He sees every deed. He hears every sentence. He knows every thought.

Paul’s focus on behaviour and identity shifts to focus on light. It’s thought that the apostle John spent many of his final years in Ephesus and he often uses light imagery. Jesus, of course, declared himself ‘the light of the world’ (John 8:12; 12:46). The passage develops the implications for those united to Christ the light.

Verses 8–14. Paul reminds the Ephesians yet again of their past and present (2:1–6).

We might have expected him to describe being in light or darkness. But he is clear that light is now a Christian’s identity (v 8). Why is this important for Christian behaviour? What is the difference between deeds of light and deeds of darkness (vs 8–11)? Then Paul quotes from one of the earliest Christian songs, inspired by texts from Isaiah. It combines the contrasts of dark and light, dead and alive. In short, Paul is saying, ‘Be who you are!’

Verses 15–20. We’re back to the mind: taking care, being wise – both involve thinking. In this context, why is it important to stay sober? What will help us to be ‘filled with the Spirit’? Notice the different song types (psalms, songs from the heart, hymns of praise to God). Why is gratitude so crucial here?

‘If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.’¹

God’s first creative act separated light from darkness. Light and dark have become Scripture’s most common and powerful image of good and evil,² of God’s way and the world’s way, of Jesus himself and the forces opposing him. When the metaphor speaks of us, we can either be in the dark,³ or, as in today’s reading, we can actually be dark (v 8). There is a story of a grandfather teaching his grandson. ‘You have two dogs inside you’, says the grandfather, ‘a dark one and a light one and they are always fighting’. ‘Which one will win?’ asks the boy. ‘The one you feed’, says the grandfather.

These readings are about feeding those inner dogs, about the forces that compete for our loyalty and about which ones we choose to foster. We feed the inner light by focusing our minds on ‘goodness, righteousness and truth’ (v 9) and all the other good and clean things Paul lists elsewhere: whatever is true, pure, kind, gentle and admirable, ‘think on these things’.⁴ We feed the dark side by allowing our minds to stay fixed on wrong things – possessions, self-indulgence, excesses, sexual impurity and things Paul dares not even mention (v 12). Temptation is everywhere, pervading our decadent society. Temptation is not wrong, but to indulge it is a choice. We can watch immoral movies, we can fantasise about self-image. We can click on the link when pornography inserts itself unbidden on our computer screens. Thus we feed the dark dog and therein lies danger. We can, writes James, be lured away from the light by our own uncontrolled desires. ‘… after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death’.⁵ 

‘Praise to the Lord, who when darkness of sin is abounding, / who, when the godless do triumph, our best hopes confounding, / sheds forth his light, / scatters the horrors of night,/ saints with his mercy surrounding.’⁶

¹ 1 John 1:7  ² Isa 5:20  ³ Isa 9:2  ⁴ Phil 4:8, KJV  ⁵ James 1:15  ⁶ Joachim Neander, 1650–80, ‘Praise to the Lord’