Ephesians 5:3-6:9
Dear RTB’ers,
Happy July! Today we begin the second half of 2025 and the second half of our STS read through the Bible.
Paul gets very practical in all of today’s reading. It gets a bit confusing as to whether he is speaking only (or mostly) to the Gentiles in Ephesus or whether he is speaking to both Gentile and Jewish Christians. For example, sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking, (vv. 5:3, 4) could be more directed to the Gentile believers, in that temple prostitution and other ill behaviors seem to have been rampant in pagan rituals in Ephesus and throughout the Roman world. Or maybe I just have a more positive reference point with respect to Jewish people in Jesus’ time? Either way, the rest of today’s reading is practical teaching for both Gentile and Jewish Christians in Ephesus – and for us today! I especially like Paul’s balance when he speaks in pairs with respect to our individual behaviors: wives and husbands; children and parents; slaves and masters.
Echo! (I’ve mentioned “divine echoes” before, when we hear something repeated, often in another context, that could possibly reflect on our own outlooks and beliefs.) So today, an echo for all of us from Patrick’s sermon two days ago. He quoted II Timothy 4:3-4 about “itching ears”: For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (I’ve always liked the NASB translation, people “having their ears tickled”.) Today we read: Let no one deceive you with empty words… (v. 5:6a). Also, a verse from yesterday that I missed: …so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. (v. 4:14) Patrick encouraged us to test what we hear, especially new ideas that are spoken from “authority”. Thankfully, what we hear from the pulpit at St. Andrew’s always seems to be “right on”! We are truly blessed in that regard.
Blessings!
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