Study Focus: Eph. 4:17–32; Col. 3:1–17; Zech. 3:3, 4; Zech. 8:16; Isa. 63:10; Rom. 8:16, 26, 27.
Introduction: Having explained to the Ephesians how a mature Christian community exists and lives in the Holy Spirit and in Christ, Paul exemplifies this existence in practical terms. He uses the universal trope of human clothes—wearing clothes and changing them—to illustrate the change of personal identity that occurs when Christ transforms the life through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Joining Christianity is like leaving one set of clothes that constituted your old identity and putting on a new set of clothes that gives the impression to other people that you are a new person. But becoming a Christian is not the same as taking the old clothes off temporarily, just for the night, only to wear them again in the morning. Rather, when Paul referred to taking the clothes off, he meant removing them and throwing them away for good.
Thus, we leave, abandon, or throw away as a “loss” (Phil. 3:7, 8) the “futile” things of the Gentile world, which include the sinful worldview and lifestyle of the kingdom of this world. In their place, we receive a new identity, a new citizenship, and a new ID, which is the passport to God’s kingdom. However, the new ID is more than simply a paper certificate. Rather, the new ID signifies a genuine transformation of a person’s worldview, lifestyle, character, and relations with the other members of the church and members of humanity. This new life, however, is not a regenerative project based on some human philosophy or ideology (John 1:12, 13). Rather, this identity is qualitatively a new life. This life is made possible only when one encounters and accepts the divine Christ Jesus and only when one allows the Holy Spirit to work in him or her.
Lesson Themes: The study for this week highlights three major themes:
The Christian new life qualitatively contrasts with the old, worldly life.
A change of life and of identity is possible only in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.
The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives leads to a transformation of our worldview, identity, lifestyle, conversation, attitudes, and relationships.
Part II: Commentary
Worldviews, Lifestyles, Cross-Cultural Mission, Critical Contextualization, and Conversion
Contemporary society values inclusivity, acceptance, preservation, and promotion of local cultures, lifestyles, and worldviews. The “old style” missionaries are being criticized for disregarding the local-national, or tribal-cultural, heritages and for modeling local or regional churches in the mission fields on “Western” interpretations of Christianity and their lifestyles. While a critical contextualization certainly has its place in missions, two very relevant questions are raised: What elements of the local culture could be celebrated and preserved, and what elements of the local culture are part of the “old self” and must be abandoned as sinful and of “this world”?
Several points could be highlighted here in answer to these questions. First, in Ephesians 4:17–32, Paul contrasts the world of sin, futility, ignorance, darkness, impurity, anger, slander, and deceit (Eph. 4:17–22, 25, 31) with the world of God’s grace, righteousness, knowledge, light, purity, honesty, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and truth (Eph. 4:25–29, 32). Ultimately, the evaluating principle of a culture or lifestyle is not an ideology or philosophy, such as rationalism, empiricism, modernism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, or postmodernism. Rather, the biblical principle of evaluating any culture or way of life is “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30, NASB). This principle, when put into action, demonstrates God’s love for us and our love for Him, and reveals God’s righteousness.
Second and consequently, Paul does not discuss anthropology or the preservation of the world’s cultural heritage. He does not engage in classifying world cultures and evaluating some cultures in the light of others. Rather, he calls for all cultures, Jewish or Gentile, to be evaluated in light of the gospel of Christ Jesus and in light of the culture and the lifestyle of His kingdom. In his epistles, Paul finds a lot to rebuke in the Jewish culture and calls them to repent. Similarly, Paul tells the Gentiles that God welcomes them into His kingdom, His covenant, and His church. But Paul does not shy away from characterizing much of the Gentile worldview (polytheistic, mythological, philosophical) and way of life as futile and sinful (Eph. 4:18, 19). Thus, if the gospel highlights sin in the lives of church members and in their cultures, they must confess it as sin and abandon it. Otherwise, salvation is no longer salvation from sin, but a cultural justification for tolerance of a sinful lifestyle.
True, we come to God as we are, in the filthy rags of sin, but we do not come to Him to remain in those rags; rather, we come to God to remove those rags, to be washed, and walk into the “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Without this understanding, Christianity will lose its power and message of salvation. Christianity is not a religion of affirming humanity in its sinful ways. Rather, the biblical message challenges all nations, tribes, tongues, and cultures to evaluate themselves in the light of Scripture and accept God’s washing and working of the Holy Spirit to regenerate us. In Paul’s gospel, we cannot afford to protect a sinful aspect of our lives by excusing it on the grounds that it is part of our cultural heritage or worldview. In fact, all that is sinful is eventually self-destructive; sin destroys cultures and nations rather than upholding or edifying them.
Third, God celebrates diversity and cultural expressions in harmony with the gospel of His kingdom. For this reason, the gospel does not call for the complete uniformization of all cultures. When a culture builds on the values and lifestyle of Christ, it will only prosper and be enriched.
In a 1992 article in Ministry magazine, Børge Schantz (1931–2014), a celebrated Seventh-day Adventist missiologist, proposed three guiding principles of contextualization for the Seventh-day Adventist approach to cross-cultural mission:
First, the cross-cultural missionary must correctly understand the biblical stories and teachings in their original context.
Second, the cross-cultural missionary must accurately distinguish between universal biblical teachings and their principles and his or her own cultural values and experience. Though these customs must be, or may be, contextualized, biblical principles, such as the Sabbath, cannot be compromised.
Third, the cross-cultural missionary must develop a genuine and profound interest in, and understanding of, the culture of the people whom he or she serves.
When all these elements are taken into consideration, the ultimate contextualization principle is that, while demonstrating sensitivity to various elements of the local culture, the missionaries must allow the biblical absolutes to determine the new teachings and practices of the converts.
Schantz shared a “note of warning” to the leaders of Seventh-day Adventist mission and evangelism: “Christian churches are tempted to lose hold of pure doctrine and objective ethics when they accept uncritically that God’s Word is always and at all places culturally and historically related. The contextualization process definitely raises some problems. Adapting biblical teachings to the cultures of the world will bring the communicator into contact with elements that are false, evil, and even demonic. The sad result of going too far is a damaging syncretism, forcing opposing religious elements to coexist.” For this reason, Schantz concluded: “In all cultures, including our own, there are customs condemned by the gospel, and what is rejected by the Scriptures must be rejected by the missionaries and national leaders.” However, this principle does not need to make us more insensitive to the innocent culture of the local peoples. Rather, Schantz prayed that “the Lord of mission must grant us wisdom to differentiate between universals that must be proclaimed worldwide and the optional variables of Western culture.”—“One Message—Many Cultures: How Do We Cope?” Ministry, June 1992, p. 11.
The New Humans
Throughout history, the espousers of philosophies, ideologies, and powers claim, or have claimed, the ability to radically change humanity. One example of such an ideology is Marxism, especially as promoted in the Soviet Union. Driven by the optimism of the 1970s, the Soviets promoted the idea that they, the Soviets, were in the process of advancing human evolution by bringing about the next upgrade in the human species: the Soviet people. The Soviet people would leave behind the old religious and ideological capitalistic baggage, and evolve, collectively, into the new, Marxist human. As history shows, this Soviet project ended in utter failure. Instead of creating a new and better type of human, the Soviet people, the story ended with the widely circulated pejorative phrase homo sovieticus.
Speaking of evolution, especially in the second half of the twentieth century, such theistic evolutionists as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin promoted the idea of the emergence of the new human, the spiritual human. While Teilhard de Chardin believed that humans are still engaged in the process of evolution from animal form, he envisioned an Omega moment in the future when humans would leave behind their old heritage of predatory behavior and evolve into new humans characterized by global consciousness and universal love.
These are only two examples of ideologies or philosophies that strove to drastically change sinful humans into “new humans.” Although these philosophies seem radical, in fact, all or most philosophies and sciences operate on the assumption that they have the power to transform humanity and human society. This assumption reveals at least two important observations. On the one hand, all these movements highlight the deep-seated human desire for the new human, with all the profound renewal that ideal embodies. On the other hand, all these philosophies have ended in failure, even if some showed what seemed like initial success. The latest demonstration of this phenomenon is the rise of postmodernism, with its critique of modernism, which was completely trusted by the world as being capable of delivering the truth about our origin, development, and destiny of humanity and of the entire universe. While postmodernism is attempting to create the new man, it is already becoming increasingly clear to people that philosophy does not have the answer for the new humanity. The failure of humanity to re-create or reinvent itself under the aegis of philosophy or science stems from its lack of the proper model for new humanity and from a lack of the power to mold humanity after that model. Biblical Christianity offers both: Jesus is the Model of the new humanity, and He is also the Source of power to transform us, to renew us according to His glorious image (John 1:12, 13).
Part III: Life Application
Invite class members to analyze their own lives to see how the experience of the “newness of life” touches on all aspects of life. Take, for instance, speech. How many times do each of us say “I” in a conversation with other people? How many times do we center the conversation on ourselves instead of on our listeners? How many times do we monopolize conversations? Challenge class members to identify other spheres of their lives that need the gracious and powerful transformation of the Holy Spirit.
Some people are skeptical about the possibility of human change. While Paul was aware of the enslaving power of sin that prevents us from being transformed, he is the staunchest believer in the power of the gospel to transform us in the most profound way. The apostle was fully confident in this change because he knew what the Holy Spirit could do. Ask class members to identify three practical steps that they can share with someone who wants to be transformed, who wants to leave the old self behind and walk in the newness of life in Christ—but despairs of being able to change or of sustaining that change.
Controlling or managing negative emotions, attitudes, or behavior became a major concern in the modern world. People appeal to special exercises, counseling programs, or even to clinical treatment to receive help in dealing with their emotions and behavior. While counseling and clinical treatment have their place and role in some cases, what does the study of Ephesians and of the Bible, in general, reveal about the change of behavior, emotions, attitudes, and lifestyle in the life of the Christian? Ask class members to identify three life-changing principles that they found in their study of Ephesians that could help themselves, other members in the church, or people in the general community.
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Key Text: Ephesians 4:22–24
Study Focus: Eph. 4:17–32; Col. 3:1–17; Zech. 3:3, 4; Zech. 8:16; Isa. 63:10; Rom. 8:16, 26, 27.
Introduction: Having explained to the Ephesians how a mature Christian community exists and lives in the Holy Spirit and in Christ, Paul exemplifies this existence in practical terms. He uses the universal trope of human clothes—wearing clothes and changing them—to illustrate the change of personal identity that occurs when Christ transforms the life through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Joining Christianity is like leaving one set of clothes that constituted your old identity and putting on a new set of clothes that gives the impression to other people that you are a new person. But becoming a Christian is not the same as taking the old clothes off temporarily, just for the night, only to wear them again in the morning. Rather, when Paul referred to taking the clothes off, he meant removing them and throwing them away for good.
Thus, we leave, abandon, or throw away as a “loss” (Phil. 3:7, 8) the “futile” things of the Gentile world, which include the sinful worldview and lifestyle of the kingdom of this world. In their place, we receive a new identity, a new citizenship, and a new ID, which is the passport to God’s kingdom. However, the new ID is more than simply a paper certificate. Rather, the new ID signifies a genuine transformation of a person’s worldview, lifestyle, character, and relations with the other members of the church and members of humanity. This new life, however, is not a regenerative project based on some human philosophy or ideology (John 1:12, 13). Rather, this identity is qualitatively a new life. This life is made possible only when one encounters and accepts the divine Christ Jesus and only when one allows the Holy Spirit to work in him or her.
Lesson Themes: The study for this week highlights three major themes:
The Christian new life qualitatively contrasts with the old, worldly life.
A change of life and of identity is possible only in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.
The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives leads to a transformation of our worldview, identity, lifestyle, conversation, attitudes, and relationships.
Part II: Commentary
Worldviews, Lifestyles, Cross-Cultural Mission, Critical Contextualization, and Conversion
Contemporary society values inclusivity, acceptance, preservation, and promotion of local cultures, lifestyles, and worldviews. The “old style” missionaries are being criticized for disregarding the local-national, or tribal-cultural, heritages and for modeling local or regional churches in the mission fields on “Western” interpretations of Christianity and their lifestyles. While a critical contextualization certainly has its place in missions, two very relevant questions are raised: What elements of the local culture could be celebrated and preserved, and what elements of the local culture are part of the “old self” and must be abandoned as sinful and of “this world”?
Several points could be highlighted here in answer to these questions. First, in Ephesians 4:17–32, Paul contrasts the world of sin, futility, ignorance, darkness, impurity, anger, slander, and deceit (Eph. 4:17–22, 25, 31) with the world of God’s grace, righteousness, knowledge, light, purity, honesty, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, and truth (Eph. 4:25–29, 32). Ultimately, the evaluating principle of a culture or lifestyle is not an ideology or philosophy, such as rationalism, empiricism, modernism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, or postmodernism. Rather, the biblical principle of evaluating any culture or way of life is “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30, NASB). This principle, when put into action, demonstrates God’s love for us and our love for Him, and reveals God’s righteousness.
Second and consequently, Paul does not discuss anthropology or the preservation of the world’s cultural heritage. He does not engage in classifying world cultures and evaluating some cultures in the light of others. Rather, he calls for all cultures, Jewish or Gentile, to be evaluated in light of the gospel of Christ Jesus and in light of the culture and the lifestyle of His kingdom. In his epistles, Paul finds a lot to rebuke in the Jewish culture and calls them to repent. Similarly, Paul tells the Gentiles that God welcomes them into His kingdom, His covenant, and His church. But Paul does not shy away from characterizing much of the Gentile worldview (polytheistic, mythological, philosophical) and way of life as futile and sinful (Eph. 4:18, 19). Thus, if the gospel highlights sin in the lives of church members and in their cultures, they must confess it as sin and abandon it. Otherwise, salvation is no longer salvation from sin, but a cultural justification for tolerance of a sinful lifestyle.
True, we come to God as we are, in the filthy rags of sin, but we do not come to Him to remain in those rags; rather, we come to God to remove those rags, to be washed, and walk into the “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Without this understanding, Christianity will lose its power and message of salvation. Christianity is not a religion of affirming humanity in its sinful ways. Rather, the biblical message challenges all nations, tribes, tongues, and cultures to evaluate themselves in the light of Scripture and accept God’s washing and working of the Holy Spirit to regenerate us. In Paul’s gospel, we cannot afford to protect a sinful aspect of our lives by excusing it on the grounds that it is part of our cultural heritage or worldview. In fact, all that is sinful is eventually self-destructive; sin destroys cultures and nations rather than upholding or edifying them.
Third, God celebrates diversity and cultural expressions in harmony with the gospel of His kingdom. For this reason, the gospel does not call for the complete uniformization of all cultures. When a culture builds on the values and lifestyle of Christ, it will only prosper and be enriched.
In a 1992 article in Ministry magazine, Børge Schantz (1931–2014), a celebrated Seventh-day Adventist missiologist, proposed three guiding principles of contextualization for the Seventh-day Adventist approach to cross-cultural mission:
First, the cross-cultural missionary must correctly understand the biblical stories and teachings in their original context.
Second, the cross-cultural missionary must accurately distinguish between universal biblical teachings and their principles and his or her own cultural values and experience. Though these customs must be, or may be, contextualized, biblical principles, such as the Sabbath, cannot be compromised.
Third, the cross-cultural missionary must develop a genuine and profound interest in, and understanding of, the culture of the people whom he or she serves.
When all these elements are taken into consideration, the ultimate contextualization principle is that, while demonstrating sensitivity to various elements of the local culture, the missionaries must allow the biblical absolutes to determine the new teachings and practices of the converts.
Schantz shared a “note of warning” to the leaders of Seventh-day Adventist mission and evangelism: “Christian churches are tempted to lose hold of pure doctrine and objective ethics when they accept uncritically that God’s Word is always and at all places culturally and historically related. The contextualization process definitely raises some problems. Adapting biblical teachings to the cultures of the world will bring the communicator into contact with elements that are false, evil, and even demonic. The sad result of going too far is a damaging syncretism, forcing opposing religious elements to coexist.” For this reason, Schantz concluded: “In all cultures, including our own, there are customs condemned by the gospel, and what is rejected by the Scriptures must be rejected by the missionaries and national leaders.” However, this principle does not need to make us more insensitive to the innocent culture of the local peoples. Rather, Schantz prayed that “the Lord of mission must grant us wisdom to differentiate between universals that must be proclaimed worldwide and the optional variables of Western culture.”—“One Message—Many Cultures: How Do We Cope?” Ministry, June 1992, p. 11.
The New Humans
Throughout history, the espousers of philosophies, ideologies, and powers claim, or have claimed, the ability to radically change humanity. One example of such an ideology is Marxism, especially as promoted in the Soviet Union. Driven by the optimism of the 1970s, the Soviets promoted the idea that they, the Soviets, were in the process of advancing human evolution by bringing about the next upgrade in the human species: the Soviet people. The Soviet people would leave behind the old religious and ideological capitalistic baggage, and evolve, collectively, into the new, Marxist human. As history shows, this Soviet project ended in utter failure. Instead of creating a new and better type of human, the Soviet people, the story ended with the widely circulated pejorative phrase homo sovieticus.
Speaking of evolution, especially in the second half of the twentieth century, such theistic evolutionists as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin promoted the idea of the emergence of the new human, the spiritual human. While Teilhard de Chardin believed that humans are still engaged in the process of evolution from animal form, he envisioned an Omega moment in the future when humans would leave behind their old heritage of predatory behavior and evolve into new humans characterized by global consciousness and universal love.
These are only two examples of ideologies or philosophies that strove to drastically change sinful humans into “new humans.” Although these philosophies seem radical, in fact, all or most philosophies and sciences operate on the assumption that they have the power to transform humanity and human society. This assumption reveals at least two important observations. On the one hand, all these movements highlight the deep-seated human desire for the new human, with all the profound renewal that ideal embodies. On the other hand, all these philosophies have ended in failure, even if some showed what seemed like initial success. The latest demonstration of this phenomenon is the rise of postmodernism, with its critique of modernism, which was completely trusted by the world as being capable of delivering the truth about our origin, development, and destiny of humanity and of the entire universe. While postmodernism is attempting to create the new man, it is already becoming increasingly clear to people that philosophy does not have the answer for the new humanity. The failure of humanity to re-create or reinvent itself under the aegis of philosophy or science stems from its lack of the proper model for new humanity and from a lack of the power to mold humanity after that model. Biblical Christianity offers both: Jesus is the Model of the new humanity, and He is also the Source of power to transform us, to renew us according to His glorious image (John 1:12, 13).
Part III: Life Application
Invite class members to analyze their own lives to see how the experience of the “newness of life” touches on all aspects of life. Take, for instance, speech. How many times do each of us say “I” in a conversation with other people? How many times do we center the conversation on ourselves instead of on our listeners? How many times do we monopolize conversations? Challenge class members to identify other spheres of their lives that need the gracious and powerful transformation of the Holy Spirit.
Some people are skeptical about the possibility of human change. While Paul was aware of the enslaving power of sin that prevents us from being transformed, he is the staunchest believer in the power of the gospel to transform us in the most profound way. The apostle was fully confident in this change because he knew what the Holy Spirit could do. Ask class members to identify three practical steps that they can share with someone who wants to be transformed, who wants to leave the old self behind and walk in the newness of life in Christ—but despairs of being able to change or of sustaining that change.
Controlling or managing negative emotions, attitudes, or behavior became a major concern in the modern world. People appeal to special exercises, counseling programs, or even to clinical treatment to receive help in dealing with their emotions and behavior. While counseling and clinical treatment have their place and role in some cases, what does the study of Ephesians and of the Bible, in general, reveal about the change of behavior, emotions, attitudes, and lifestyle in the life of the Christian? Ask class members to identify three life-changing principles that they found in their study of Ephesians that could help themselves, other members in the church, or people in the general community.