The Words Still Ring True

Written two thousand years ago, the words still ring true.

They speak to our times as surely as they spoke to the times in which they were first written.

“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.” (Ephesians 4:18)

Oddly enough, these words were written to Christians, Christians who had chosen willful ignorance and chosen to harden their hearts. Willful ignorance is when one accepts lies as truth; when one chooses not to believe what is right in front of their eyes. It is a refusal to believe objective truth. People choose to harden their hearts to protect themselves from emotional responses, or to excuse their behavior or their response to suffering. But let us be reminded that willful ignorance and a hardened heart alienate us from God, and ultimately take us to a dark place where our understanding about life becomes more darkness than light.

“They have lost all sensitivity and have abandoned themselves to licentiousness, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” (Ephesians 4:19)

Once one has chosen willful ignorance and heartened one’s heart, sensitivity to the needs of others is lost, and the internal moral compass is abandoned. It becomes easy to stand back and watch the suffering of others, to see the struggles of others, and to turn away with one more piece of concrete added to an already heartening heart. Life becomes, to borrow the words of the author Robert Ringer, “Looking Out for Number One.” And it becomes easier to practice loving our neighbor with those neighbors we want to love.

“That is not the way you learned Christ! For surely you have heard about him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus. You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:20-24)

Sadly, the teachings of Christ have become watered down to fit into popular world views. Some Christians choose to rationalize their thinking and their behavior to allow for all manner of acceptance of what the word of the Lord teaches is unacceptable. Embracing the selfishness, greed, strife, jealousy, anger, divisiveness, and idolatry of the world does not fit into what we have learned in Christ Jesus. We should ask ourselves, when we stand before the Judge of all judges, will our rationalizations stand? Remember, those who have asked you to compromise won’t have to answer for you; you will answer for you. Is it possible to let go of our corruptions and delusions and clothe ourselves “with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” We can’t make up our own teachings and attribute them to Jesus—there’s already too much of that going on.

“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” (Ephesians 4:25)

What’s happened to the truth? It was the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate who asked Jesus, “What is truth?” In today’s society it is getting more and more difficult to answer that question. A lie told loud enough and often enough becomes accepted as truth. Lies draw applause, and even “Amens.” Important decisions that determine our future are often based on lies we’re told. Funny thing: we often know they’re lies but we choose to believe them anyway. How in the world does that make sense? The biblical admonition is clear: “putting away falsehood, let us speak the truth.” Jesus taught us that the truth will set us free. Even when the truth is painful, it can set us free. But it is the truth about Jesus that sets us free indeed. One cannot embrace, support, and approve of lies Monday through Saturday, and claim to know the truth of Jesus on Sunday—that’s not how it works.

“Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.” (Ephesians 4:26-27)

I think we all realize the anger that permeates our society. We hear it in the voices, and we see it on display. In the past few years anger has been on display on flights across the country. Flying has become a dread, not a pleasure. Airlines have cramped people into as small a seat as possible, and put the seats as close together as possible, and all this after having to put up with all the check-in hoopla that has already made one angry before boarding the plane—after the flight has been delayed—and sitting in the most uncomfortable seats possible. It’s no wonder then that we see so much anger on airline flights. But the roadways are filled with anger as well. Whether people are in a hurry or not—most are—they want to get where they’re going without delay, and anything or anyone that gets in the way can easily become the recipient of their ire. Road rage is a thing, and it is becoming an increasingly dangerous thing. And there’s the anger over politics. Families are broken up over anger brought on by politics…politics…which will change tomorrow, and politicians that will be off the stage some day. If politics has become between you and your family, you’ve given too much power to a politician. Anger leads people to say and do things that they later regret. It happens to us all. Anger is often born out of frustration, and in today’s world there’s plenty of frustration to go around. Trying to get medical care can bring on anger. You call for an appointment and tell the person answering the phone you need an appointment because you’re not well. “Hold please,” they say. Music comes on the line, interrupted by an occasional announcement about how important your call is. And then, “Yes, we can work you in two months from now at 10:50.” Wait! What? Do you see why people become so frustrated and so angry? Family fights, neighborhood fights, and break-up of friendships are happening way too often over issues that make us angry. There’s plenty that can make us angry.

But the biblical teaching is to “Be angry”—everyone becomes angry, and some things should make us angry—“but do not sin.” There is a further hint on how we should deal with our anger, “do not let the sun go down on your anger.”

Controlled anger can accomplish a lot of good things. Uncontrolled anger leads to chaos and confusion and accomplishes nothing but more anger.

We live in a society where our anger is aroused and our fears are stoked. Arousing our anger and stoking our fears has become, literally, a multi-billion dollar industry. And, for whatever reason, we are willing to sit back and let it happen, and even buy into it.

There is a clear biblical teaching on how we are to live. Would we be better off to “buy into” the biblical teaching?

“Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:31-32)