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.
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