A Letter from the People of the Cross to ISIS

Notes on Ephesians 5:1-20

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• Paul, writing this letter in prison and awaiting either acquittal or execution, draws on his Jewish heritage, using the same structure to teach the Ephesians as Moses used with Israel at Sinai in the book of Deuteronomy which was his parting address (esp. Deut. 33) – reminding them of all that God has done for them (Eph. 1-3) and how they should now live (Eph. 4-6) as they begin to play their part in the renewal of not just a land, but the whole world.
• If you want to get a feel for what Paul is doing in Ephesians, it would be worth taking an hour to read the book of Deuteronomy and feel the similarities.
• Paul speaks not as a master to slaves, wagging his finger, but as a father to his beloved children, charging them as he departs, to continue what he began and take it to the next level in scale and beauty.

Context of Passage: Christ defines how to walk in love (v1-2)

• Moses told the Israelites to “choose life” (Deut 30:19) by walking in all of God’s law. Paul tells the Ephesians in view of all that God has done through Christ to “walk in love.” Walking is possible for all (assuming no medical complication), easy to do and a long haul activity, but it’s not glamorous and there are no earthly rewards for doing it (unless you’re a toddler doing it for the first time).
• Christ is the definition and source of that love, not feelings, science or culture. What Christ said and did is the pattern we should follow.
• Christ offered himself up to God above (Heb. 9:14) to give life to the world down below, restoring our friendship with God. But he also calls us to do the same (Rom. 12:1-2, 1 John 5), to crucify our self-centred agendas and offer ourselves up a living sacrifices (Matt. 16:24) walking in the footsteps of Christ our bridegroom, older brother and master so that we too can honour our Heavenly Father and give life to the world.

Walk as a giver, not a taker (v3-7)

• Paul now follows with some examples of what it means to walk in love. The list is not exhaustive but a flavour of how God’s people should live.
• Life is a mix of giving and receiving, but like Jesus, the Christian is to primarily receive from God (directly and through the church) and give to the world.
• We stray into sin when instead of giving ourselves for the life of the world like Jesus did, we become takers, desiring and / or stealing what does not belong to us, or giving away that which is not ours to give. Sexual immorality, however consensual, is this kind of dark giving and taking of each other. Impurity is taking things into ourselves things that pollute. In the Old Testament, that was represented in things like bacon sandwiches, but now it is more the lies, empty ideas and distractions that lead us away from Christ. Coveting is desiring things we have no right to desire – like someone else’s...
• “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks...”(Lk. 6:45) This kind of lifestyle leads to a way of talking that doesn’t reflect reality, instead, it reflects our mistaken belief that we are the centre of our (own) universe. It’s not so much a prohibition against all toilet humour (the Bible has toilet humour, see Judges 3), or of using “rude” words (e.g. Phil. 3:8) but it is to say that what you say should be worth hearing, not just filling air space, but wholesome, full of wise judgment, honouring God and benefitting to people.
• Living as a taker not a giver is evidence that the grace of God is not at work within you, and if God is not at work within you, what confidence do you have that you will inherit eternal life, you’re just a fool – Like Jonah asleep on a sinking ship (See Jonah 2).
• This is not a call for Christians to retreat from life and society, for fear of becoming “polluted.” Christ calls us to be in the world, but not of it. Love compels us to draw near to those who have no hope and share our lives with them, but do not knowingly tie yourself unwisely to relationships that will force you to compromise your allegiance to Christ. Engage with life as it is, and ensure you have regular retreat times to drink deeply from the fresh water of the Spirit as you fellowship with the Father and the Son in the community of the church as well as “in your chair.” Otherwise you could sleepwalk into some very painful scenarios.

Walk in the Light, as the Light (v8-14)

• Being children of the light, means being like the moon, the moon has no light of its own, but it does give light to the earth. How? By reflecting the light of the sun.
• What we see in Christ as he shows himself and by extension, his Father is what we are to shine forth to the world. This is our highest joy, privilege and duty.
• Exposing darkness doesn’t mean deliberately going after wickedness and saying “Look!! Aha! I told you so!” It means that living like Jesus naturally brings all things into the light, both good and bad, so that you can see them for what they really are. In the dark, reality is distorted, some things look terrifying but are not, others are not dangerous, but become so and real threats and dangers cannot be assessed and then neutralised / escaped.
• Light enables you to make good judgements and take action. You would never allow a surgeon to operate on you in the dark.
• However rude our culture may declare making moral judgements to be, (irony being we ALL, Christian or not, are making judgements of each other ALL the time) it is part and parcel of growing in true Christian maturity. If you never make any judgements, you will remain immature and infantile in life, not just in your faith. The aim is to grow in making good judgements, full of grace and truth (John 3:19).
• Darkness cannot resist light, it has to flee, evil may appear to triumph in the short term, we may have setbacks but light ALWAYS finally triumphs. Darkness has to flee or be converted.

Walk in service as you patiently await the fulfilment of promise (v15-20)

• Rather than explain this section line by line, consider the parallels of Exodus 32. Moses goes up the mountain to meet with God, the people get impatient waiting for him to bring them the oracles of God, so they take matters into their own hands, and in the pursuit of happiness, fall into idolatry and all its associated evils including illicit sex, excessive drug use (alcohol, that is) and bawdy rock and roll.
• The days are evil, God has made promises to you and me about this life and the next, but he won’t always fulfil them in the time frame we want. The question then will become will we wait for him to come through for us, or take matters into our own hands. Do you want the “man-made joy” of drunkenness that comes by taking matters into your own hands ahead of time or the true joy of the Spirit that comes from waiting patiently for God to be true to his word?
• Don’t short circuit God’s purposes. Humble yourself and busy yourself in service to others as you wait patiently to inherit the promises he has given you. Yes, be honest and open about how you feel, but don’t overly focus on the thing you feel denied of, it will tempt you to sin, and make you annoying to other people. Rather, praise and thank God for all he has given you and busy yourself in the love and service of others.
• If they wanted music, most people across the world and down history, would not be able to turn on the radio or MP3 player, they would have to sing to themselves. Sing to God and yourself as you go about your business (The Israelites would use Psalms 120-134 as they journeyed the road to the temple, they are good for the road of our lives too.) The songs we sing in our hearts are reflected in the words we speak to one another. If your heart is full of trivial / trite-cliché songs, you’ll be full of trivial / trite-cliché words for others. If you are full of psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, you will be full of wisdom for others.

Selection of Questions to choose from / chew over:

• How does the fact that Paul is writing these words like a father to children soon before his death, (like Moses in Deuteronomy) change the way you hear them?
• What does it mean that Christ is the definition and source of love? How does that help you obey the command to walk in love and become a “living sacrifice”?
• When you consider Jesus as the source and definition of love, how does that change the way you think about politically incorrect term of conquering the world for Jesus?
• In summary, are you a giver or a taker in life? What are you giving to the world? What are you taking from it? What would Christ’s assessment of your life be?
• What does it mean to live as Light and expose darkness?
• Are you pursuing an infantile mindset by being “non-judgmental” or seeking to grow in a mature mindset, making good judgements that are full of grace and truth?
• In which areas of life are you tempted to give up waiting for God’s timing and take matters into your own hands? How can you busy yourself with serving others so you don’t become ensnared or just a bore to those who have to listen to you?
• What songs are going around your head / heart at the moment, are they benefiting you or others? If not, then what needs to change?

Resurrection - For the Life of the World

Six Good Friday Meditations @ RFC Church Offices 12pm-3pm

From 12pm-3pm, we have created a space at the church offices, for those who would like it, to mark Good Friday and marvel together on the greatest sacrifice in history.

We will sing songs, pray, share thoughts and ponder silently. There will be six half hour slots finishing with communion. Come and join us for one, two, three or more of them.

Each half hour slot will stand on its own as a distinct meditation, but for those who wish to stay for more than one, there is clearly a progression through the events of the story.

Whilst there will be no official child care, there will be a creche area for children to play in, should parents wish to come and do a tag team job of one watching over their little ones whilst the other takes part in the meditation and vice versa.

We'll be following Jesus' sacrifice through the eyes of John:

• 12pm - The Glory - John 13:1-11
• 12:30pm - The Gift - John 14:15-31
• 1pm - Gethsemane - John 18:1-11
• 1:30pm - Gabbatha - John 19:1-16
• 2pm - Golgotha - John 19:17-37
• 2:30pm - Grave - John 19:38-42 followed by communion

...and seeing how Jesus, far from being the victim of circumstance, is the LORD who remains in total authority over everything even his killers - doing everything according to plan, giving himself up for the sake of those who hate him.

There is not a god like him!

On Pillaging Corpses

So the obvious follow on question from the last post is how do we apply the Old Testament Law today? Is it binding?

Many try to divide it up and say that the ceremonial law can be ignored, but the social / moral law of the OT cannot, but it's just not that easy to divvy up simply. Like trying to take the golden thread out of a multicoloured jumper. You might succeed, but what use is the thread to you without the jumper and what state is the jumper left in?

Or to talk more morbidly as per our title, if the law was crucified with Christ and in Christ, then choosing which bits apply and which don't is like dissecting a corpse and keeping the organs you think are important or that you like the look of… Very Frankensteinian, not very new creation.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to give a clear answer, (cos I don't know it). Suffice to say that we study the OT law with the help of the Spirit to gain wisdom. In the OT, the law was a custodian of God's people (Gal. 3:24), but now it is an adviser. Before it ruled over us, (Gal. 3:23) now it advises God's people on how to rule (Matt. 5:14, 16).

The early church gave guidance to the Gentile churches (Acts 15:20), but rather than being the final word on the subject, I think it is the beginning of a process of growing in wisdom which is to last the whole of the church age and which all God's people are involved in as they work out what it means to bring the fulness of the kingdom of God into all of creation.

Law Crucified, Wisdom Resurrected

When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he gave them a prohibition - they could eat of ANY tree they wanted, but not from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Given that earlier, EVERY tree and plant was given for food, this ban can only have been a temporary one, otherwise you have an internal contradiction within the opening chapters of the bible!

In the bible, the "knowledge of good and evil" is less about "experience" and more about right judgement. Those who judge rightly pass tests, prove themselves to be mature and ready to rule over creation - ready to step into the destiny they have been assigned. This was why Adam and Eve should have refused the serpent, they would have exercised sound judgement and God may well then have led them straight to that forbidden tree and said, "Now you can tuck in." But they didn't, they took what they had no right to take and became like the serpent, twisting the truth to their own advantage.

God gave Adam and Eve a rule - a law. Following that law should have led them seek God's help to work out what that rule meant in every circumstance they found themselves in, which would in turn have led to wisdom and maturity.

The Law in whatever form it comes, is never able to account for every eventuality, but understanding the spirit in which it was written and applying it faithfully in every eventuality where it comes to bear is the way to maturity.

King Solomon was considered wise (at least at the beginning) not because he applied the law in a robotic way, (for often there was no law for a given circumstance), but because he perceived the true nature of what was in front of him, and over which he applied the spirit of the Torah (Deut. 17:18-19).

The same is true in our journey from childhood to adulthood.  There are some laws our parents laid down in our family lives which were temporary - e.g. "When you play outside, don't go beyond the end of the road." to "Don't steal. Some of those rules we no longer live by - I have gone way beyond the road where my parents live, others we continue to live by - "Do not steal." Knowing the categories in which each of those fall, and making new categories for situations we never had to face in our childhood is a function of wisdom and maturity.

Now when Christ died, the law died with him. Indeed he was the embodiment of the law - it was perfectly fulfilled in him. But the law, in and of itself was not bad, but good. Why should a good thing from God be consigned to the grave? The Law was not guilty of sin, we were.

Just as Christ died as the embodiment of the law, he rose again having transformed the law into wisdom. The law went through a chrysalis moment at the cross.

In Acts 2, God did not reissue a revised Law like he did at the first Pentecost at Mt Sinai about 2000yrs previously, he poured out the Spirit who gives wisdom.

The point being that as we read the Bible with the help of the Spirit we might understand how to apply the whole of God's Law - the word of God, to all of life in every glorious and inglorious variation.

As God takes up residence in human hearts, (John 14:23), the people of God have now been given to rule over creation. Not robotically to apply the law, but in the power of the Spirit of Wisdom (who is the same Spirit who wrote the Law!!), to bring all of creation into the same joyful, overflowing happiness of the life of God which they now experience.

On Hats and the "Problem" Lent is for Moderns

In a blogpost here, Alastair Roberts makes a brilliant observation of what the practice of Lent is like for Modern Christians:

Perhaps a parallel can be drawn between the ways that hats function in men’s clothing today as opposed to a century ago. Whereas the hat was once ‘uniform’, signifying one’s office or station in life, and was worn by almost all men in certain contexts, now the hat is an item of personal and often eccentric expression. When I wear a hat today, I am typically expressing my personal style and individuality in a manner that makes me stand out from the crowd. Even were I to wear the exact same clothing as my great-grandfather, I would communicate a sharply different set of social messages. The contemporary aficionado of traditional liturgy can be akin to a man wearing a top hat: whatever he may intend, it will be perceived—and will all too typically function—as a personal affectation, rather than a uniform expression of his submission to an identity held in common with others. The passage from a world of given identities to one of extensive choice isn’t easily reversed, as even in our attempts to accomplish such a reversal we are typically often reasserting the semblance of the former through the mode of the latter.

I am struck by the degree to which our choice, autonomy, and individualism shape even those concepts that we may appeal to against them. In our celebration of ‘tradition’ we can often be little more than appreciative consumers of some nostalgic antiquity, rather than being subject to the tutelage of our forefathers in the faith. ‘Liturgy’ is often less about common worship than it is about personal aesthetics. ‘Community’ can stand for individuals’ quests for the ‘passing frisson’ of togetherness (Searle), rather than a genuine submission to the Church and its leadership as defining realities in our lives. For all of the celebration of ‘story’ over the last few decades, the ‘big story’ that people speak of is seldom permitted to assign its meanings and assert its authority within our lives and world and rather becomes a source for the individual religious subject’s selective self-definition. In our quest for authenticity, we risk establishing a simulacrum of the historical Church, a sort of ‘living museum’, which looks like the original reality on the surface but whose deeper dynamics have been substituted for radically different animating forces.

That's not to say that it has no value, (and Roberts isn't arguing against the practice), it's just that its full value will never be appreciated by us who breathe a cultural air (personal choice etc) which is so different to the one in which these practices were birthed.

So God bless you if you are marking Lent in some way, and God bless you if you aren't doing anything specific.

Whatever your choice, (and that's kind of "the problem…") may you know the living God better and more joyfully by the time we get to Easter.