Certified needs and unsanctified solutions.
In Paul’s day and ours, people struggle. There are those who will bring all manner of spiritual solutions with the pretext of meeting those struggles. Cunning, craft, and deceit are among the tools some leaders put to use. With those tools, they manipulate groups of people toward an unhelpful end. Unscrupulous religious leaders deceptively spread unsanctified solutions on top of certified needs. Many people jump on those wagons and put their eggs in those holey baskets. When the wheels fall off, they spill out, and all their eggs break. All they had hoped to gain comes to nothing.
Or, if we want to tie the analogy back into Paul’s Ephesian’s words, we could say many people board those ships with all of their eggs. When the storms come, and ships sink, they fall out into the waves and get blown to and fro. Many of them drown. All they had hoped to gain sinks beneath the waters.
Paul spent all of his formative years in the Pharisee’s wagon, in a ship of religiosity. He ended up calling it “confidence in the flesh,” and rolled a wheelbarrow full of that confidence to the landfill.
Sanctified and certified solutions
God knew that false leaders would come along as people catchers. He takes no pleasure when people spill out of wrecked religion-carts breaking bones, losing their way and sometimes their lives. “God so loved the world,” Jesus said, “that he sent his son.” Remember that John 3:16 verse? Before he sent his son he gave the world the Jewish nation that they might learn his ways, see his character, and be made ready for the Messiah’s arrival.
Jesus was the sanctified solution. He was the certified solution. Humanity’s shipwreck brought unsteadiness, but God caught Saul and gave him a plank on which to float. That plank brought him straight to a street in Damascus. He eventually grew up into maturity and began attaining to the full measure of Christ. As this happened in his life, he became steadier. He recalled his shipwrecks and wanted to pull people to safety. That type of thing is what led him to write verses like Ephesians 4:14.
His censors for these types of people were very sensitive. His righteous anger over their craft, deceit, and cunning ran swiftly.
Speak truth; Break deception.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, (Ephesians 4:15-ESV)
“Rather, or instead,” Paul says, “we are to speak the truth.” We are to speak out against deception. Bring truth against religious dishonesty. When a pastor gives bad advice to a co-worker bring truth to the context. If a Christian is counseling divorce as a way out reply against such teaching. Perhaps it is a Christian who is listening to a non-Christian counsel on divorce. Bring scriptural answers into the conversation. Allow their thoughts to hear God’s word.
When we do this, others will respond. Some will respond toward godliness and others away. Don’t sweat their response; don’t allow your own prediction of their response to guide yours. Be faithful to God’s word and his direction in your life.
There is a thing that we should remember in these efforts. Jesus said that he did not come to bring peace but a sword. That may seem like an odd construction to come from Christ. His point was that truth divides, and it is a warlike cut. People get the opportunity to respond, and they do. Their responses separate people into groups. Truth, though, is available. It is ultimate. It is valuable, and a thing to which followers of Christ must tend.
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