially summed up in a text I wrote to her about her situation. Here is my reflection as I texted it to her:

I’m studying Ephesians 5:15-6:9 right now. As I observe the text, one of the things I’ve done is color all the places relationships w others are described as the relationship to the Lord.

You are in a trial, I’m not saying you’re not. But as you deal w challenging folks, look at it in light of your relationship to Christ. Not if Christ were doing these things to you, but you behave in response to your situation in light of your relationship w Jesus. Remember that he is justice. (I’m speaking to myself as much as you.) He cares more about injustice and unkindness than we do since such things are a violation of who he is. His nature and character. When they happen to us, really do we deserve anything else? We are fundamentally corrupt by character and nature.

So like me, take a deep breath and remember that our interaction is ultimately w our savior. Not those who would seek to potentially harm us.

Wrap Up

Remember how we talked about labels at the beginning of our time together? I’m not sure how hermeneutical in nature this Bible Study Bite is I’m going to talk about, but I’m going to treat it as if it is.

When I settled into observing this passage, we’ve discussed how I thought it would be about these various groups of folks. Paul placed people in categories, gave them labels. In recent history, our culture has decided to make a hard pass on anything that resembles a category or label. I do think I’m seeing a shift back to the use of labels as the crazy is ramping in the US. But those labels aren’t the ones to which I’m referring. Or if I am without knowing it, I want us to know why we don’t need to reject them.

An aspect of epistemology: How do we know what we know? And why?

Philosophy

We need these categories because without them, there wouldn’t be a comprehensible means of differentiating between God and man. God is a category unto himself. Man, human beings, are of different sorts and kinds. Like we talked about before, we are human becomings. I will paraphrase some ancient philosopher, “the only thing constant about man is that he is not constant.” On the other hand, God simply is and will always be.

So these categories and labels help us to see who we are, who other people are, and though we are made in the image of God, we are not like him in the realm of categories because we move in and out of them. For example, I learned something in this time of study that altered my worldview. I changed. To understand that and explain it to you, I need words in common, labels.

Example

In my case as a wife, do I go my own way in my marriage or do I live in my marriage the way Paul describes? Does how I know my savior change the way I interact with my husband? Particularly as an equal in the eyes of God (a label) and yet placing myself under Jeremy’s authority. Submission (a label) was always part of my marriage, but why? In light of the whole passage, I better understand that everything I do is not with a wink at Christ but my focus wholly on him.

When talking about God, he doesn’t learn anything. He doesn’t change. Again, he has no potential. He is a category unto himself. God is the ultimate category. See the difference and how that can help us understand there is one? That is the kind of thing that turns my heart to worship. In his perfection, he sees what I need to learn and teaches me without a snarky attitude of “why aren’t you farther along?” He’s a different category than I am.

Thanks for studying with me today! If you’ve found anything helpful here, please like and subscribe. And if you know of other students of the Word, would you please share so we can all study and encourage each other with what we’re learning?

1. Lobel, Arnold, Frog and Toad Together, (New York, NY 10022: Harper Collins, 1972), pp 4-5.