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The New Mind is a Challenge (Ephesians 4:17-25)
I have been thinking recently about the thought
that the earth might be flat. I mean it isn't that long ago that it
was a commonly believed that if you sailed far enough you would fall
off the edge. "Thank goodness," think the people who propagate this
fiction, "that we have come so far since those dark days of religious
superstition and ignorance." Of course, this is all nonsense.
There was a time when people believed the earth was flat but, given
the dearth of information in earliest times, that might be forgiven.
However, by around 600BC, Pythagoras had come up with the idea
of a spherical shape for the earth. By 240 BC Eratosthenes had
measured the earth's circumference. By the time of Jesus it was a commonly
accepted view of the world. Soon Ptolemy was to work out the
system of longitude and latitude. Knowledge continues to grow and inform
as we now see pictures of the earth from space and we continue to learn.
Despite this we regularly hear people trot out the argument that, just
the day before last week, people thought the world was flat. It is a
useful, if lazy, way to dismiss anything religious as simply a vestige
of those dark days when the world was flat, the sun orbited the earth
- and God was in his heaven. It is an excuse for dismissing the challenge
of faith and caricaturing 'believers' of every stamp, but especially
Christians, as superstitious throwbacks.
The passage under consideration might be quite an eye opener to such
people.
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord,
you must live no longer as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their
thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated
from the life of God because of their ignorance…
In God's scheme of things futile thinking is out, understanding and
enlightenment is a much-sought-after commodity, and ignorance robs us
of life. Christians are not to give in to corrupt thinking and deceitful
desires.
You were taught, with regard to your
former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted
by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your
minds;
It is the mind that is renewed, as Paul pointed out to believers in
Rome:
Do not conform any longer to the pattern
of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind
(Romans 12:2)
In this process we become more like our creator as we, put
on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness
(Eph.4:24 c.f. Col 3:10).
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood
and speak truthfully to his neighbour, for we are all members of one
body (4:25)
The problem I see is that some Christians can give the impression that
becoming a Christian means never having to think again. Like the popular
flat earth fable propagated by sinners trying to avoid God, we can come
up with our own myths, legends and misrepresentations of simple facts
as well as profound truths. Some I have heard over the years include:
Being told on many occasions by Mormons that the Church of England started
because Henry VIII wanted a divorce. This is a gross misrepresentation
of complex and profound historical/political facts.
Hearing that Galileo was "thrown into a prison" by the Pope of the day
for daring to suggest that the earth wasn't the centre of the universe
and man at the pinnacle of creation. Some people need to research their
history.
The suggestion, still popular in some circles, that Jesus was not even
an historical figure, let alone the Son of God. Such claims are more
to do with wishful thinking than historical data.
You can prove anything from the Bible! Come on give me a break!
As Christians, with new minds, we dare not show ignorance before a world
that watches us for excuses to reject God on the basis that Christianity
is irrational and unreasonable. Some would have us believe otherwise
but Paul wrote about renewed minds, putting off ignorance, enlightened
thinking and speaking truth. This makes us like the God who made us
and surely this is our hope and desire, that we should be like him.
May we be found to be like him today, and grow more to be like him as
we review and renew our understanding and knowledge of him and the world
he made and died to save.