Paul gives the Ephesians more instructions in this chapter that are very condemning and offensive at first glance. Not a good place to start really! As a rule of thumb, if I find myself getting angry or dismissive of a part of the bible I check myself and check the context. Is this resonating with a part of my life that I know I need to deal with? Or am I not understanding the background or the people to which these words were directed to?
I thought an analogy would do well here:
How would you feel if you heard me reciting "white is right, white is right".
Are you angry? Appalled? Offended? Disgusted? What do you assume about me? Do you automatically think that I would then go on to say "black is wrong?" Do you then dismiss me as quickly as you've judged me?
What if you then heard me say "blue is left, blue is left".
Does your perspective suddenly wrench away from what you first thought? How do you feel now? This new context must mean I'm not a racist. Are you embarrassed?
In fact, I use the phrase "white is right" to remember which side of my contact lens case I need to put my contacts in so I don't get them mixed up. One lid is white, one lid is blue. The words "blue" and "left" don't rhyme so I started using "white" and "right".
*my contacts case doesn't have the helpful letters "L" and "R" on them.
So, context is important. Agreed? This chapter has some pretty challenging stuff that I haven't really got my head around yet in terms of application. The first section of the chapter is pretty straightforward: "Do what God does. [insert sinful thing] is what God doesn't do, so you shouldn't do it either. Live a life of love!"
But then it goes on to talk about wives submitting to their husbands (and don't forget he goes onto to talk about husbands loving their wives as Christ loves the church). Without getting our knickers in a twist, let's think about why Paul would have said something like this. This really is a brain drain for me. I have to think really hard about this kind of stuff. But my idea is that Paul wouldn't have said these kind of things to oppress any particular type of person, after all he did just spend ages telling the Ephesians that their identity was not birth place or gender. I often hear people say that Paul was a misogynist, and I have no idea either way. But I do know that a lot of what Paul says is calling people to a life of love, maturity and fulfillment, ultimately living for a relationship with Jesus.
So with that in mind, I will try and wrestle through this chapter to figure out what it truly means. I pray that God can give me insight and that I can find the truth. I ask for God to help me be open-minded and try to figure things out instead of dismissing them. I thank God that He gave me a brain to use and to make choices with and to learn with. Amen!
[Read Ephesians 5: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%205&version=NIV;MSG]
Hey Mackenna! I've been reading your blog for a while. Really cool stuff =). Something I find amazing about Ephesians is that Paul demonstrates a lot of love for these people. He initially starts Ephesians by stating how good it is they have faith and about how Christ has renewed them and he demonstrates this with a lot of love for these people (it makes me warm inside reading those passages haha). In terms of the brutality of Pauls messages, I often wonder if we are not as certain in our position and stance on matters. Very rarely have I met a person who said "White is white" and stuck with that... often I hear "White is white.. but white is not white here". I believe many messages in the bible are black and white but we often tailor them to suit ourselves and attempt to morph Chritianity to make it more appealing. I think society is full of people afraid to have a firm belief. I know I'm definitely not as firm in my views as I desire to be!. Firm belief now appears to be such a rare occurence - but when it is demonstrated, people notice and question why. Yeah... probably a little off topic but I hope I demonstrated my point!. ps I hope your exam went well today, I'm guessing it was Phsl231 since you're a neuro girl :P.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your feedback! Yeah I absolutely agree. I guess at the moment I'm shaping my view of the world and of God so I'm testing the waters and bit with my beliefs. Do you ever stop doing that? I definitely believe in the big truths like how Jesus died for us (which is amazing) but am still unsure about all these things that Paul and others say. I guess that's why I'm doing this blog so I can figure out the application of living a life for God. Actually, I often find myself bending facts of Christianity so as to not "freak out" my non-christian friends. I'd like to think that I don't but I really do! Anyway, thanks for commenting and yes it was PHSL231! Haha.
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