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Ephesians 5:21-6:9 - Living together well

6 March 2011

Worship – Andrew

Introduction

In last week’s portion of our study of Ephesians we were encouraged to make the most of
every opportunity since the times are evil. In the Old Testament we also read about evil
times. After humanity’s universal fall into sin, the nations of the world developed in
ways that was contrary to how God had created people to live. In Noah’s days, God
judged the earth and kept for himself one family from whom He started building again.
Later, He again called to himself one man with his family to leave the Chaldean people
and to follow God to wherever He would take him. From this man, Abraham, an
enormously extended family slowly, through many centuries, developed into a nation.
God shaped this nation for himself, calling them to be radically different to the heathen
nations among whom they grew. To achieve this, God put certain mechanisms in place to
keep his people protected from the influences of their evil times. These included two
mechanisms: laws and traditions. In doing this, God established a people with cultural
practices and a way of thinking that continually pointed to God and to the fact that they
belong to him.

In our days some things have changed, notably, the role of the law. Some things however
stayed the same, notably, the reality that we are a people called to live radically different
to the world we live in, for we belong to God and we live in evil days. The idea to
develop a culture with features that firstly focuses a people on God, and secondly that
celebrates that reality came from God. In Rom 14 we clearly read that observation of
laws regarding things like special days and certain foods are in no way central to our
faith. However, for us under the New Covenant, to put traditions or practices in place to
establish a culture within our families and churches that would regularly bring us back to
focus on the reality that we are a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
people belonging to God (1Pet 2:9), is not out of character with the ways of our God.

For Mel and me the three times we have observed Lent has deepened our relationship
with the Lord and with the communities who joined us. We are committed to entrench
traditions within our family to regularly bring us back to God and the truth about our life
in him. These traditions include quiet times, prayer at meals, attending church,
celebrating Christmas and also observing Lent. This coming Wednesday is Ash
Wednesday, the first day of Lent. We invite anyone who is keen to do Lent with us this
year to join us at our house at 19h30 We pm.

Please note that there is no pressure whatsoever on anyone to feel that they have to be
part of it. If you are going to observe Lent with us, it has to be because you have a sense
of conviction that you aught to be doing it. Either that or there need to be a desire in your
heart to join us.
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Reading – Eph 5:21 – 6:9

Study (Using NIV)

It is immediately obvious that the piece we just read does not sit well with the culture of
our day. Firstly, people are brought up to be assertive, not submissive. The popular ideal
held forth is for people to make themselves count and to maximize their person, to be
yourself, to be everything you possibly can be. The highest rung on Maslow’s Pyramid
of human needs is self-actualisation, not sacrificial service for the benefit of others.

Secondly, it is politically highly incorrect and socially actually downright offensive to

assert that wives aught to submit to their husbands and slaves to their masters. Slavery
has off course since then become illegal, and in fact, Law in the West is whittling away at
the very notion of parents asserting authority over their own children. We all live to
varying degrees within these escalating realities in our culture, often times quite
comfortable within it. So what do we do with this piece of Scripture? In stead of
scrutinising this portion verse by verse as we normally do, I want to highlight three
prominent themes from today’s reading:

In studying the book of Ephesians we see that God reveals something through the apostle
Paul that He had previously kept hidden. We are given a revelation of a mystery. The
revelation basically entails three things: Firstly, God’s grand plan for the course of
history. Secondly, the role God has for the church in this plan. Thirdly, some of what it
practically means for us to play our part in God’s plan. As we are currently busy with the
second part of the book, this is where we are at; considering the practicalities of Christian
living.

One of the very important themes we saw running through the entire book of Ephesians –
and the first I want to look at - is that of unity. It addresses the way that God’s people are
aught to relate to each other. In chapter 2, Paul writes on the formation of the church, and
emphasises the coming together of Jew and Gentile. Where nationally, culturally and
religiously there previously was an absolute divide, there now aught to be coming
together within the body of Christ. We who were different peoples can now come
together to become one family. All our other identities are now superseded by our now
identity.

Then in chapter 4, Paul writes on the importance of unity within the body of Christ. He
explains some principles on how God’s people aught to do life together, how to live
worthy of our calling into God’s family. Where the unity of chapter 2 concerns the unity
of the church coming together, the unity spoken of in chapter 4 relates to unity within the
church. Today’s reading picks up there in 5:21: “Submit to one another out of reverence
for Christ.”

From there onward however, Paul addresses unity within Christian families. The theme
of unity starts out wide, bringing disparate groups together into one. It then intensifies as
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it becomes more practical and demanding, narrowing its application specifically within
the church. Finally, Paul narrows the application down further and we learn that unity
within the body necessitates an intimate, vulnerable trust relationships within our
respective families. This deep unity is built upon humble, vulnerable attitudes of
submission. Paul ends the thought by applying the principle to the workplace of the day;
the relationships between slaves and masters.

The second theme to consider in today’s reading concerns a subtlety easy to miss in the
issues that are handled. Let’s have a look:

• Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

• Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
• Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church …
• Children, obey your parents in the Lord …
• Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and
instruction of the Lord.
• Slaves, obey you earthly masters … just as you would obey Christ.
• Masters, treat your slaves in the same way … since you know He who is both their
Master and yours …

(Discussion)

The clear implication is that we are aught not to conduct our relationships with each other
in response to what we encounter in each other, but as an expression of our relationship
with Christ. This is a lot to ask. Practically, deep down, we probably actually think that
this is either not really what God expects or that it is patently impossible. What it means
is that when we are struck, we should turn the other cheek. When we are sued, to offer
our opponent more than he insists on. It means not to resist an evil person (Mt 5:38-42).
These are extreme applications, but this is how we are instructed to live if we want to co-
operate with God in the bringing about of his kingdom. Our relationship with him should
provide the context for our interaction with people. We do not repay evil for evil or
insult with insult. We do not take revenge. We bless our enemies in practical ways. We
overcome evil with good (Rom 12:17-21, 1 Pet 3:9).

This idea repeats the notion that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the
spiritual entities responsible for the realities we face. We have to engage with flesh and
blood as we live among it, but our lives are not a response to flesh and blood. We live
according to a reality that we cannot see – a reality we have to accept in faith. We relate
to people according to the realities of the spirit.

Let’s take a bit of time to think about some of the challenging

relationships in our lives. How would this teaching practically
change the way we respond and conduct ourselves within those
relationships?
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The third theme we need to look at is very obvious – how do we relate these practical
matters of submission to real life in our day and age? What is the Bible telling us about
married life for instance? Paul does not downplay the issue. To say that wives have to
submit to their husbands “in everything”, and to the extent that the “church submits to
Christ” is very severe. In the West this idea is very offensive and completely
unacceptable, in practice even among Christians. We encountered some of this resistance
among international students at L’Abri in England. Is life really still supposed to work
this way?

The other shocking statement is this portion is that slaves should submit to their masters
from the bottom of their hearts. To say that is completely out of kilter with the civilised
values we hold today.

Without really handling these issues per se, let me make two comments on the matter:

• Like many other scriptures in the Bible, one is at risk if you apply without taking the
trouble to interpret well. Scripture is given in a certain context – a chapter, a book
and a historical reality. That book again should be seen and find its place and
application within the whole body of scripture. No verse or doctrine in the Bible
stands in isolation. It was not given in the form of abstract laws to apply to life like
a user’s manual for installing new software. The Bible was given in history to
certain people and cultures in certain languages to address certain historical
situations, all of these far removed from our own. Although a single verse can stand
out and speak to me in my situation and cause me to make adjustments in my life, it
is a different story to understand what the Bible teaches to all people everywhere in
all times and situations. That requires proper interpretation.

• Paul’s guidelines for gender roles in marriage may seem “outrageous in today’s
culture, but we should ask ourselves: do our modern societies, in which marriage is
often a tragedy or a joke, really offer a better model of how to do it? Does the
spectre of broken homes littering modern Western culture indicate that we’ve got it
right and can tell the rest of human history”1 how to do it? I once read that even in
our times more than half of all marriages world-wide are arranged. In our culture
such an option is unthinkable, but yet our own culture has a terrible track-record of
unsuccessful marriages. The fact that certain ideas are outside our frame of
reference doesn’t mean that it cannot challenge us. That is in fact one of the reasons
we read the Bible – to see how we need to live, because by nature we do not know.

Similarly, we are so intent on the maximum fulfilment of the individual’s life whilst
here on earth that we tend to be unable to appreciate what Paul is instructing slaves.
Was slavery a moral issue to Paul – or to Christians in his times? We don’t know
since the issue is not directly addressed in the Word. What they do however
repeatedly press is how Christians who are touched by slavery - whether as slaves or
masters - should conduct themselves. Revolution was not part of the apostles’
vocabulary. They did not encourage people who were taken advantage of to
mobilise in order to assert their rights. This is obviously a politically very explosive

1
Tom Wright, 2002, Paul for Everyone; The Prison Letters, p68
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issue, and how one will apply it will need to find context within the body of
scripture, but some things are clear: Wherever we find ourselves in society, we
should act in a humble, submissive way which will glorify Christ. Even if we suffer
as a result, we know that God sees and surely will reward us for the good we do.

Worship and prayer

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