Our encounter with Christ changes our philosophy, practice, and purpose of life which changes our thinking, understanding, and living.
Ephesians 4:17-24 – 17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Do you know what backsliding is? It is when Christians move away from Christ, drop out of church, and return to their old habits. How do you break free from old habits?
The problem with backsliding is that people come to Jesus but never commit to Jesus to experience lasting joy and contentment in life, so they return to their old lives. What they need is a daily renewal of their minds by the power of the Spirit so that they can experience lasting joy and contentment.
In Ephesians 4:17-24, Paul was dealing with backsliders. He described practical Christianity to help Christians move from salvation to Missional Calling in Ephesians 4:1-6 to Missional Community in Ephesians 4:7-16 to a Missional Challenge which is to change the way they think, understand, and live by renewing their minds daily to experience lasting joy and contentment in life.
The big idea is, if we don’t want to backslide rather and experience lasting joy and contentment, we need to take the missional challenges in Ephesians 4:17-24 and change the way we think, understand, and live by renewing our minds daily in the power of the Spirit by changing our philosophy, practice, purpose of life.
Changing Our Philosophy of Life (Ephesians 4:17-18)
In Ephesians 4:17, Paul writes, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.” This verse connects us back to Ephesians 4:1, which reads, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” There are at least three similarities between verse 1 and verse 17 that should not escape our eyes: personal testimony, calling, and walk.
Personal Testimony
In Ephesians 4:1, Paul testified that he was imprisoned for his testimony of faith. In Ephesians 4:17, he again testifies in the Lord. His testimony is based on His personal knowledge of Christ, which in verse 13, is described as epignosis, meaning experiential, intimate, relational knowledge of the Son of God. You get that when, like Paul, you supernaturally encounter the living Son of God. His encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus transformed him into a new man.
Personal Calling
In verses 1 and 17, Paul’s focus is the calling to which all believers are called, including himself.
Personal Walk
In verse 1, he urged Christians to walk in a manner worthy of their calling, but in verse 17, he commands them not to walk like Gentiles in opposition to their calling in the patterns of the world. In both verses, Paul’s appeal to walk is based on his own walk with Christ.
The Greek word that Paul uses for “walk” is peripateo. The Greeks used peripateo as a metaphor for living one’s life. Peri means “around” and pateo means “walk.” It is walking around or walking in a full circle, which communicates a habitual lifestyle.
This means Christianity is a lifestyle. We cannot act like Christians in one situation and not in other situations. Are there situations where you don’t act like Christ? Are there times when you act like the world?
Paul commands, in the Lord, not to do that because that negates our faith. Therefore, Paul contrasts the unsaved Gentiles’ way of life with the Christian way of life as he highlights the root causes of backsliding, hypocrisy, and ungodly living among Christians.
The first cause is the futility of minds. Paul says in Ephesians 4:17, “you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.” Their futile minds are the driving force behind their day-to-day life decisions in opposition to God’s Word.
The Greek word that Paul chooses for “futility” is matiaos which also means purposelessness, emptiness, and false religion. In Greek usage, it refers to purposeless and empty pursuits of the world that lead to an empty and purposeless life. In Christian usage, it happens when our lives are not anchored to Christ and not centered on divine purpose.
The concept of matiaos is borrowed from the Hebrew word for “vain,” which encompasses both futility and pride. This dual meaning underscores Paul’s argument that prideful thinking inevitably leads to futility, which is a synonym for senselessness, pointlessness, emptiness, purposelessness, and vanity.
The sense of the word here is a “proud” way of “thinking”; a mindset that doesn’t know Christ and hence, defines truth and right apart from God’s Word. Such a mindset rejects Christ and determines truth and morality independently of God.
Atheists are not the only ones who define truth and right apart from God. Many Christians define their own truth and right apart from God. These Christians go with the flow of the culture and popular trends in opposition to God’s Word, yet they believe they are saved.
The second cause is their darkened understanding. The first part of Ephesians 4:18 reads, “They are darkened in their understanding.” The Greek word for “darkened understanding” is dianoia which is a failure to grasp God’s perspective. In the vacuum of God’s Word, one simply cannot grasp God’s perspective, which leads to a prideful, ignorant mind— an easy target for the devil and darkness. As a result, individuals with this futile thinking misinterpret reality, define truth on their own terms, and live in opposition to God’s Will and Purpose, yet they believe they are saved.
The third cause is their separation from God. The rest of verse 18 says, they are “alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” Their futile mind, darkened understanding, and separation from the “life of God” result in untransformed minds, influenced by the world rather than the Word, ungodly lives contrary to the profession of their faith in Christ, yet they believe they are saved.
Have you ever seen dead fish swimming? They don’t swim; they float with the flow of the water— yet we think they are swimming. However, live fish not only swim but can swim against the current. Paul insists Christians shouldn’t go with the flow.
Application
No longer should any Christian live like the dead, which we all were once without Christ, but live like the resurrected people who can swim against the currents of the popular culture and worldly system.
For that, we need to change our philosophy of life, our set of beliefs, values, and principles that guide our behavior and drive our day-to-day life choices and decisions— how we view the world and our place in it and how we determine what is important in life and what is right or wrong in life.
In Philippians 1:21, Paul articulates his philosophy of life in these words, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” What is your philosophy of life? Whatever it is, it shows in our practice of life.
Changing Our Practice of Life (Ephesians 4:19)
Ephesians 4:19 reads, “They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” Last week in Ephesians 4:7-16, we saw that Christ is the standard against which each believer should evaluate their lives for maturity and growth. However, when we don’t do that and compare with each other, then we risk disgracing Christ’s standard for living in practicality.
When we begin to compare ourselves with others, our futile minds darken our understanding and tell us we are doing better than others. One may say, “I sleep with my girlfriend, but at least I am not like others who sleep around. I am committed to her, and one day we will get married.” The other may say, “Well, my boyfriend is Christian like me, so in our hearts, we are already married, so why does it matter if we have not taken vows in the church?” Still others may say, “Well, I know I am living in sin, but I go to church, I serve, and I give.”
Verses 19-20a says, “19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20a But that is not the way you learned Christ!” Verse 20a doesn’t say that is not the way you learned from the Bible or learned from Christ, rather, it says that is not the way you learned Christ.
How do you learn a person? You learn a person by observing, following, and becoming. In Matthew 26:26, Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” John 6:53 says, “So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”” Spiritually speaking, when we learn Christ by dining on Him every day by studying His Word. He satisfies our hunger and thirst.
Recently, I was watching a food show about Afghan kababs. I was not hungry, but the moment I saw the kabab, my brain could not stop thinking about it, and then I began to crave kababs. This is true for all addictions. When we see something, we think about it and our minds obsess over it, and we begin to crave it, and finally, we give in.
Application
If our eyes are set on Christ, we will think of Christ, and if our minds are full of Christ and God’s Word, then our hunger and thirst will be fully satisfied in Christ. When we change our philosophy of life and our practice of life, it changes the purpose of life.
Changing Our Purpose for Life (Ephesians 4:20-24)
Ephesians 4:20-24 reads, “21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” In verse 22, putting off the old self, and in verse 24, putting on the new self, are in aorist tense meaning that it is something we do, like making a choice or decision.
Among the Greeks, putting on and off behavior or morals was known, but Paul introduced a radical idea that it is not the good habits and behavior that you need to put on and put off the bad ones that make a person nice, good, and worthy of society but to put on the person of Christ. His argument is that by putting on Jesus, we become a new creature that never existed before but yet needs regular renewing of the mind through the power of the Spirit to become more like Christ.
In Paul’s own example in Galatians 2:20, he testifies, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Application
Change the purpose of life from worldly pursuit to becoming more like Christ. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”
Before Saint Augustine’s conversion, he struggled with sexual sin. He had known and lived with a prostitute. One day, after he was saved, he was walking down the street and the prostitute he had known saw him. She shouted his name, and he kept walking. He saw her but kept walking. She ran after him and she said, “Augustine, it is I.” Augustine replied, “I know, but it is no longer I.”
That is the radical change that Paul experienced when he encountered the living Son of God. That is the same radical change Augustine experienced and that is the radical change we should experience when we encounter Christ. Our encounter with Christ changes our philosophy, practice, and purpose of life which changes our thinking, understanding, and living.
Appeal
As Paul wrote to his readers, no longer walk, or live, as unsaved unbelieving Gentiles because that results in backsliding. Rather, put off your old self and put on your new self in Christ. This will need a new direction of thinking, which needs to be renewed daily by the power of the Spirit for a transforming lifestyle that matches our identity in Christ and the profession of our faith.
Action Steps
- Commit to Jesus.
- Commit to renewing of your mind daily by the power of the Spirit. For that, take the spiritual self-assessment that our discipleship team has created.
Study Questions
- How does Paul describe the “futility of their minds” in Ephesians 4:17?
- What does Paul mean by “the old self” in Ephesians 4:17-19?
- What characteristics and behaviors does Paul associate with the old self?
- What does Paul mean by “the new self” in Ephesians 4:22-24?
- What does being “renewed in the spirit of your minds” mean in Ephesians 4:23?
Deeper Study Questions
- Is there an area of your life in which you are still walking and living the way you lived before receiving Christ?
- What practical steps have you taken to ensure that you are no longer living your old life without Christ?
- In what way do you feel that you are created “after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness?”
- Practically speaking, how do you put on “the new self?”
- Contrast your old life without Christ with your new life in Christ. What do you see more: the new you or the old you? Share a few changes that you have experienced.
Read More
Ephesians 4:7-16 Practical Christianity: Missional Community, Part 2
