Who are we? We’d lived in Wotton for about two months before I first noticed it. Margaret (my wife) and I were making our way home from one of the first gatherings of the Wotton Community Choir (no auditions!) It was about 10pm. When the street lights ran out, I looked up and I noticed the stars. It is the first place I’ve lived that I’ve been able to see the night sky in all its splendour – just blackness and beauty over the Cotswolds. And it’s one of those strange things, isn’t it, the darker the background, the brighter the lights show.
In this chapter of Ephesians, Paul paints a very dark picture of humanity, of who we are left to ourselves outside of the mercy and grace of God. He uses over-the-top language, not to run humanity down, but in order to emphasise the grace and beauty of what God has done. It’s only when we understand the real context in which God has sent his Son into the world and what he has achieved through his cross and resurrection that we fully understand grace.
The context of scripture is always that which is set out for us in the f irst three chapters of the Bible. It is a world created good and beautiful by God, a world that has been spoiled by sin, a world in which humanity’s relationship with its Creator is broken: as a result of which, all kinds of things happen which we would describe as wrong, sinful and painful. That’s the Bible context in which we as Christians live our lives. But of course if you’re not sure about God, or don’t believe in God, or only refer to God when you want to get angry with him when things go wrong… and you think we can solve the world’s problems left to ourselves, then the biblical world view doesn’t make any sense. Jesus is only a wonderful Saviour if we realise that we actually need saving.
