Ephesians 5:1-20

In this chapter, Paul is outlining things people do and ways people act, which are in direct conflict with belief in Christ.

It doesn't seem so much to be, "do (or don't do) these things, and you won't get your passport to Heaven"

Rather, it's, "if you accept that Christ loved you, these things/acts are unnatural and contradictory to the love you've accepted"

There's a lot of metaphorical use of "light" in this passage.

In v.8, the NRSV says, "you were darkness, but now...you are light..."
Followers of Christ are called "light" and "children of light"- maybe meant to instill the idea of embodying, being the physical manifestation of light, and spreading that light.

In v.9 "...the fruit of the light..."
There's the idea of the result of exposure to light being restored to "good and right and true"

v. 11 "...the unfruitful works of darkness..."
The flip side of the above, that if light bears fruit, darkness bears its anti-fruit...

v 13-14 "...everything exposed by the light...everything that becomes visible is light."
And the goodness and correctness of exposing dark things to light in order to make them visible thereby turning them back to "light"


Still churning in my mind, hopefully I'll have some good spiritual butter by the end of the day. :)