Some passages seem to need so much commentary to enter into their complex recesses to pull out hidden guidance, while others seem to hide their wisdom in plain view, shimmering on the surface. Let’s try this one as a test case:

“All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling
must be removed from you, along with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31).

I suppose we could try to parse the Greek of “bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, reviling …and malice,” but they seem pretty clear to me, especially as I drove through Chicago traffic yesterday. You would be amazed that out of all the people on the road, I am the only one who knows how to drive! What a gift God has given me. The gift disappeared in the wisp of anger, shouting and reviling, however, as I negotiated the inevitable summer lane closures.

“And be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ” (Ephesians 4:32).

This makes sense also, though you would not believe the sort of people I have to deal with in my life. Do you think God truly wants me to be compassionate and kind to them, forgiving them for their rudeness, insolence and stupidity…you know, they have the kind of attitude I personally would never have!

“So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

This one’s easy: we are children of God, called to imitate God and model our love of neighbor and God on Christ’s sacrificial love for us. I know that the whole conception of “imitation” has Greek roots in Platonic and other Greek philosophical thought, and “sacrifice,” well, you could write a book on that, I suppose, but these seem to be straightforward in terms of practical application. We should imitate God’s love for everyone and care for all of those whom we meet.

I certainly wish I could do a bit more commentary on this passage; it seems too straightforward and clear to me.

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.