Articles
Walking Like The Gentiles
“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do (Eph 4:17).”
The Bible paints the Gentiles as the extreme of debauchery and godlessness. Yet when writing to a church comprised of at least some Gentiles, Paul warns the Ephesians not to live anymore the way they did before. What does it mean to live like a Gentile—and how can we avoid it?
Gentiles are corrupt in their thinking. They languish in “the futility of their minds” and are “darkened in their understanding,” to the point that they are distant from God “because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart”(Eph 4:17-18). God longs to use our thinking to influence our actions; Gentiles gave up the battle long ago. Their thoughts are only on their pleasures, the weak rationalizations they concoct, or their flat refusal to do right.
Gentiles refuse to hear their conscience. “They have become callous”(Eph 4:19) because they continually pound their conscience into submission. The shame and guilt that should accompany sin begin to diminish and ultimately go away forever, leaving only an unfeeling callous. When Christians dismiss a nagging conscience as silly or overly sensitive, they live like Gentiles.
Gentiles are unable to restrain themselves. They “have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity”(Eph 4:19). They have ceded control in their lives to their pleasures. Even if they want to do right, they find themselves unable to stop. They lack the willpower and desire for self-discipline, even about simple things.
For us, it is an essential lesson. We must “be transformed by the renewal of our minds”(Rom 12:2) by focusing on Scripture. We must listen attentively to our conscience as a barometer for our lives in Christ. We must exercise self-control (even about trivial things) to retain a handle on our pleasures.
Before we shudder at the sins of the Gentiles, let us ensure that we never become like them!
