Week 46 Ephesians
I noticed it today because of what I read yesterday.
On Wednesday Paul wrote a description of what a guy’s condition is before he believes in the Lord (the account is pretty hard to swallow; my guess is that many people won’t because of its unappealing taste).
Then today I get to chapter four and Paul is telling his audience not to be like people who don’t believe. He says: they are hopelessly confused. Their closed minds are full of darkness; they are far away from the life of God because they have shut their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They don’t care anymore about right and wrong, and they have given themselves over to immoral ways. Their lives are filled with all kinds of impurity and greed.
Reading Wednesday-Thursday back-to-back is doubly depressing.
Anyway…two things:
I’m reading through and trying to put things together as I go. What the bible says about ground-level human being is pretty important, and I’ve landed on some good material about it two consecutive days.
Second thing I notice is this. Paul is writing to believers. He’s talking here about how people who believe live; should live. And he starts by telling them how not to: live no longer as the ungodly. Which sounds to me like people who believe in the Lord could be living – maybe are living – like the ungodly.
Which sounds like life-after-belief has potential to be kind of muddy.
Note: quote from Ephesians 4:17-19 (NLT)