Wednesday 27 August 2025
Live in love, as Christ loved us. (v. 2)
Background
We continue to read Paul's letter to the Ephesians. The theme of today's section is the purification of desire in the Christian life.
4:32-5:2 is about the realm of faith: light and love. The Christian life is nothing less than God enabling believers to imitate God’s own life, which was fully revealed in Jesus Christ.
Christ was kind, tender-hearted and forgiving. He loved humanity without limit, to the point of sacrificing his own life on the cross. Christians can now imitate God (and Christ), as young children imitate their parents.
In 5:3-7 Paul spells out the opposite of Christian desire: the realm of darkness that characterised pagan society. Christians must totally exclude themselves from it – from selfish acquisitiveness and longings to control other people (including men controlling women for sex) or to possess wealth and power. This behaviour is a form of idolatry in which the heart yearns above all for people and things, not for God.
Even talking about such topics within the Christian fellowship is out of order. (We must overlook the irony here, of the author writing about what must not even be mentioned!) Filthy talk and risqué jokes contaminate the imagination. The focus of true Christian prayer and speech is thanksgiving, which focuses on the generosity of God. And be warned: if Christians so much as converse with people in the realm of darkness they expose themselves to their deceitful ways and the lure of pagan behaviour. There is no place in God’s kingdom for the citizens of darkness.
Verses 8-9 tell us to live as 'children of light'. It is a grateful celebration of the harvest that grows within the heart of each believer and is at the heart of the Church –all that is good, right and true.
To Ponder:
- The Church is not a sect, attempting to isolate itself from the wicked world and Christians spend most of their time in family and secular settings. With the help of the Holy Spirit, they try to behave in a Christian way in everyday life. How in your experience, does the Christian fellowship best support every member to resist the temptations of immoral behaviour that contradict the Christian ideal?
- What, in your judgement, are the most vexatious and offensive behaviours that undermine the health of society? Are you concerned about them? How can the Church better support its members to raise awareness of what can damage people or community life?
Bible notes author: The Revd David Deeks
David is a Methodist supernumerary presbyter, living in Bristol.