Ephesians 5:3-7 NIV: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. Therefore do not be partners with them.”
Ephesians 5:3-7, the Message: “Don’t allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed. Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, those who follow Jesus have better uses for language than that. Don’t talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn’t fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect. You can be sure that using people or religion or things just for what you can get out of them— the usual variations on idolatry— will get you nowhere, and certainly nowhere near the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God. Don’t let yourselves get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him. Don’t even hang around people like that.
BarbTalk:
These are strong words. I find the use of idolatry in this section of scripture eye opening! I understand from this that idolatry can be summed up as immorality, greed, lack of purity, bullying, gossip, smooth religious talk but no relationship with God, foul language, and silly stuff.
I am pondering how these things can be called idolatry. The definition of idolatry is this: hero worship, adoration, admiration, veneration, adulation, reverence, fanaticism, devotion, and obsession. The term worship can be defined as treating someone or something as a deity. The word deity can be translated as regarded as divine, God, condition or status of a god or goddess and someone or something treated as a god.
Hero worship. Stuff worship. Most of us don’t think that we are idolaters. We just really like things, women, men, and children a whole lot. I certainly don’t think I am an idolater, but put something shiny in the room and I am there! Doesn’t matter what I was doing, I run to the shiny thing, I want to hold it, have it, and even covet it, but that is another subject all together.
It is hard for me to understand why immorality and greed are idolatry. I have to think about what happens when someone decides to be immoral. I assume most people do not wake up in the morning and say to themselves, I wonder how immoral I can be today? However, the decision is made to cross a line. We put our toe in. We look, we see, we desire, we have a talk with ourselves about it; the desire grows, we move closer, and then we are in.
I appreciate the phrase my pastor, Gary Gaddini, has stated: Sin will take you farther than you ever want to go and keep you longer than you want to stay. We are captured. We are imprisoned and usually can see no way out. It rules over us. It is in our site night and day. We have been absorbed by a thought, a lifestyle. Our eyes see, and instead of having control over what we see, we are controlled by it. That is the definition of an idol.
I composed the above before going to church this morning. The subject at church was Generous Living, The Big Lie. Matthew 6:24, NIV: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” The Message translation: “You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.”
Gary explained that the word serve in this scripture in the NIV has been ‘dummed down’ somewhat. I looked it up in the Lexical Aids to the New Testament, and the word means, as Gary explained, slave. It implies a lack of freedom, and being in bondage. In addition, the verb used implies a continuous action with no emphasis on the time of the action. A continual state of being a slave in bondage, to money in this case. Money becomes an idol. Greed is an idol. Immorality is an idol. When it has captured us, we serve it. Scripture says to avoid this kind of patterns in our lives, “because these are improper for God’s holy people.”
The scripture goes on to say: “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is full of gratitude, appreciation, blessing, and a public acknowledgement or celebration of divine goodness.
What is the opposite of thanksgiving? I actually spent the last 20 minutes online looking for antonyms. There aren’t any, but you and I both can think of some. Words that relate: ungrateful, lack of appreciation, lack of acknowledgement of God’s goodness, complaining, grumbling, and a general bad attitude. When we are together, the use of obscene language, foolishness, and coarse joking, leads our thoughts to places that imprison us. When our minds are full of these things, then thanksgiving is very far away. We have been so blessed with everything we need, from the air we breathe, the ability to taste delightful food, to admiring beauty around us with our eyes, hear the wind rustle the leaves and the ability to feel a hug. We have been given a brain that can read and understand. We can read that we are deeply loved, fully accepted, fully forgiven, and made complete in Christ. We cannot only read about it, but we have been given the ability to know and believe it. We have been given a gift of faith.
Earlier in the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul states that it is by grace we are saved through faith. It is a gift. The Message translates this passage from Ephesians 2: 7-10: “Now God has us where He wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all His idea, and all his work. All we do is trust Him enough to let Him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work he does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”
My next question is: how can gossip be and idol? I know that earlier in my life I could not stand to be in the dark about all the details regarding what was going on with people, work, friendships, etc. The desire to know it all, to be the one on the inside, the know it all, and to be the one to pass on all that juicy news certainly can captivate us! To share some details so we look good compared to others is surely a sign that we are an idolater. We want to look good. We want to be known as good. We want to share how good we are and prance around like Donner and Blitzen. We look in the mirror and smile, maybe even watch ourselves talk in the mirror so we can see the wonderful expressions on our faces. I think we get the point.
Using people to get what we want? That doesn’t seem so bad some times. Any kind of manipulation, lying, or cheating to get what we want shows who is on the throne. We are. We rule. We reign. We are a slave to our ego and ourselves. Ugh.
Ephesians 5:7 concludes: “ For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Why is impossible to inherit what God has saved for us when we worship idols? I have heard songs sung and sermons preached about this subject for years. God wants all of us: all of our heart, all of our affection, all of our thoughts, all of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our relationships, all of our possessions, and yes, our very life. He does not want anything higher in priority than Himself. He asks us to love Him, believe Him, put Him first and to listen to Him with a willingness to obey what He says.
What if we fail? What if we place our affections on something or someone other than God? Will He stop liking us? No. Nothing, no way, no how, nada can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He gives us the gift of faith. He gives us His Word. He gives us His love. He gives us His Spirit. He gives it all to us, and He helps us follow Him. We cannot do this on our own. When we strive, we are turning ourselves and our abilities into idols. When we think we are so much smarter than God, He is gracious enough to let us try it our way. Only when we realize that we are completely miserable do we decide to let God lead. He is our Peace. He is the Way. He is the Truth, and He is the Life. God has given us His only Son. He has adopted us into His family.
Here is one of my idol stories: When I bought my Red PT Cruiser, I thought I was hot stuff. I loved that car so much that it actually became an idol for me. After owning it for 3 months, the mechanic said we had an accident we didn’t know about and bent the underside of the car which made a hole that drained all the fluid out of the engine. It took weeks to get the car fixed. Then I was driving it around, loving every moment, and I had picked up a latte for my boss on the way to work. I heard this little ‘tick’. Her latte spilled all over the car. I apologized to God and never figured out why it didn’t smell bad after that. Whenever I had the car washed, I became an idolater, I was so cool, it was so wonderful. The red was incredibly beautiful! One day, I drove it to the tailor to have some pants shortened. As I was standing looking out the window while my pants were being measured, I saw a woman get in her car and promptly back into my car. Okay. Okay. OKAY!! I get it. Take the car off the top of the list and put God where He rightfully belongs: the first, the foremost, and the best. Now when I wash my car, I call my friends and ask for prayer. “Hi, this is barb, please pray for me. I just had my car washed.” I am grateful that my friends know I am crazy so it is okay.
This week, when we look at all that we have, all that we are, and Whose we are, I pray that we recognize how easy it is to become idolaters. I pray we “turn our eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
Ephesians 5:3-7, the Message: “Don’t allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed. Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, those who follow Jesus have better uses for language than that. Don’t talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn’t fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect. You can be sure that using people or religion or things just for what you can get out of them— the usual variations on idolatry— will get you nowhere, and certainly nowhere near the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of God. Don’t let yourselves get taken in by religious smooth talk. God gets furious with people who are full of religious sales talk but want nothing to do with him. Don’t even hang around people like that.
BarbTalk:
These are strong words. I find the use of idolatry in this section of scripture eye opening! I understand from this that idolatry can be summed up as immorality, greed, lack of purity, bullying, gossip, smooth religious talk but no relationship with God, foul language, and silly stuff.
I am pondering how these things can be called idolatry. The definition of idolatry is this: hero worship, adoration, admiration, veneration, adulation, reverence, fanaticism, devotion, and obsession. The term worship can be defined as treating someone or something as a deity. The word deity can be translated as regarded as divine, God, condition or status of a god or goddess and someone or something treated as a god.
Hero worship. Stuff worship. Most of us don’t think that we are idolaters. We just really like things, women, men, and children a whole lot. I certainly don’t think I am an idolater, but put something shiny in the room and I am there! Doesn’t matter what I was doing, I run to the shiny thing, I want to hold it, have it, and even covet it, but that is another subject all together.
It is hard for me to understand why immorality and greed are idolatry. I have to think about what happens when someone decides to be immoral. I assume most people do not wake up in the morning and say to themselves, I wonder how immoral I can be today? However, the decision is made to cross a line. We put our toe in. We look, we see, we desire, we have a talk with ourselves about it; the desire grows, we move closer, and then we are in.
I appreciate the phrase my pastor, Gary Gaddini, has stated: Sin will take you farther than you ever want to go and keep you longer than you want to stay. We are captured. We are imprisoned and usually can see no way out. It rules over us. It is in our site night and day. We have been absorbed by a thought, a lifestyle. Our eyes see, and instead of having control over what we see, we are controlled by it. That is the definition of an idol.
I composed the above before going to church this morning. The subject at church was Generous Living, The Big Lie. Matthew 6:24, NIV: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” The Message translation: “You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.”
Gary explained that the word serve in this scripture in the NIV has been ‘dummed down’ somewhat. I looked it up in the Lexical Aids to the New Testament, and the word means, as Gary explained, slave. It implies a lack of freedom, and being in bondage. In addition, the verb used implies a continuous action with no emphasis on the time of the action. A continual state of being a slave in bondage, to money in this case. Money becomes an idol. Greed is an idol. Immorality is an idol. When it has captured us, we serve it. Scripture says to avoid this kind of patterns in our lives, “because these are improper for God’s holy people.”
The scripture goes on to say: “Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.” Thanksgiving is full of gratitude, appreciation, blessing, and a public acknowledgement or celebration of divine goodness.
What is the opposite of thanksgiving? I actually spent the last 20 minutes online looking for antonyms. There aren’t any, but you and I both can think of some. Words that relate: ungrateful, lack of appreciation, lack of acknowledgement of God’s goodness, complaining, grumbling, and a general bad attitude. When we are together, the use of obscene language, foolishness, and coarse joking, leads our thoughts to places that imprison us. When our minds are full of these things, then thanksgiving is very far away. We have been so blessed with everything we need, from the air we breathe, the ability to taste delightful food, to admiring beauty around us with our eyes, hear the wind rustle the leaves and the ability to feel a hug. We have been given a brain that can read and understand. We can read that we are deeply loved, fully accepted, fully forgiven, and made complete in Christ. We cannot only read about it, but we have been given the ability to know and believe it. We have been given a gift of faith.
Earlier in the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul states that it is by grace we are saved through faith. It is a gift. The Message translates this passage from Ephesians 2: 7-10: “Now God has us where He wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all His idea, and all his work. All we do is trust Him enough to let Him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join Him in the work he does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”
My next question is: how can gossip be and idol? I know that earlier in my life I could not stand to be in the dark about all the details regarding what was going on with people, work, friendships, etc. The desire to know it all, to be the one on the inside, the know it all, and to be the one to pass on all that juicy news certainly can captivate us! To share some details so we look good compared to others is surely a sign that we are an idolater. We want to look good. We want to be known as good. We want to share how good we are and prance around like Donner and Blitzen. We look in the mirror and smile, maybe even watch ourselves talk in the mirror so we can see the wonderful expressions on our faces. I think we get the point.
Using people to get what we want? That doesn’t seem so bad some times. Any kind of manipulation, lying, or cheating to get what we want shows who is on the throne. We are. We rule. We reign. We are a slave to our ego and ourselves. Ugh.
Ephesians 5:7 concludes: “ For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” Why is impossible to inherit what God has saved for us when we worship idols? I have heard songs sung and sermons preached about this subject for years. God wants all of us: all of our heart, all of our affection, all of our thoughts, all of our plans, all of our dreams, all of our relationships, all of our possessions, and yes, our very life. He does not want anything higher in priority than Himself. He asks us to love Him, believe Him, put Him first and to listen to Him with a willingness to obey what He says.
What if we fail? What if we place our affections on something or someone other than God? Will He stop liking us? No. Nothing, no way, no how, nada can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He gives us the gift of faith. He gives us His Word. He gives us His love. He gives us His Spirit. He gives it all to us, and He helps us follow Him. We cannot do this on our own. When we strive, we are turning ourselves and our abilities into idols. When we think we are so much smarter than God, He is gracious enough to let us try it our way. Only when we realize that we are completely miserable do we decide to let God lead. He is our Peace. He is the Way. He is the Truth, and He is the Life. God has given us His only Son. He has adopted us into His family.
Here is one of my idol stories: When I bought my Red PT Cruiser, I thought I was hot stuff. I loved that car so much that it actually became an idol for me. After owning it for 3 months, the mechanic said we had an accident we didn’t know about and bent the underside of the car which made a hole that drained all the fluid out of the engine. It took weeks to get the car fixed. Then I was driving it around, loving every moment, and I had picked up a latte for my boss on the way to work. I heard this little ‘tick’. Her latte spilled all over the car. I apologized to God and never figured out why it didn’t smell bad after that. Whenever I had the car washed, I became an idolater, I was so cool, it was so wonderful. The red was incredibly beautiful! One day, I drove it to the tailor to have some pants shortened. As I was standing looking out the window while my pants were being measured, I saw a woman get in her car and promptly back into my car. Okay. Okay. OKAY!! I get it. Take the car off the top of the list and put God where He rightfully belongs: the first, the foremost, and the best. Now when I wash my car, I call my friends and ask for prayer. “Hi, this is barb, please pray for me. I just had my car washed.” I am grateful that my friends know I am crazy so it is okay.
This week, when we look at all that we have, all that we are, and Whose we are, I pray that we recognize how easy it is to become idolaters. I pray we “turn our eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
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