Musings on Spiritual Matters

Reaction Morality

The first piece of moral maturity is reaction. The first section of these verses deals with the morality of the Gentiles. The Gentiles were notorious for the sinful lifestyles. There was no concept of a godly morality. The text indicates a reaction to the Gentile world in verses 17-19 “This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” This is a reaction to the sinful world around them. The temple of Artemis was at the center of the city of Ephesus, where the sex goddess was worshipped. There was rampant immorality throughout the city. It was one of the most perverse places in the ancient world. Since the Gentiles had no concept of the one true God, the morality was one of desire. Paul addresses the Gentile Christians in Ephesus because this was the background of the morality of these new converts. In morality, there is a tendency to be reactionary. People look around the society and react to the sinfulness in culture. People desire to separate from the culture, which is not a bad idea, but sometimes this can go too far. The morality becomes not rooted in the inspired text of the word of God, but becomes rooted in society. People label culture or the times as all evil or all good. This type of morality focuses on the appearance of evil. Sometimes the appropriate reaction is to avoid the behavior because of the attachment to the cultural connotation of sinfulness (1 Cor. 11:1-16). Other times the behavior is amoral so a Christian must use correct judgment concerning his actions.

Related posts:

1. The Pieces of Morality–Part 5
2. The Pieces of Morality–Part 2
3. The Pieces of Morality—Part 4
4. The Pieces of Morality–Part 1
5. Over Reaction to the Past

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This entry was posted by Matthew on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 am and is filed under Church News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.