From Paganism to Christianity

In this more practical section of his letter to the Church at Ephesus, Paul began his instruction to church members concerning Christian living, with special attention to the intellectual aspect of their being. Since this aspect has so much influence over every other aspect of their being, it is crucial that he address their need for repentance unto godliness in their thinking. By definition, this is a work that at its root is an individual discipline, but for believers in Christ, it is a work that has corporate ramifications. He issued imperatives regarding the kind of thinking they were to forsake and the particular things they were to occupy themselves with in this aspect of being. From birth, by experience, and under the influence of Satan and society, they had developed presuppositions and habits of thought that they must rid themselves of mounting an continual effort to replace them with those things Christ taught in His Word, illuminated by the Spirit and preached by pastors. Obedience was crucial because their words and actions directly follow from their thinking.