In 1968, London Transport wanted to do something to ensure passenger safety on the underground: they decided to use a digitally recorded message that would play automatically wherever it was needed; the engineers who were putting the system together came up with the phrase, "mind the gap!" The phrase has been used as the title for at least one film, a couple of books, and several songs. Paul is interested in two gaps: one between theory and practise; the other between discipleship culture and the culture of the world about us. When he says "So" (v17, NIV) or "Now" (ESV) it's really "therefore" and takes us back to verse 1, where Paul begins to look at "Walking worthy of our call." Remember the theory? The amazing idea that Christians are chosen by God, forgiven, related to each other, that we have been given the Holy Spirit - God living inside us; we were dead, now we are alive; we - the Church - are the amazing New Humanity, part of God's Cosmic Plan to show his wisdom to the Principalities and powers. Now in Chapter 4 he homes in on the practise: he has already spoken about unity, ministry and maturity, and he gets more practical as he goes on. Mind the gap.
He wants his readers to close the gap between theory and practise; and that means to open up the gap between what they once were and what they are now, being different to how the people around them are. Christians are going to be different. If we are not different, if we are not distinctive, if people cannot tell us apart from the people around us - or if they can only tell us apart because we are "odd" - then there is something wrong.
Paul paints quite a negative picture of the world the Ephesians lived in. It's a world whose thinking is wrong. Interesting that Paul deals with the thinking first... it's
o Futile, (not just finite or transitory but empty and pointless)
o Darkened (the light has gone out in the seat of understanding so that people cannot grasp truth.)
o Alienated from God - separated from his life.
People have become ugly on the inside.
o Ignorant In Jewish thinking, Gentiles were not just "unlucky"; they were culpable. Their ignorance is inside them
o Hard hearted Cf Ps 95. 8.
o Callous no longer feeling the (inner) pain they should over moral evil.
Their behaviour is
o Sensuous
o Greedy
o Impure
Three words that are used together in catalogues of vices. The society Paul saw in Ephesus lives in excess but is never satisfied.
That could be a picture of our world. It's very easy for us to see it that way, and we should see it that way. Paul paints this picture, though, not to make the disciples feel superior but to motivate them to be really different. (Verse 20 literally starts "but not you...") There's got to be a gap. On the underground, the gap has to happen. When straight carriages stand alongside a curved platform, there has to be a gap. If our lives are a different shape from the people around us, there will be a gap. If there's no gap, our carriages have become bent out of shape. A curved rail carriage is only fit for going round in circles: mind you that is what the Church seems to do a lot of the time!! It is vital that Christians somehow manage to be different from our society, while at the same time understanding, loving and being generous to our society.
Learning Christ...
Eph 4:20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!-- "Learning Christ" is a unique phrase: maybe it stands for learning about Christ. But the word is related to the word for disciple. Acts 19 describes how Paul found some "Disciples" in Ephesus: they were filled with the Holy Spirit, knew the Spirit's gifts; they were taught about Jesus; they saw many people healed, set free from demons, brought to faith in Jesus; they saw the Gospel being ridiculed and opposed; they had burned their books about the occult... Discipleship is about learning by practice not just theory. I have learned about the piano. Sandra has learned the piano. Paul is talking about the process of becoming a disciple.
It starts with the mind, not the actions... It starts with accepting that Jesus is who he says he is. Jesus central! Everything else follows on from that.
It includes a radical turn-around. The Biblical word is "repentance". Here, Paul talks about putting off the old life (like taking off dirty old clothes). When someone becomes a follower of Jesus, we mark that with an act called Baptism. About a hundred or so years after Jesus' time, baptism involved literally coming to the river, taking off one set of clothes, getting baptized in the water and putting on a new set of clothes. I appreciate the symbolism but I understand why the practice never really caught on. It was easily misunderstood and almost as easily abused. But baptism, with your clothes on, is a wonderful sign of being done with your old life and starting a new life.
It is an encounter with God. Paul says, in verse 23, not "be made new in the attitude of your minds" (NIV); but literally "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind." (ESV) That's another difficult phrase but the NT doesn't use the word Spirit impersonally. "The Spirit of your mind" suggests the Holy Spirit in partnership with your spirit, operating through your thinking. I think the CEV has got abeter grasp of it : "Let the Spirit change your way of thinking." This business of being different thing is not first and foremost something we do but something that has happened to us. Conversion is a charismatic event. It is a dramatic, life-changing process. It is not merely a decision but only happens if "God is at work" within us.
It is the beginning of a process. It is something with which we have to co-operate: we put off the old and put on the new mindset like a new suit of clothes, day after day.
Living the life
Conversion has consequences. Paul sets up a series of triangles: each one has a negative to avoid, a positive to do, and motive for changing...Firstly in our words...
v25 Avoiding lies, speaking truth because we are already related to each other (a lie is a stab into the very vitals of the body of Christ - J A Mackay).
v26f Not indulging in anger (cf v31) but sorting out quick (before sunset) because we are in a battle. Indulging in anger gives free scope to the devil. Unity attracts the Spirit of God; disunity repels the Spirit of God and attracts the enemy.
Then our actions...
V 28 Not stealing, but doing honest work, because we have neighbours in need. Paul values hard work; God worked and he blessed our work as well as our rest; the reason for earning a good income is so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Then more on words...
Eph 4:29f No corrupting talk but words that build up and give grace to those who hear, because the Spirit is Holy.
Eph 4:31f An end to bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander and malice, and a new attitude of kindness and forgiveness, because we are forgiven people.
These are some of the gaps that should exist between us and our culture; some of the ways we need to close the gap between what we believe and how we live. Mind the gap!
© Gilmour Lilly June 2011
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