Chapter 5
| Ephesians: Chapters -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- |
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| 5: • 1 Therefore be just like God, as beloved children [p], • 2 and walk inside of love in just the same way that Christ also loved us and gave Himself to us for our sakes, an offering and a sacrifice to God, into a sweet-smelling aroma. 3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is suitable for those who are devoted, 4 along with filthiness and foolish talking or crude joking, which are not suitable, but rather good speaking, giving thanks and speaking good grace. 5 Indeed, you know that a fornicator or unclean or covetous person, who is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the settled opposition of God comes upon the sons of refusal. 7 Therefore, do not be partakers or sharers with them, 8 for you were once darkness, • but now are light inside the Lord. Walk as children of light, 9 for the fruit of light comes inside of all goodness, justice, and truth, 10 proving what is well-pleasing to the Lord. • 11 And do not have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but show them instead to be wrong. 12 Indeed, the things that are done by them in secret are shameful even to mention. 13 But everything being proven wrong by the light is indeed made visible. • Light is that which makes everything visible. 14 For that reason he says, “Awake you who are sleeping and rise up out from the dead, and Christ will shine forth from you as the dawn” (Isaiah 26:19 & 60:1). • 15 Take heed, therefore, to walk carefully, not as unwise, but as wise, 16 rescuing the time because the days are evil. 17 And do not be foolish [do not be without reason], but set yourself together with the desire of the Lord. 18 And do not be drunk with wine in which is wastefulness; • instead be filled with Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. • 20 Speak good grace at all times, giving thanks for the sake of all things to Him who is God and Father and in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ. • 21 Submit to one another inside of the fear of Christ. 22 Wives, be to your own husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is the head that unites, the center of the church, and He Himself is Savior of the body. 24 But even as the church is passively submitted to an active Christ, so also wives to their own husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives • in just the same way that Christ also loved the church and traded Himself for her, for her sake, 26 that He might make her devoted, having already cleansed her by the washing of water in word, • 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious and fulfilled Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be devoted and blameless. 28 So husbands also ought to love their wives as their own bodies, for one who loves his wife loves himself. 29 Indeed, no one at any time hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, • in just the same way also that Christ nourishes and cherishes the Church. • 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. • 31 “Because of this, a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined with his wife and into one flesh the two will be [w]” (Genesis 2:24). • This is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and the Church. 33 However, let each individual love his wife as himself, that the wife also might respect her husband. |
| Gospel Comments | Notes |
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| • Definition: To be like God is to love one another; to love one another is to be like God. There is no other God. (The devil lied; every word he spoke in the garden perverted the truth.) • Ruling Verse 8: Knowing the Love that is God among us is found only in daily life together, in Christ Community, inside every chance to hurt and to be hurt. Being like God is being that giving of favor at the heart of such daily interaction, being an offering for others as a sweet-smelling aroma. Being like God is to share His Heart with Him inside every opportunity for costliness. Kingdom: The Kingdom is an expression of what we already are, that is children of light. Every next step we take with God proves the goodness of Jesus in our lives. Definition: Light is that which makes visible, that is, light is honesty. Light is also the Spirit, for the Spirit causes us to know what is actually True. To walk in light is to walk in no sufficiency in self, but all-sufficiency in God. The fruit of light and the fruit of Spirit are the same, the goodness of God. Ruling Verse 9: The Salvation of God comes through the Church into this world, turning on the lights, bringing everything into honesty, bringing all into silence in the presence of God, setting creation free. Kingdom: We walk every step as the Desire of God, His Heart and intention, through us into our world. We “rescue” every next moment as the Light turning on for us and for all. Ruling Verse 3: Being filled with Spirit is always to overflowing, first in our gathering together in worship and then out from us into all the world. Our capacity to know God increases as we exercise Spirit energeia together. Speak Christ: The Spirit causes us to speak Christ together, to sing Christ together, to speak good grace into one another and to the Father. Our joy is always for the sake of an abundant and exuberant Father, that we might KNOW Him. Ruling Verse 9: Giving thanks is eu-charis, to speak good grace, the very cup we share with Jesus. Giving thanks for the sake of all goes out from us to alter the very fabric of creation. The Form for God through Jesus: The purpose of our gathering into committed life together is for Father’s sake, a God who walks beneath, carrying all. We place ourselves with God, yielding to one another, knowing, even in fear and trembling, that each one is the Lord Jesus to us. Ruling Verse 5: Paul expresses the meaning of Galatians 2:20 twice in these verses, that Jesus trades Himself for our sake, that Jesus nourishes and cherishes each one of us. Yet Paul is bringing that same intimacy now into our gathering together as the local Church, that there is a quality of this intimate giving of Jesus, this nourishing and cherishing, that is known only in worship together. Ruling Verse 6: The default position as we gather together as the local Church is that we are ALREADY cleansed in all things, that we walk with no consciousness of sins or any offense towards one another. Our intimacy is PURE. The Covenant: It is our gathering together, then, that Jesus also makes to be just like Himself, His flesh, His visible form. Definition: Christ is a many-membered heaven-earth body (see 1 Corinthians 12:12). God formed our humanity out from the soil of the earth, that is, out from His Love. Yet our flesh lives because God also breathed Spirit into us. Our soul is shaped by both together. Paul is defining our earthly togetherness in the same way, that inside the Church as the union of heaven and earth, the Soul of Jesus is made known. The Form for God through Jesus: The Form for God is marriage, human believers walking in resurrected bodies of flesh and spirit together, in the committed life of Community, dwelling together in unity. God is family, and thus God manifest in the flesh is the Church as family Love. Ruling Verse 5: Ephesians 5:30-31 is essential to Galatians 2:20, the life we live inside the flesh, one flesh with Jesus. |
p. To be like God is to love one another; to love one another is to be like God. There is no other God. (The devil lied; every word he spoke in the garden perverted the truth.) |