Scripture Daily

Context No. 553 of 4322 · Ephesians

Context · Reflection

Ephesians 4:25-32: in context

25Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak truth each one with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. 26“Be angry, and don’t sin.” Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath, 27and don’t give place to the devil. 28Let him who stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, producing with his hands something that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. 29Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but only what is good for building others up as the need may be, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, outcry, and slander be put away from you, with all malice. 32And be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving each other, just as God also in Christ forgave you.

Paul is describing the concrete shape of a life remade by Christ, and he runs through a series of changes: put away lying and speak truth, deal with anger before the sun sets on it, let no corrupt talk come out but only words that build others up, put away bitterness and malice, be kind and forgiving as God forgave you. But one of the examples he gives is worth dwelling on, because it shows the pattern of the whole. Let the thief no longer steal, Paul writes, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, so that he may have something to give to the one in need.

Notice that Paul does not stop where we would stop. If the problem is a thief, the obvious solution is simply: stop stealing. That would be enough to make him no longer a criminal. But Paul carries the change all the way through to its opposite. The thief is not merely to quit taking; he is to start working so that he can give. The man whose whole instinct was to take from others is to be remade into someone who produces in order to hand it away. The impulse itself is turned inside out, from taking to giving. That is the actual goal, not a neutral man who no longer steals, but a generous one who now provides for others out of his own labor.

That reframes what I usually mean by repentance. I tend to aim only at stopping, at ceasing the wrong thing, and to think that if I have quit the sin I have arrived. Paul says the sin is only half addressed until the impulse behind it is reversed into its opposite. It is not enough to stop taking; God means to make me a giver. Not enough to stop tearing others down with my words; he means my mouth to build them up. Where have I settled for merely stopping a wrong, when God is calling me all the way through to its opposite, and what would it look like to become a giver where I used to take?

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