Wednesday, August 1, 2007
"You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14).
"Therefore, putting away lying, 'Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,' for we are members of one another" (Ephesians 4:25).
IDEA: Honesty helps intimacy in marriage.
PURPOSE: To help listeners recognize the importance of honesty to achieve intimacy.
Paul was fond of using the image of a body to get across some spiritual truth.
What is there about a human body that he uses to get across the truth?
To what kinds of situations does he apply the image?
In Ephesians 2 and 3, the body image refers to the church;
In Ephesians 4:25, our being members of one another refers to the church;
In Ephesians 5:28 it refers to the physical body and the marriage relationship, but in v. 30 it refers to the church.
In every case, Paul uses the image of a body to show our inter-dependency as members of one another.
I. In Ephesians 4:25 Paul says that we should be honest and speak truth to one another because we are members of one body.
That applies to intimacy in any relationship and particularly to the relationship of husbands and wives in marriage.
In a healthy physical body there must be free and open communication.
When the brain sends signals to the feet, those signals have to be clear. There are people who have no feeling in their hands or feet, so these do not send accurate signals to the brain.
In leprosy the failure of the members to communicate to the brain does more damage than any other aspect of the disease.
Open, honest communication is more than simply transferring information.
The word communication means “a meeting of meanings.” It’s the same word used for “communion” or a commune.
Communication is ideas wrapped in feelings, not merely asking someone to pass the bread. Communication is more than simply talking about the weather.
II. Sometimes in our relationships with each other, we become angry, Ephesians 4:26. Good communication does not keep anger from happening.
Two people living together in a marriage must recognize that both of them are depraved, and depraved people do and say things that make other people angry.
Sometimes Christians deny the presence of anger, calling it righteous indignation. But our “righteous indignation” often looks just like pagan anger.
If we fail to admit that we’re angry, that is a form of dishonesty.