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Turn Signal

Thursday, January 03rd, 2013 | Author:

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,  Ephesians 4:1 NASB

Calling – Have you been called?  Most Christians will hesitate before answering because too often they think “calling” is about some assignment to the ministry.  If God “calls” you then you will end up on the mission field or in the pulpit or in some “professional” Christian service.  But this, of course, is not what Paul means at all.  In fact, until the middle of the 3rd Century, there were no religious professionals.  No pastors, no preachers, not bishops and archbishops, not “praise and worship” leaders, no official evangelists, no prophets or priests.  “Wait a minute,” you complain.  “All those titles (well, at least some of them) are in Scripture.”  Yes, they are, but not a single one fits the kind of descriptions we find today.  God called ordinary people for extraordinary tasks, but they didn’t carry titles the way we do.  They just did jobs God wanted done – and then they faded away.  Professional religious careers are an invention of our age.

We can see this quite clearly when we realize that Paul is writing to everyone in the Ephesians assembly.  They are all called.  What are they all called to do?  To walk worthily.  No one is exempt from this.  They might play different roles in the community of the assembly, but every one of them is called to live according to a code of conduct that honors the King, helps them become human and removes the anxiety of not knowing what God demands.  The call is for all.

Perhaps we should mention that this has nothing to do with grace poured out on those in need!  It hardly seems necessary to say so, but just in case there is any remaining confusion here, let’s make it clear.  How I walk has nothing to do with whether God sheds His grace on me!  God’s grace and my redemption do not depend on the steps I take.  God’s grace and my redemption simply make it possible for me to take the right steps.  Obedience comes after grace, not before.

Having cleared up that possible confusion, we are left with a monumental question.  If Paul intends that every single one of us should walk worthily, how are we doing?  Since we know that the code of conduct isn’t ambiguous (like “just love on people” – frankly, I can’t imagine how that misuse of a preposition ever got started), we really do have a step-by-step guide to worthy manners.  There isn’t much doubt about what it says (there is some, but it’s not critical).  The real question is this:  If Paul observed your life, would he think you are walking worthily?  Would he see you honoring the King by keeping His commandments?  Would he notice that you are becoming more and more human according to God’s image?  Would he find you rejoicing in the freedom of knowing what  God has told you to do?  Have you turned in the right direction?

Topical Index: calling, kleseos, Ephesians 4:1

If you want to see what we discovered about this word before, click here.

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Abraham’s Daughter

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012 | Author:

But Ruth replied, “Do not urge me to leave you, to turn back and not follow you.  For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”  Ruth 1:16

I will go – “From a cultural perspective, Ruth has chosen death over life.  She has disavowed the solidarity of family; she has abandoned national security; and she has renounced religious affiliation.  In the entire epic of Israel, only Abraham matches this radicality, but then he had a call from God.”[1]

If Abraham had a daughter, it was Ruth.  The themes of hesed, faithful loyalty, personal sacrifice and action that reflect God’s character are vibrantly present in both people.  In fact, Ruth is more like Abraham than his own son, Isaac.  Furthermore, Ruth is a Gentile who decides to enter into fellowship with YHWH just as Abraham was a Gentile who decided to act upon God’s call.  Both leave behind lives of expected conformity and security to journey to “a land I will show you.”  But, as Trible notes, Abraham had a call from God.  Ruth makes a life-altering decision without God’s specific direction.  The power of hesed is her only motivation.

We should notice that Naomi holds up Orpah as the model of rational action.  “See, your sister-in-law has returned to her people and her gods” (v. 15).  Naomi’s motivation might be good.  She is concerned about the welfare of Orpah.  But she is willing to send Orpah back to Chemosh, the pagan god of Moab, in order to achieve security.  There is no emphasis on following the one true God at any cost.  In fact, when Ruth declares her conviction to go with Naomi, Naomi tells her that she is crazy.  Doesn’t Ruth know what this means?  Doesn’t she appreciate the potential difficulties, the obvious threat, the danger?  Naomi is focused on just one thing – security.  Worship of the true God takes a distant second place.

But Ruth decides.  It is her decision that propels the story forward.  Regardless of the warnings, regardless of the expected hardships, Ruth will not be deterred from the inner call on her life.  She establishes a new standard of obedience, even exceeding the obedience of her distant spiritual father, Abraham.

“I will go.”  Elek.  “Go out!”  Lek-leka.  Both from the same root, yalak.  Ruth follows in the footsteps of God’s chosen man, perhaps because, even without knowing it, she is God’s chosen woman.

Do you need a “calling” to go out?  Or are you like Ruth – committed because it is what you must do even if you don’t hear a word from the Lord?

Topical Index:  yalak, to go, Abraham, Genesis 12:1, Ruth 1:16, I will go, calling


[1] Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 173.

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Wrong Number

Tuesday, April 05th, 2011 | Author:

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, Ephesians 4:1

Calling – What is your calling from God?  Most Christians immediately think of some individual and personal assignment.  They imagine that Paul is exhorting us to seek God’s personal will for our unique lives so that one will be “called” to be an evangelist, another to be a teacher, another to be a doctor or a plumber or a policeman.  But Paul is a rabbi, steeped in the Tanakh.  Do you suppose that he would use this word (in Greek – kleseos – from the verb kaleo) from a Greek perspective or a Hebrew perspective?  Typical Christian exegesis implies that Paul uses it as any Greek philosopher would, but this seem unjustified.  Paul does not think as the Greek philosophers thought.  He thinks as the prophets thought – about the Body, the community, the children of God, Israel as a unit.  If Gentiles are grafted into the commonwealth of Israel, wouldn’t Paul expect that these adopted sons would take up the calling of Israel, their new kingdom home?

From the Christian/Greek/individual point of view, believers think that the calling must have something to do with the list of qualities in the next two verses.  Therefore, the calling must be about walking in humility, meekness, long-suffering, love and unity.  But these are descriptions of the quality of the call, not the call itself.  This is obvious once we see that Paul’s emphasis is on one Body and one Spirit.  The call is to community – the community of the saints.  And God has already outlined what that call looks like in action.  It is to live righteously, to live in accordance with His character, to do what He expects us to do.  That is called Torah.

God called His people out of Egypt.  He called them to become a nation set apart for Himself.  He called them to be a royal priesthood.  He called them to be holy.  God’s call has never changed.  Yeshua Himself reiterated this unwavering call in Matthew 5:48 when He quoted Leviticus 19:2.  There is one calling, not millions of individual calls.  How that one calling is expressed in each individual’s life might be slightly different in terms of geography, society and conditions, but the calling never varies.  The calling is a reflection of God Himself.  We are called to be like Him.  Period.  We do that by living Torah-obedient lives.

When Paul exhorts the readers of his letter to the Ephesians to walk worthy of the calling, he has the Torah in mind.  Torah is the expression of God’s call to Israel.  Torah is the instruction necessary to live holy lives, to act righteously in the world.  There is no confusion here.  We are not left wondering if God will ever answer our pleas for His unique calling for us.  We don’t get busy signals or wrong number messages.  God has already delivered the message.  “This is how I want you to live as my people.”  Confusion does not come from Him.  It comes from our mistaken Greek perspective.  God isn’t waiting for me to find my destiny.  He is waiting for me to be obedient to the instructions He has already given.  That is my calling.

Topical Index:  calling, kleseos, kaleo, Torah, Ephesians 4:1

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