EPHESIANS - Week 4 & 5
As well as a continued thread of unity over the past few chapters of Ephesians, both last week and this week’s readings, taken from chapters 4 and 5, begin to discuss what one subheading calls instructions for Christian living.
One question for us in reading these passages is this; are these instructions universal?
To ask such a question hits upon even a bigger question; what is the purpose of the bible?
Is it to give direct instruction to all the people who ever read it? Is it to challenge normalised ways of thinking through the revolutionary lens of Jesus Christ? Is it to collate a series of varied texts from across history which speak to an understanding of the same God?
Our answers to this will likely be deeply ingrained in us and quite hard to budge. That is something for each of us to reflect on in our own time. What if we’ve misunderstood the point of having a bible?
But to begin to address passages like we find in Ephesians 4 and 5 is to begin to explore such questions.
Something that I highlighted as I spoke last week (you can listen back to mine and Jon’s talks on the Resound podcast here) was that Ephesians 5 is speaking into a particular culture, at a particular time. The influence of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was strong and shaped a culture which embraced self-indulgence, ‘debauchery’ and occultic practices. As we work through the various instructions in Ephesians 4 and 5, not only can we see the connection between these instructions and the problems facing that particular culture, but it also appears to speak directly to the people of Ephesus;
“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.” – Ephesians 4:17-19
Even now in reading that back, I find that I am inclined to read ‘gentiles’ as non-Christians today. This is not a good way to read the Bible! This is clearly speaking knowingly about a group of people, who are engaging in specific practices. We can’t just read this and apply it universally, that all non-Christians have “given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.”
We just know that isn’t true of all people. It isn’t even true of most people!
One way of tackling that dissonance is to interpret texts using two further questions;
1) What is speaking to a cultural context?
2) What is an eternal principle?
This lives with an understanding that not every passage or instruction is for all people for all time, but that within these texts that make up the bible, we can find timeless principles, which reflect God’s heart for humanity.
In the example of Ephesians 4 and 5, we (today) don’t have cultural practice of drunken religious festivals, or temple prostitution, and some of these specific instructions won’t relate to us in the same way. Nor would it relate to other communities in other places and other times across history.
What can connect with all readers of this text is the call to live in way which are counter-cultural. This was the heart of the message to the Ephesians, but it can also speak into 21st century Bristol (and beyond).
Believers are being encouraged to leave behind practices and behaviours which lead them and others away from the worship and glorification of God, but instead to make choices which lead them, and others, towards God and which honour God.
That is something that we can apply to our lives.
This week, as you go through the readings, try applying these two elements to your interpretation as you read. What is speaking to a cultural context, and maybe isn’t for us today? What is an eternal principle which shines through the specifics to resonate with believers throughout time?