A Fresh Perspective

Ten years ago we said as a congregation that our vision is one of experiencing and expressing God’s unconditional love. We could have easily come to that sense of vision by reading this letter to the Ephesians, that is actually, a letter to the church at large. In his prayer for the church the writer prays that they will understand and experience the immensity and magnitude of Christ’s love. In the passage we looked at last week the writer called upon his readers to bear with one another in love, to speak the truth in love, and to work together and build up the whole body in love. Everything is to be done in love. Now, in today’s passage we are called upon to be imitators of God by living in love. All the instructions and exhortations the writer gives to the readers in this text are expressions of what it means and what it looks like to live in love and thus, be imitators of God. First, we imitate God and live in love by putting away falsehood and deceit, so that we can honestly ...

In order to appropriate this passage appropriately it’s important to note that this passage is set in a larger context of persecution and end-time expectation where Jesus sends out his disciples as sheep among wolves to proclaim the imminent fulfillment of the kingdom of God . The early disciples believed that Jesus would most likely come   within their lifetime to bring an end to this present age and usher in God’s future kingdom. They also believed that the time leading up to that decisive moment would be marked by great suffering and tribulation, particularly from powers opposed to the kingdom. The early Christians inherited this apocalyptic outlook from Palestinian Judaism. They reworked it, of course, in light of their belief in Jesus as Messiah and Lord. Of course, looking back from our point in history we know they were mistaken about the apocalyptic schematics. Still, some of us haven’t learned much from it, because we still cook up these prophetic timetables, even mo...