Walking Worthy of the Calling – Part II (1)

 

My attention has been drawn to Ephesians 4:17 – 5:21 of late, and as I ponder this passage it strikes me that one of its enemies is the Christian religion as it is practiced in North America. O I’m pretty sure that the practice of Christianity elsewhere is also a barrier in understanding and practicing this passage, but since I live in North America, and particularly in a nation that has the notion that it is, or has been, a “Christian” nation, I had better confine myself to writing about the milieu I live in. I suppose I also ought to acknowledge that I don’t know enough about Mexico, which is in North America, to include our neighbors to the south in my thinking; though I know enough to know that its relationship with Christianity and the established church has been problematic.

 

You see, the difference between what we think Christianity is and what the Bible says it is, is wide and deep, but we are so enculturated that we can’t see it and when we read a passage such as Ephesians 4:17 – 5:21 we gloss over it because we think we know what we’re reading. In other words, we think we know what it means, what it looks like, to live as a Christian. Because we think we know so much, so very much, we don’t submit ourselves to the Biblical text because we think we know what the text says and we think our hearts and minds are in reasonable harmony with the text.

 

One of the reasons we think we know what the text says is that our culture, including our church culture, has erected an image of a “good Christian” that overshadows the Biblical image of a disciple of Jesus Christ. Predispositions are a barrier to reading a text, and pre-drawn conclusions inoculate us against the text working within our souls.

 

Can this be true?

 

“So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” Ephesians 5:17 – 19.

 

What do you see in this passage? Is this a component of how you view life? Of how you view the world and the people around you? Read the passage carefully.

 

What perspective of the Church and the world does Paul have? How does he view the relationship of the Church and the world? What can we learn about these things from this passage? Why is this important?

 

What does Paul mean when he uses the word “Gentiles” in this passage? Does he mean “non-Jews” or does he mean something else? What does Paul mean when he uses the word “walk”?

 

Were the Gentiles “walking” with a shuffle? Were they walking fast? Were they walking slow? Were they walking backwards? Were they walking with long strides or short strides? Or is the answer “none of the above”?

 

Since we determine the meaning of a word by its context, how is the word “walk” of Ephesians 4:17 used in context? In 4:1 Paul wants his readers to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” In 5:2 they are to “walk in love.” Does this help us understand what Paul means by the word “walk” in 4:17?

 

Now I realize that some translations substitute the word “live” in place of “walk,” but this is a mistake because “walk” is simply the English word that not only comes the closest to the Greek word that Paul uses, it is the exact equivalent to the word that Paul uses. Walking is an image embedded in Paul’s writing, indeed in the Bible, and we do not have a warrant to remove this image; it is an image of action, an image of pilgrimage. Of course the Scriptures speak to us of how to live and this image of walking is such an image, but it is a specific image, an image that God has given to us – and we ought to guard it, keep it, treasure it, and have it embedded in our souls. As the Aussies might say, we are to go on a “walkabout” with Jesus.

 

We are to go on this “walkabout” together, and we see this from the context of Ephesians. Ephesians is a letter written to a people. Chapter 4 is written to a people, just look at verses 1 – 16; they are all about a people and about individual members of Christ being joined to Him as His Body; “from whom [Christ] the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (4:16).

 

We’ll come back to the word “Gentiles” in the next post in this series. In the meantime, what does it mean?

 

Am I on a walkabout with my brothers and sisters?

 

Are you?

 

N.B. You will note that this is Part II of Walking Worthy of the Calling. Part I has not been written. I don’t know if it has not been written “yet” or if it will never be written, I can’t see that far ahead. I do know that treating Ephesians 4:1 – 16 will require much time, and right now my burden is Ephesians 4:17ff, but let’s remember that the context of 4:17ff is the People of God, the Body of Christ – we are to be on walkabout together.

 

Also, as much as I love small groups, generally speaking, if small groups are not “walking” together, or, as Bonhoeffer might say, “If they are not sharing life together,” they are falling short of the koinonia in walkabout that they are called to experience. If our small groups are only meeting for an hour or two a week, there is little to bond the relationships, and little opportunity to really experience relationship and practice what they are learning while sitting together. It is all well and good to sit together for an hour or two, but if we don’t walk together as a way of life, we fall short of Biblical koinonia in Christ. This is also true of Sunday schools, and it is, of course, also true of local congregations – an hour or two together on Sunday morning does not make a church, a people, or a walkabout with our brothers and sisters.