“With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the Gentiles do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.” Ephesians 4:17-19 NLT
In Paul’s letter to the churches in Ephesus, he writes this very strong exhortation to not imitate the Gentiles, the heathens. It’s not that they were godless, Ephesus had plenty of gods. It’s that their gods were all after the same thing – deceiving and leading them away from the one true God. Their gods were their appetites, their lusts, and their self-determined will. Paul says, “Don’t walk (peripateó) where they walk, in the futility (mataiotés), the empty, vain, depravity of their mind.”
Then Paul tells us why! Why we shouldn’t be behaving like the “ethnos” of the culture. Because it is a darkening (skotoó), a blinding of the mind. It is an alienation (apallotrioó), an estrangement from God. Meaning it’s an alignment with the gods in rebellion against God. This is caused by an ignorance (agnoia), a moral unawareness of who God is and what He wants for us. This ignorance, this lack of truth is not because God is hiding from us, or avoiding us. It is because God gives us the freedom to choose what we want, when we want it. He allows us to follow our own heart, even when it leads away from Him and His will!
In Ephesus, the religious fervor surrounding Artemis was deeply serious to the average citizen. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and Ephesus functioned as a pilgrimage economy; her cult drove tourism, temple offerings, souvenir sales (those silver shrines), banking, and civic prestige. Being “Artemis’s city” was Ephesus’s brand, their entire reputation. Open A.I. says, “idolatry that’s economically load-bearing, means the “god” and the GDP are the same system.” There was something much deeper and darker going on in Ephesus – Paul understood this. Do we see how relevant that is today, in our culture?
We have a powerful, highly influential media machine, driving a “futility of depravity.” Not just because it is destructive to social and civil structures throughout history, but it is clearly an advocate of giving oneself over to “aselgeia”: Licentiousness, debauchery, sensuality, and lewdness. “Follow wherever your heart leads,” and chant the mantra of your own personal truth. Paul says that the “Gentiles” became “apalgeó,” They became apathetic and callous in their conscience – even to the point of “kautériazó” searing or cauterizing their moral compass (Paul tells Timothy).
This is our current culture. And instead of being ashamed of it, or fearing what we’ve become, it is celebrated as the epitome of human experience. Believing that one is highly educated, advanced and informed in believing these lies is literally living in the upside down world and calling it beautiful!
Get this: Bishop Timothy at 80 years old was martyred by a mob of pagan worshipers after he protested against the worship of the goddess Diana during a festival parade. He was reportedly beaten to death for his efforts to stop the procession honoring the goddess. The crowd beat and killed an 80 year old man justifying their actions to obey a false god.
Isaiah predicted this for the end of days in Isaiah 5:20, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” The Bible identifies Satan as the personification of evil, a deceiver and adversary who opposes God’s purposes. Jesus describes him as “a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44).
Prayer
Dad,
I look around at our culture today and I see examples of what Isaiah and Paul wrote about thousands of years ago. Yet, even as I see the moral reversal of all things good becoming all things willfully wicked, I also see a need for your grace and mercy when people’s eyes are open and they see that they’ve been deceived and lied to. And in that moment, I believe they will see you and see their need for you. The one true God that is always just, true, right and equally merciful, kind and forgiving.