4:16
Absolutely everything stems from Christ, and is built around Him. He is in all and is all. And the church builds itself up in love centred on Christ, and does its work centred on Christ. If we put our focus anywhere else we are lost and lose all our strength.
4:17
Having started with the grand themes of God, then turned his attention to how the church overall functions, Paul now gets down to the nitty gritty of our own lives. A balanced Christian understanding needs to deal with all three aspects: the greatness of God and what He has done and is doing in Christ, the church as a whole, and our own individual lives. “So, I tell you this “ All the stuff about God and the church is not just nice thoughts to make us feel good, or highfalutin theology that has no practical impact. It places a demand upon our lives. What Paul is about to say “he insists on it in the Lord”. They, and we, must no longer live as the Gentiles do, as the world around us do, “in the futility of their thinking”. Why does Paul single out the Gentiles, rather than the Jews? It is because the Jews had by this time more or less grasped the basics of godly living, in theory, though not so much in practice. Eg the Jews adhered to Godly sexual morality in theory, though from what Jesus said we know this wasn’t always so in practice. The Gentile world, however, was something of a moral cesspit, with all sorts of sexual immorality gloried in. And this was to the detriment of all, but especially women. Parts of the church that seem to think it is a good idea, even a godly idea, to go along with the wisdom of the world are incredibly stupid.
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