Ephesians 4:17-19 (NIV)
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. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Paul knew well that the vast majority of the Ephesian Christians had been gentiles, idolators, worshipers of the pantheon of Greek gods, and especially devoted to Artemis, whose temple and giant image were constructed in the heart of the city. It would have been very easy for them to continue in many of the pagan practices and feasts that they had participated in before they had become believers, and which their family, friends, coworkers and employers still participated in, under the guise of “cultural practices”.

But Paul knew that no allowances could be made for elements of a lifestyle, or even of a “culture” that would separate these disciples from God and lead ultimately to spiritual death. Instead, they must live their lives as new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), no longer Jew or gentile, male or female, slave or free, Ephesian or Roman (Colossians 3:11), but as citizens of God’s kingdom and part of the body of Christ..

There was to be no allowance made for the excessive sensuality or sexual impurity that so many of the Greek cities were known for. Instead, all disciples must live as children of light, exchanging their old lives of depravity for new lives of purity. Exchanging their lives of self-focused sensuality for new lives centered on Christ and focused on service and agape love for others.

Father, it can be easy for us to dismiss many sins and spiritually dangerous behaviors in new converts as “cultural issues”, only to see those behaviors weaken them, draw them down, and ultimately cause them to fall away. Sometimes we wave off any sense of responsibility, deciding that they must have been “shallow soil”. But Paul accepted no such compromises or excuses. He insisted (strongly, as we see here) that new converts leave all those things behind immediately and take up the new life of a citizen of Your kingdom. Help us, Lord, to have these same priorities for those who come to Jesus through our ministry, so that they can quickly grow into strong, healthy, reproducing disciples of Jesus. Amen.