Ephesians 5 and 6
It is a false idea to try to get to the ‘real’ Jesus of history or the ‘real’ Jesus behind the New Testament scriptures. Since Jesus is alive, to try to find who he ‘really’ was is to find a dead man. Our quest now is to find the living Christ. What does he do? Who is he? What does he demand of us now? So as we examine scripture and the events of the first century A.D., we use that material for our current quest.
The writer of the letter to the Ephesians, in the fifth and sixth chapters assumes what was commonly held to be true in his time. Husbands owned and commanded wives, Children are always subject to their fathers and slavery is morally acceptable. Most of us don’t accept those values. Here is a place were ‘Biblical values’ are suspect. We owe it to the scriptures we revere to look at them closely, discerning how what was said two thousand years ago in an other culture in another language might speak to us now.
In chapter five, verse 25, Paul tells husbands that they must love their wives, ‘just as Christ loved the church.’ Christ loved the church by dying for it. So husbands far from lording it over their wives or ‘owning’ them in the way men did even just a hundred years ago, are asked to give sacrificial love for them. How’s that for Biblical values?
Children should, of course, obey their parents. [Ephesians 6: 1-4] Unless, their parents lie, cheat, steal, sleep around, get drunk and beat their kids. Instead, parents are to bring them up in the love of God.
Slavery. We just plain don’t agree with the Bible’s easy acceptance of slavery. Why? Because the Biblical values of love, care for the downtrodden, justice and mercy are higher than the values of patriarchal culture, literalism, and violence. You can find those negative values in the Bible. We say that the first list is higher.
Ephesians 6: 10-18 sets militarism on its head. What is of high value is not breastplates and swords and what you can do with them, but righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the holy spirit and what we do with them.
The ‘real’ Jesus is the one who lives with us each day, pushing us to justice, mercy and humble walking.
The writer of the letter to the Ephesians, in the fifth and sixth chapters assumes what was commonly held to be true in his time. Husbands owned and commanded wives, Children are always subject to their fathers and slavery is morally acceptable. Most of us don’t accept those values. Here is a place were ‘Biblical values’ are suspect. We owe it to the scriptures we revere to look at them closely, discerning how what was said two thousand years ago in an other culture in another language might speak to us now.
In chapter five, verse 25, Paul tells husbands that they must love their wives, ‘just as Christ loved the church.’ Christ loved the church by dying for it. So husbands far from lording it over their wives or ‘owning’ them in the way men did even just a hundred years ago, are asked to give sacrificial love for them. How’s that for Biblical values?
Children should, of course, obey their parents. [Ephesians 6: 1-4] Unless, their parents lie, cheat, steal, sleep around, get drunk and beat their kids. Instead, parents are to bring them up in the love of God.
Slavery. We just plain don’t agree with the Bible’s easy acceptance of slavery. Why? Because the Biblical values of love, care for the downtrodden, justice and mercy are higher than the values of patriarchal culture, literalism, and violence. You can find those negative values in the Bible. We say that the first list is higher.
Ephesians 6: 10-18 sets militarism on its head. What is of high value is not breastplates and swords and what you can do with them, but righteousness, peace, faith, salvation and the holy spirit and what we do with them.
The ‘real’ Jesus is the one who lives with us each day, pushing us to justice, mercy and humble walking.
posted by Thomas Van Brunt | 10:30 AM
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