Bite 70: Observing Ephesians 4:17-5:2

Before We Get Started

I haven’t had an article to share with you for a while because I’ve been busy celebrating. All credit to whom it’s due: Glory to God! My beloved and I celebrated 29 years of marriage this week. So we engaged in epic adventure through the whole week.

For the second half of the week, we headed up to the high country near Silverton, Colorado for some camping. And we found the next epic adventure: a 14er.

I know, I know. The experts say to be prepared and whatnot. Well, we didn’t do it that way.

So that’s why I haven’t been standing here at my desk writing articles or throwing pots. Been busy playing my brains out. But now I’m back and raring to get after it. How about you?

Recent Focus of Learning

For the last few weeks, I’ve been immersed in a lecture series about defending my faith. Enlightening to say the least. I’d been listening to the lectures while I throw pots, and then realized that this is so important and life-altering, I had to go back. Now I’m also watching the lectures over again, but taking notes. When I’ve taken notes, then I share those notes with Jeremy in the evening. Because, if you can teach someone else what you’ve learned, you’ve learned it for yourself. Additionally, I’ve got all kinds of means of getting this information into my head: hearing the lecture, seeing the notes, and then engaging with the information again as Jeremy and I dialogue.

May I recommend this lecture series to you? It will renew your mind as Paul mentions even in the passage we cover next. You can find it here. I’ve already been studying this passage for myself before I share with you how I’m finding what I’m finding and I see growth and development in my ability to see connections and realities that the ancients observed and put monikers on to make discussing them easier.

With the New Format

I want us to stay grounded in the context of the letter. Have you read the whole thing lately? I need to do that. Here is a link to the passage: Ephesians 4:17-5:2 so that we can easily refer to it.

Since we are going to be less about the nitty gritty in Bible study and more about keeping the picture big, I am going to refer you to previous articles about how to sentence diagram. I’m still including a link where you may print the sentence diagram that I’ve created for my study in case you’re not ready to tackle that for yourself yet.

There are explanations of how to diagram in many articles, but I will bring just a couple here for you so you don’t have to go searching for them. Here’s one, here’s another. And here’s that link to my rendition of a sentence diagram:

Observation of Ephesians 4:16-5:2

The first thing I did in observing our new passage (did you notice that I chose the passage based on the flow of the text and not the chapter breaks?) was write down what came before and what comes after to keep the context in mind.

Context

This is the summary I wrote at the conclusion of studying the previous section.

And this is what I saw as up and coming after our current passage.

Have I Heard this Before?

I don’t know what to title this section. But I was just taking notes in a couple of lectures, learning about Natural Theology. Before anyone’s hackles raise, this is not a strictly St. Thomas Aquinas teaching. He drew his observations from Augustine before him who drew from Paul himself in Romans 1.

There is information that Paul conveys in both Romans and Ephesians about these folks who are in this position of being futile thinkers and in darkness. Ephesians 4:17-19 doesn’t give us as complete a picture as Romans 1, which is why I brought it here for us to consider.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven 
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, 
who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 
19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, 
because God has shown it to them. 
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, 
his eternal power and divine nature, 
have been clearly perceived, 
ever since the creation of the world, 
in the things that have been made. 
So they are without excuse. 
21 For although they knew God, 
they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, 
but they became futile in their thinking, 
and their foolish hearts were darkened.1

What have these Gentiles done? Why is God’s wrath against them?

Because from creation (Natural Theology), God has made himself manifest to everyone. Through what has been made, God’s invisible attributes are able to be clearly seen. Even though all men knew God, they chose to reject him. They choose to hate God and therefore they have the trial of both being futile thinkers, being dark of heart, and God’s wrath is revealed against them.

Repetition or Themes

Starting from the beginning of the passage, I looked for repeated words or ideas. In this case, I saw the repetition of opposites. Everywhere. And one comparison at the end, but mainly opposites. These I highlighted in order to remember that Paul pointed them out for a reason. What reason? Isn’t that always the question when trying to understand a philosopher?

Details within the Opposites

As I continued to observe, I saw that there are details Paul shares about some of the opposites. Here is the first list I made as I saw a contrast between Gentiles and Christ-followers. After that, I made lists for falsehood vs truth and then some concrete examples.

Side Note

Just to clear the air. I have materials in my backpack about this topic. When I say to leave our backpacks at the door, I mean it. I will, to the best of my ability, read and study scripture and let it define for me what my doctrine should be. So far in my observation and study, I believe that God chooses his own. I do not believe that we choose God. 

And yet when I come to a place that looks like maybe man chooses God, I'm open to let the scripture teach me. The Word is true. It contains no contradictions. It's reconciliations between difficulties exist and it is my duty to renew my mind and understand them. And then come to right-er understanding of what God says. Because he can be known.

I will not shrink from what the Word says just because it seems to contradict what I have already established in my mind as truth. This is where I come to know God better as who he is and not who I've created him to be in my own mind. This is why I study. I don't know all of God yet. And when he seems confusing, I will press in and trust him. End side note.

Falsehood vs Truth

Paul then juxtapositioned the two realities between truth and falsehood. Having talked about how they heard of Christ in Ephesians 4:20-21 and then that they had put away falsehood in Ephesians 4:25, I see this as a pretty big deal to Paul. He contrasts these also by setting the old self and the new self against each other in Ephesians 4:22-24.

Concrete Examples

This list that I made was what I saw as Paul’s effort to flesh out this contrast of Gentile/CF, truth/falsehood, old self/new self. These are all looking like different ways to explain the same concept. Then these concrete examples illustrate the one concept.

Questions I See

Remember that part of my observation is also noticing issues or questions I might have within the text. I jotted a couple of those amongst these lists.

Reflection

There cannot be much by way of reflection yet since this Bite is strictly about observation. Observation, Interpretation, Application. We’ve yet to get to any actual interpretation.

However, what I’ve noticed so far as I read and reread this section of scripture is that what I’m understanding in it and what I hear in the world about unity do not seem to match. Or even correlate remotely.

Our culture tries to inform us as consumers of truth that we should be unified or agree or march to the same drummer. No matter what.

Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says “No.” Actually, he more accurately says, “NO!” Over and over he is pointing out that this idea can’t exist at the same time and in the same relationship with this idea.

There is not a Gentile-type person (as defined in this passage) who is at the same time a Christ-following person. An old self who was corrupt through deceitful desires cannot also be a new self in true righteousness and holiness. And so forth.

Unity for the sake of unity is not the goal. This is what I’ve observed so far. I’m holding this loosely in case I’m not reading this rightly.

Wrap Up

Our Bible Study Bite for today is to pay special attention to contrasts. There are contrast words that we’ve discussed before, but these contrasts that I’m talking about today are opposites. Opposite types of personalities/character, opposite habits, opposite values, opposite effects.

What is the author driving home through the use of opposites? Is he driving at anything? Because he used the papyrus for a reason. What problem or question is he trying to answer through the usage of all of his opposites?

Let’s notice this tool the author uses to illustrate his point. It’s a little like the synonymous parallelism that we’ve discussed before where the synonyms help us to understand both phrases. In this case, it’s antithetical where one describes for us what the other is NOT like.

As I was going through some of those opposites, the “don’t steal but share” was profound when looked at through this filter. The sharing has to do with being involved with labor. Therefore if I’ve been involved with stealing, it’s in a sense related to being lazy. And if I don’t have enough to share, have I been laboring enough? If I haven’t labored enough to have something to share, is that actually neglecting someone who might need a hand for a season?

I don’t know since I haven’t gotten to interpretation, but can you see how noticing opposites can lead us to questions we might not have previously asked?

Well, next time we will get into that interpretation and start working on some of those questions. Thank you for studying with me today! If you’ve found anything useful here in our time together, would you please share? It would help me out a bunch. See you next time!

1. Romans 1:18–21 (ESV)