Ephesians 4
In his letter to the Ephesians, St Paul diametrically opposes two things the world has always loved: sex and money. Just turn on your TV and check. Almost all forms of entertainment today promote and exploit sex, money or both. Some might say, “My favourite shows are about home-improvement and gardening. It should be fine to watch those.” Aren’t these shows stimulating us to own bigger, better, and more stylish homes and gardens? They directly stir up our desires to buy more to please our eyes. So, can we say these shows have nothing to do with arousing greed in our hearts?
The word of St Paul doesn’t remain as his personal opinion and view. St Paul wrote this letter under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Thus, it binds all of us. St Paul clearly warns that a person with sexual impurity or greed cannot enter heaven unless he repents. And he doesn’t leave much room for any lax interpretation of sexual immorality and greed. These have no place in the lives of the faithful at all. St Paul writes, “fornication and impurity of any kind, or greed, must not even be mentioned among you.”
But what about our daily life? From elementary school children to the elderly, all of us are under a heavy influence of sexual promiscuity. And society promotes all kinds of sexual perversity as human and legal rights or under the name of love and inclusiveness. In the meantime, money becomes everything for many people. Money becomes our master. If you have a long-term debt that will last close to your retirement, please spend some time to think for whom you’re really working. I think many people in our time are slaves of capital.
But a bigger problem is that Christians want to relax on sexual morality and run the Church for the sake of financial security and material affluence. Are these desires to bear the cross or to avoid it? When a priest or a theologian gives a novel explanation on sexual morality or suggests a more effective principle for the Church governance, we can ask if it encourages us to take the cross or to avoid it.
St Paul denounces all kinds of sexual deviations. And he definitively declares the terrible consequence of them. Jesus told his disciples to beware of greed because it is a source of all evils. And he divided God against money. No one can choose both.
Let us not be shaken by many new ideas, however attractive they are. St Paul warns again, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes on those who are disobedient.”
