Ephesians 4: 17-18 17Therefore, this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.
After calling the Ephesians to live worthy of their calling to experience the love of Christ in unity and clear purpose in 4:1-16, Paul now shifts to remind them of the change that took place in their lives when they came to believe in Jesus Christ. This change should impact every area of their lives and change their thinking and behavior. God has a special purpose for humanity, but we must respond in faith to this calling and then live in obedience that will show up in a holy lifestyle. Paul shows the seriousness of what he is about to write by saying and testifying in the Lord. This is the essence of the gospel, so we too much pay close attention to it.
The Ephesians, who represent all people, once walked as the Gentiles around this. The word walk (peripatein) represents the way one lives and behaves. Gentiles (ethnē) represents all who do not have the special revelation of God to which the Jews had access. Without this special revelation, the Gentiles had no knowledge of how God wants humanity to live. Without the law, people will deteriorate into selfishness, lust, and fleshly living. Paul describes this as the futility of their minds. Futility (mataiotēti) means emptiness, worthlessness, and meaningless. These people have no clear purpose for why they live, except to pursue transitory and temporary pleasures. There are many people today who just coast along in life with no clear direction. This is such a waste of potential and value.
Paul focuses especially on the cognitive level of thought and uses four descriptions of the inner person: mind, understanding, ignorance, and heart. The mind (noos) is where a person makes decisions, processes the input from one’s environment, and determines values. This is the very place that needs transforming into the image of Christ (Romans 12:1-2).
Without transformation by the Holy Spirit, the mind remains bound by sin and self, resulting in darkened understanding (dianoia). This word is closely related to mind, sharing the same root. It is the part of the mind that understands, thinks, process information, or is the intelligence. If the mind is controlled by sin, the thinking is not clear but is distorted. This is not necessarily one’s IQ. Being a believer does not necessarily raise one’s natural IQ level. But there is a new level of understanding, awareness, or what the Bible terms “wisdom,” for those who are believers. We become aware of many new things, and this will help us to live better lives.
This weakened and distorted thinking results in alienation and separation from God. This results in ignorance (agnoian), another cognate of “mind.” Ignorance is caused by not knowing the truth or lacking deeper insight into a matter. Unbelievers do not know the truth, which would set them free (John 8:32). They walk in darkness because they lack the light of truth. This word has both an active sense of rejection and a passive sense of victimization. There are many reasons people remain in their ignorance. Sometimes they have not heard the gospel. Other times they have heard the truth of Jesus and refuse to believe it.
The result of all of these is a hard heart. The heart (kardias) is a metaphor for the inner person that is the source of a person’s existence. It incorporates the mind and soul. In physical existence, the heart must pump for life to be sustained. The ancient people understood the importance of the physical heart and viewed it as the source of a person’s life. The heart is the open door to our spiritual existence and relationship with God. To harden our hearts is to shut the door on the Holy Spirit and shut off God’s efforts to speak into our lives. People put up barriers so that they no longer hear, sense, or consider anything from God. This hardening can result from ignorance, but it also has some intentionality to it. This is a sad situation and is how many people live today. They ignore God and eventually shut anything of God out of their lives. This is how the Ephesians and all of us used to live. But the light has come. New life has been offered.
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