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At the start of chapter 4, Paul counseled his readers to walk worthily; He admonished them to godliness. In verse 17 he says stop walking unworthily. In our lives and communities, there are ways Christians are to live and ways they must abandon: green lights, red lights. The Bible could be considered as filled with traffic signals. Let us now look at the red light part of this chapter.
17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. (Ephesians 4:17–ESV)
Recall that Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesian Christians. When he says, “You must no longer walk,” we must infer that there were some in Ephesus who despite casting their allegiance with Jesus Christ did not fashion their behavior after his mold.
To Christians, he says, “Stop walking as the Gentiles do. Your lifestyles must change.” Paul was not alone addressing the sins of Christians. James asked, “Can both fresh water and salty come from the same spring?” Only in humans, it seems, but that does not make it right, helpful, proper. James went on to say, “Brothers, this should not be.” In 1 John 5, we see how John the Apostle found the same problem and counseled fellow Christians to pray for the Christians the see sinning around them.
These three fathers of the early Christian church are all addressing similar issues with slightly different emphases. James appeals to the individual chiding them toward self-assessment. “You are out of bounds. Look at what you are doing. It does not make any sense.” John appeals to others admonishing them to pray for their fellow sinning Christians. Paul goes straight to the guilty saying, “Stop it!”
Paul does not only say stop living in sin; he throws emphasis behind it by calling the Lord as his witness. The translators of the NIV used the word insist. There is no wiggle-room here in Paul’s admonition. Christlikeness is non-negotiable; it is all important. The Christians in Ephesus surely knew this but had been lax in living this. Paul affirms its importance. He brings it to the foreground saying, “Your behavior must change!”
Futility?
Paul does not say, “You better live right because it makes God sad. It makes him mad.” Paul, like James in some manner, picks up a human argument. The Gentile mindset, the one the sings its enticing songs to you, is a futile mindset. There is no goodness in it.
Have you used the word futile lately? Have you ever considered what it means? If not think of things like rodents running in hamster wheels or squirrel cages. For some reason, I know what a squirrel cage is, but I am not familiar with squirrels running in cages. So off to the internet I went. I did not dig long and hard enough to get a consensus on squirrels and cages though I did find one site that suggested the running of pet squirrels. My family has rescued and nurtured some squirrel orphans in the past, but they did not make good pets. So from our experience, it seems odd that this would be the story. Maybe some people have had better success with these bushy-tailed rodents than we. I did find some interesting material, though.
It turns out that many, many animals will run in wheels. The late Dr. Christopher Sherwin while a senior researcher at the University of Bristol studied these things. In 1998 he published a review article in the journal Animal Behavior. 1 I was amazed at the following:
Animal | Nightly run distance | Citation |
Rats | 43 km (26.7 miles) | Richter 1927 |
Wild mice | 31 km (19.3 miles) | Kavanau 1967 |
Lemmings | 19 km (11.8 miles) | De Kock & Rohn 1971 |
Red fox | 17 km (10.6 miles) | Kavanau 1971 |
Lab mice | 16 km (9.9 miles) | Festing & Greenwood 1976 |
Golden hamsters | 9 km (5.6 miles) | Richards 1966 |
Mongolian gerbils | 8 km (5.0 miles) | Roper 1976 |
Least weasels | 3.5 km (2.2 miles) | Price 1971 |
The last item in the paragraph from which I took these data cited an article from 1986. In that article, Dr. Patricia DeCoursey reported having a flying squirrel that would run on such a wheel for 10 to 12 hours without stopping.
We are not rodents nor can we get down on their level and ask them why they run as they do. We most assuredly are not supposed to build human versions of these wheels and begin running in them. It would be absurd to say, “If it is good enough for a lemming it is good enough for me.” Rodent motivations aside, running in wheels like this sure looks futile. They never go anywhere, but run hard as if they might.
Jumping back to this Ephesian letter one way to construe Paul’s words is to consider the old way of living life as a running wheel. It is as though Paul comes alongside a runner and calls out, “Hey, you up on that wheel. Did you know that it is not taking you anywhere? Come down off of that wheel. Do good things with your life. I know you like it, but there is nothing in it for people. That type of thing is for rats. You are not a rat. Be smarter than a rat.”
In thinking of Paul coming up beside a runner in a wheel, Zaccheus came to mind. In Luke 19 we read his story, learning that he was a short, rich fellow. Not being particularly sensitive to the opinions of others he climbed a tree to see Jesus. When Jesus walked up under that tree, he told Zaccheus to come down and go fix lunch. Maybe not exactly lunch, but Jesus was going to arrive at Zaccheus house and show him some spiritual traffic signals. Defrauding others was a futile way, a sinful one. He got off of that running wheel.
A dark place
18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. (Ephesians 4:18–ESV)
Look how Paul paints the Gentile life. Their insight, their understanding of important things is diminished. Good choices depend upon good understanding.
Suppose you need to change a flat tire on your car. Let us consider but two important steps in that process. First, you have to jack the car up. Second, you have to take off the lug nuts. After these steps, the wheel will come off the car. What if you get the order backward and take the nuts off first? Or, suppose you do get the car jacked up, but then try to loosen the nuts by turning them clockwise. “Righty-loosey”? Nope. That is not going to work. It does not matter whether you understand this or not. Do it wrong and get a variety of bad.
Paul says that on the journey through life people who follow their inclinations rather than Christ’s do not live life with the right understanding. They walk in the twilight of a fading day. Their understanding is dimming; it is darkening. Do you like being lost? Do you like it when you are a tourist in a cave, and they turn out the lights on you? Life this way is life a dangerous way.
Alienated
Let us continue with the tire changing analogy. Usually, when the car begins to roll poorly, you deduce that your tire is flat. Driving on the rim will sort of work for a little while. Cars don’t do well on wheel rims alone, and eventually, you will grind to a halt. The other vehicles, with their inflated tires, keep flying on down the road. You, though, are separated from them. If you do not know how to change the tire, you will remain by the side of the road, alienated from the journey.
God has given life to each person, but you only complete the journey down life’s highway on his tires. People can and do try to drive on rims, but the sparks fly, and the rims grind. The engine works harder, and the journey falters. Sometimes the music of life is so loud in the car they may not know what is happening on the outside. Eventually, though, they do. Even if they can change their tires, they will never catch up with the rest of the cars.
Personal ignorance
Look at how Paul describes the origins of this situation. Ignorance alienates them from life after God’s fashion. Knowledge is not in them; it is out of them; they lack this. They are ignorant.
Sometimes I want to blame God for the bad things in the world. “If you would not have created things this way…” go my whimpers. Look how Paul casts the situation. He indicates that ignorance was not the only option. When God left the human heart, he set a candle burning on the table: the conscience. Just like mice and squirrels have an instinct to run in wheels people have an instinctual knowledge of right and wrong.
People, though, love darkness rather than light. Knowing both they all too often choose the dark. In certain times they will grasp the good seeing it shine right beside the bad, but then harden their hearts and swim deeper in their sin. They get further from the surface; pressure builds up, things get colder, darker. As a result, they grind deeper and deeper into ignorance.
Don’t miss the insistence
Remember verse 17? Paul said, “Don’t live like an Egyptian.” Well, he did not say it exactly like The Bangles, and the lyrics to that song don’t immediately make a lot of sense. The thing to note though is that life like a Gentile does not make a lot of sense either. That is why Paul insists and calls God as his witness that they should not live that way. It is futile. It is not helpful. It is darkened. Check out this passage in Proverbs.
13 The woman Folly is loud;
she is undisciplined and without knowledge.
14 She sits at the door of her house,
on a seat at the highest point of the city,
15 calling out to those who pass by,
who go straight on their way.
16 "Let all who are simple come in here!"
she says to those who lack judgment.
17 "Stolen water is sweet;
food eaten in secret is delicious!"
18 But little do they know that the dead are there,
that her guests are in the depths of the grave.
(Proverbs 9:13-18--NIV 1984)
Many other versions use the word hell for the word grave. While the saved do not go to hell, their deeds are judged by God. Why run on the treadmill of hell? What unpleasantness will follow you to heaven when your life is judged by the fires of God’s testin’.
Callous life
19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. (Ephesians 4:19–ESV)
What is a callus? It is hard, protective skin that develops in places of overuse. A lot of work with a shovel will give you thickened skin. Long play on a stringed instrument will do the same. Those calluses decrease the sensitivity so doing those activities hurts less and the skin holds up better.
When a person repeatedly rubs their conscience in the wrong way it, too, will lose its sensitivity and develop a hard shell. A callous is said to develop on their heart. If one plays the prostitute too much or plies a sea of lies the conscience loses its worries. Its voice loses its insistence muffled below the thick, sound absorbing shell. It may whine and whimper but the voice becomes stiller, more silent. That way it will not hurt so much and the person can keep at it.
I find it interesting that when spiritual sensitivity is lost the sensual is chased. It is as though one’s pleasure centers will be stimulated one way or another. One way is by doing it right following God’s light. If this is abandoned then one heads off to pleasureville. Hungry for stimulation such a person greedily hunts for experience. These hungers tend toward impurity.
In Jesus’ time, he found himself in a lot of squabbles with the Pharisees. In one of his interchanges, he said that it is the things which come up from the heart that make one unclean. Things that he put on that list were evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.
When a sensitive conscience dabbles in those deeds they feel the tingle of electricity. Their conscience shocks them. Do it again and again, however, and the zip received diminishes. It is like putting on electrician’s thick rubber gloves. You can grab the bad and still feel fine, or at least tolerate it.
You may decide that you want to take the wheel off your car by turning the nut to the right. If you are Mr. Incredible you may actually be able to take the wheel off by turning the nuts to the right. Problem is then the bolt will be broken or more likely the threads stripped. The spare tire is not going to stay on that car. It will not spare you or speed you back down life’s journey.
When you decide to keep on sinning you only get further and further into the spiritual ditch. You give up and get a life full of muddy wallowing.
Back to the traffic signals
Even the reckless will eventually stop at a red traffic signal. Even they know the risk to their car, not to mention life and limb may result from plowing through an intersection when it is not your turn. Many times they may get away with it, but eventually, a terrible wreck will change the landscape of their lives. So, they stop. Few motorcycles will race up between two lanes of cars. They may be able to imagine getting to their destination more quickly, but they also might not make it to their destination.
Paul, wanting people everywhere to arrive safely home, counsels people to live the green-way: God’s way. Follow his lights. Go when he says go. Stop when he says stop. Following this celestial game of Mother-May-I will settle life in the best ways. It may take a while to settle, but settle it will.