Sticking with Ephesians, the back end gets right into relationships, including the classic wives/husbands piece, children/masters and the not so well rehearsed slave/masters bit.
Whats it all about?
From last time we looked at contrast society and differentiated lifestyles. A big chunk of this is how we relate to each other. Thats important, because the world does notice these things.
So whilst drilling into detail can be instructive, I rather think we are now outworking the trajectory I have talked about (ad nauseum) before - that this letter is reminding the Ephesians of their God given call to be his people of light (5:7-9) to the world. That light shines through the way we relate as much as in other ways.
5:19-20 tells us we are literally to speak life to each other. Not necessarily by appearing super-spiritual as these verses first appear, but surely in the outworking of our natural relationships, hence 5:21 to 6:9 and its three example scenarios.
And the summary of those situations - enable the other person to flourish. Make it so they can be the person God is calling them to be. That requires inter-dependence, a recognising that we are what we are as a function of other people as well as other things (thats 'Ubuntu', in African languages).
Not easy to do, but enormously powerful.
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