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By Hellen J. Kuleskey
The Apostle Paul is writing these instructions to his Gentile converts in Ephesus. These people genuinely believed Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and they were born-again by the Spirit. They were children of God translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.
However, the Gentiles did not have the commandments of God that instructed them how to walk as His children. Earlier in the chapter, Paul tells them they must no longer live as do the heathen Gentiles who are separated from God. He reminds them that because the understanding of the heathen is darkened and their hearts are hardened, they have given themselves over to indulge in every kind of impurity.
Now that they had come to trust in Christ, Paul instructs these born-again Gentiles to be “imitators of God” as His “dearly loved children” and to live as children of light. In this portion of his letter, Paul touches on three areas of a person’s life: 1) morality, 2) speech, 3) greed.
He writes: For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolator—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God (vs 5).
Morality
The people of Ephesus had all their lives seen only unbridled sensuality and lust, and had indulged in every form of immorality. Even the worship of the gods and goddesses involved temple prostitution and sexual orgies. Now Paul is exhorting them as God’s children to live holy lives with not even a hint of immorality in their midst.
Why does God forbid promiscuity? Because it is a sin, first of all, against a holy God. It is also a sin against the person’s body. “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.... Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:13b-20).
If we should doubt God’s wisdom in forbidding immorality, we need only to look at the devastating effects of promiscuity: the suffering due to sexually transmitted diseases and the scourge of AIDS, now reaching epidemic proportions. God has our good and our preservation in mind when He tells us to obey His commands. When Moses had reviewed God’s commandments to Israel just before they entered the Promised Land, he said, “Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, so you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land ” (Deut. 5:33).
Speech
Paul urges his converts to practice wholesome speech. He knew from the Old Testament that “life and death are in the power of the tongue” (Prov.18:21). He knew from the Ten Commandments that God warns His people not to misuse the Lord’s name. “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name” (Deut. 5:11).
The words of our mouths have the power to heal or to destroy because words are living realities. Remember, God spoke and the worlds were created. We are made in the image of God and have a measure of creative power in our words. Curses spoken by our mouths give Satan the ground to bring those words into being. The Apostle James warns us that the “tongue corrupts the whole person” (Ja. 3:6). He adds: “No man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison” (Ja. 3:8). Truly, only God can tame our tongues as we obey His command to give Him praise and thanksgiving for the salvation Jesus purchased by His blood.
Greed
Greed is covetousness which the dictionary defines as: “a strong or inordinate [excessive] desire of obtaining and possessing that which belongs to another.” Covetousness is forbidden in the 10th Commandment because it is a form of idolatry. We love the things we covet more than we love God and His Word. Scripture places the sin of idolatry among what we call gross sins: witchcraft, fornication, hatred, murder and lying. “Such a man has no inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God” (Eph. 5:5). The Apostle Paul shows us how to have victory over the sin of greed; he says, “Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry”(1Cor. 10:14).
Immorality, evil speech and greed have no place in a righteous life.
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