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Ephesians 4:17

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.
(NIV)
We live in a world that assumes that it has cornered the market on thinking. Christians are portrayed in the media as stupid or silly. Usually even when a Christian is portrayed in a positive manner, they are almost lifted up for their ability to live by this great blind faith. Which sounds nice until you really stop to think about it. I would say that the reason I have faith is not because I am walking blind, but because Christ has opened my eyes.

According to this verse, the ones who are living with a futility of thinking, is not the Christian crowd, but the Gentiles. A Gentile commonly is considered one who is not a Jew, but to understand it, the way they would have understood it in its context, consider a Gentile as one who does not have a Judeo-Christian Worldview.

Paul is telling us here that we should no longer think as people who do not view the world through the correct lens. When you have the truth, you should view the world through that truth. Paul is insisting on it because he knows where futile thinking can lead.

In our media, the ones who are painted as the most enlightened people are the people that believe that there is no absolute truth. "You have to find out what is right for you..." Many times it is the person who has accepted his friends homosexual lifestyle who is painted as the one who has received higher truth. The kid who abandons his parents authority is portrayed as wiser than his parents in the world's media. We get to behold a sentimental moment of truth when the girl realizes that the best thing to do for herself is to get the abortion. And we applaud on Oprah when the wife who has toiled for her children and her husband finally goes out and does something for herself.

I could go on.

Have you abandoned futile thinking? Have you run to God's word for real truth. If you have not come to God yet, do it. You will not find His truth to be shallow. You will not find contradictions in His teachings. You will not come up wanting for more when you delve into Him.

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