Ephesians 5:1-33
Three lessons from Paul in this fifth chapter of Ephesians: Walk in Love (compassion). Walk in Light (spirituality). Walk in Wisdom. Walk in Unity.
5:1 When you are entrenched in the process of developing yourself in faith, in anything or relationship, you can always follow nature's example. Divine creativity encircles us and lives even within us; if we are ever looking for a guide, we do not have to look far or long to find one. The processes of our bodies and nature are instructive: constantly working with focus and selflessness to maintain and even create life. For that is essentially the objective of compassion: to support and create life. When we are unsure, the option that best supports or protects or creates life is the option we should choose.
There are many elements of any decision and most certainly there are "grey" areas, but if we intention toward what is just, what is kind, what is productive, what inspires or renews life, we receive some help in making our choices.
Whenever we make a decision we are choosing a change in our lives. Explore the ways certain changes would impact your life and those around you. There will always be risks but if you keep your faith, your trusting channel with God, at the forefront of your life...every risk will journey inevitably toward reward. Why? Not because you blinding believed but because you accepted the work ethic and so God provided you the materials to achieve.
5:2 Love is the cornerstone. If that it hard to understand then here is some advice. When all else fails you: frustration, anger, sorrow, vengeance, regret...choose love. Start letting patience and respect and empathy take the reigns. Analyze the difference of outcome.
5:3-4 Developing your character is a process we must actively participate in. In every moment we have to be aware of what we are producing and expressing. Everything that comes out of our mind, mouth and hands has to be a representation of focused growth. Anything you want to be you have to well, be. In every moment. That sometimes means we have to stop being other things.
5:5 Darkness cannot exist in pure light. It is not a punishment from God that evil does not survive the spiritual realm. It is a common sense reality. That which sustains evil does not exist in the spirit and therefore, evil spawns its own demise, having chosen not to adapt to the atmosphere of life.
5:6 Do not allow yourself to become distracted by impressive but ultimately "empty words." We have been cautioned against blindly trusting the intentions of others. We must analyze. Analyze the motives of yourself and of others. Are we or they behaving hypocritically? Selfishly? Apathetically?
5:7 We cannot join in with negativity. We must be too focused to be shadowed and stunted by distractions. What motivations are surrounding us, influencing us? Give your attention to knowing your environment so that you can extricate yourself from that which or whoever contradicts your goals.
5:8 Wisdom and compassion are Light. Once we are awake, we leave the darkness: we gain focus and understanding. We have uncovered our meaning, life's meaning, the purpose here. Walk, live, express as children of wisdom and compassion.
5:9 Here we are given the elements of Spirit: Goodness, Justice and Truth. And so even though we may not be able to tangibly understand the manifestation or capacity of Spirit, we know its components. We understand them in the only way that truly matters.
5:10 God understands that this earth is a classroom; He created it to be what it is. As we live with the best intentions, we learn and subsequently grow. Every day we understand more and more what it means to physically be and produce the elements of spirit: goodness, justice, truth.
5:11-12 More than just reject evil and injustice, we are meant to draw them out of their corners and high places. We are meant to drag them off of their thrones and platforms. We are meant to tear down their power, their disguise.
5:13 That is our work here within this classroom. To dismember and disable evil and injustice every time and in every capacity that we find it. Wisdom is light because it uncovers. Wisdom is the door to perspective, understanding, knowledge, discernment. Wisdom gives us the tools and abilities to investigate, to explore truth and to identify deception.
5:14 God calls us to stop living in slumber: to stop living without intention and focus. To start living with curiosity and motivation for learning. If you open your eyes, God is going to put a spotlight on so much that was hidden by your slumber.
5:15 Paul advises us to walk "Circumspectly." Let's define that:
Circumspectly (adjective)
1. Watchful and discreet; cautious; prudent
2. Well-considered
So basically, Paul want us to take studious, constructive control of our lives. To claim responsibility for ourselves and educate and edify ourselves as we carefully navigate the world around us. Paul's advice is more than sensible. It is brilliant. Motivating. It is right. It is fair.
5:16 We are called to devote our lives to building goodness in the ruins of destruction. To make this time on earth mean something. To graduation this classroom having made not just a difference but the difference. It has to have mattered that humanity was here... it cannot just be that we existed and then destroyed ourselves.
5:17 It is wise for us to understand the will of creation. It is wise for us to understand the intention and progression, the reason and origin of creation. It is wise for us to understand because we are meant to join the effort. When we progress with creation, our journey is smooth, productive, supported, guided. It is wise to keep with the current and frequency of nature, of divine creation, because living out of tune is like swimming up-stream. Difficult. Regressive. Fruitless.
5:18 Value your consciousness. Your God-given ability to have and utilize clarity, the amazing, productive, agile intricate network that is your brain. Paul cautioned us above not to let anyone diminish us and here he implores that we never diminish ourselves. Do not deteriorate yourself with toxins. You were born alert and capable, never trade that gift.
On Sobriety
I am awed and infatuated with my own consciousness, of being the keeper of my own mind. I find wonderment in that my thoughts are my own, unencumbered or even exacerbated by any other or thing. How wonderful that what I am is mine, created and coveted by only the one who conceives and sustains it. If patience, comfort, sanity or any other comes not from within me, it is a fraud against my soul. An injustice which disregards the given-ability of having truths. Unrest, disenchanting it may be, is a tangible solid begging the person to respond adequately by making the suggestion that balance is in disorder. Muffling or quieting the natural tendency to observe emotion within oneself is an injustice of grave proportions. The silencing of the soul is the only death. The tender mollification does not enough or at all aggravate the mind to seek or create solace where there is none.
I have the capacities to experience all extremes of emotions and without the service of any catalysts. If I am not naturally assuaged, riveted, or ecstatic, I already am little at all. The past may have set me in intellectual motion, or perhaps momentarily stunted me from ill-progression but the finality of my belief comes from only present circumstance and maturity of thought, from ever prodding and questing my own faculties. Denying myself its own laboriously earned ability to mend and discover itself would be unkind and if that not enough, a waste of time and labor spent.
For others, to delight in the pleasures of a faux peace or exhilaration may enough be the requirement to satisfy their starving souls. But for me, I crave the substance born of contempt and restlessness; the elasticity in the scope of raw emotion, and of the placidity that presents itself only to the quiet ones in whose souls rivers run with vigor. My person wishes not to be manipulated and there is the difference between myself and others who try to impress into me the supposed joys of giving oneself over to another thing. What I feel in my conscious state is truth and I crave it, only it, and not to be redirected, even for a temporary "better".
Atop all of my values is my value of self. This is not a philosophy of the narcissistic; it is a philosophy which recognizes the enormity of self-possession. To be centered, to be and to know oneself at all times is a freedom that cannot be priced. It is the beginning to all answers and the antidote to all pain. I've worked tirelessly to find it and I'll keep it, cherished, forever.
5:19 Make music here, the vibrations of laughter and joy. Do not waste yourself or this opportunity away. Fill and be filled. Give and be given to. What we put into the world the world puts back into us.
5:20 Gratitude. Gratitude for life. For the impossible yet actual rising sun in the morning. For the breathe with which to laugh. Giving thanks for the will which guides are life when given our permission.
5:21 In the reverence of God. No child of God should ever fear Him. The original translation of this word is: Phobos. Simultaneously meaning: "fear" and "revere." Submitting to the work of ensuring the health and life of humanity with and under the love of God. We reap what we sow: 2 Corinthians 9:6, Galatians 6:8, Luke 6:38... and in many other places!
5:22-24 Paul encourages the wife to orient herself to ensuring the husband's happiness... and in a few verses, encourages the husband to do the same. From our own current context in time and space this verse seems... outrageous, right? Paul is imploring the husband to protect and cherish the wife. To love her so much that he accepts responsibility for her well-being, for ensuring that she herself is strong and able.
2:25 Although our defenses might be up, Paul speaks of love: for the husband to love his wife with the same devotion and vigor as Jesus loves us. What depth of love he encourages! Paul is not preaching oppression or control; he is preaching about love. Love as it is known and given by God: selflessly, humbly, freely, incorruptibly.
5:26 Create and sustain the environment for her to develop and thrive in her faith, as a witness of what God's love inspires and produces. Paul encouraged the wife to care for the husband and now he encourages the husband to lay down his life for the wife. He preaches of mutual, respectful love.
5:27 In 1 Corinthians 6:19 we learn (or perhaps are reminded of) this: Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
Jesus's philosophy of life was brought and given to us so that we would find spirit within ourselves. He came so that the spiritual life would be familiar to us and familiar with us. So that upon arrival, we too are manifestations of goodness, of kindness, compassion and love. Spouses, as well as all people, are supposed to cultivate the conditions in which a person can grow and develop in spirit and all that is embodies.
5:28 If we love ourselves, we can ensure the health and well-being of ourselves by ensuring the health and well-being of the people in our lives. If we want to live in a happier, more just world, we must be happy and just... we must inspire happiness and justice in others.
This is not new advice, to give love just as we love ourselves, and it extends even beyond the spousal relationship. Mark 12:31 Love your neighbor as yourself.
Nevertheless, the advice given here specific to spouses is important and instructive. The foundation of any relationship should be selfless, spirited, earnest love. When we enter a union, we must do so with humility... as it is an acceptance of the responsibility of caring for another. Taking responsibility for their well-being. It is work. Hopefully it is work we enjoy and welcome, but it is work.
Remember, we are fellow-workers with God (1 Corinthians 3:9) and the above-mentioned is an example of the type of work we have here. Faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26) If you truly have faith, you have an eagerness to do the work which constitutes and validates faith.
5:29 (When in a healthy state of mind), we care about our well-being. We protect ourselves. We eat because we require nutrients. We sleep because we require rest. God takes care of us similarly: providing nourishment and rest.
5:30 We are not separate from Spirit. We are a many-membered body (as we have discussed in this Book of Ephesians). God takes care of the whole...
5:31 ... and encourages us to do the same. To take care of more than just ourselves. For the husband and wife to build another home after leaving their respective homes. Adding rooms to this giant mansion of which we are all a part. Live as a unit.
5:32 Paul uncovers the intention of Spirit, the purpose of humanity and earth. It is a mystery to those in slumber; with frustration they howl for answers amid darkness and chaos. For the student of God, wisdom and revelation respond readily, zealously to our questions.
5:33 Love each other. Care for each other. Devote yourself each other's the health and well-being in humility in love and in respect.
