¹  Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;
²  and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
⁶  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
⁷  Therefore do not be partakers with them;
⁸  for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light
⁹  (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
¹⁰  trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
¹¹  Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them;
¹²  for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.
¹³  But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.
¹⁴  For this reason it says, “Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.”
¹⁵  Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise,
¹⁶  making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

1) What does it mean to be an imitator of God where race is concerned?
To be an imitator of God is to be an imitator of Jesus. In His time on earth, Jews did not talk to Samaritans. Samaritans were considered half-breeds. They were the offspring of the descendants from the Northern tribe of Israel and the Canaanites that inhabited their lands. Monotheistic Jews did not like Samaritans because they often worshipped God alongside all their pagan gods. However, we see Jesus on multiple occasions associating with or encouraging others to associate with Samaritans. A few examples are when He talked to the woman at the well (John 4:4-26) and when He told the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). In both cases, Jesus treats the Samaritan just as He would treat a fellow Jew. He makes no distinction between race.

2) What does it mean to walk in love?
The Greek word for “walk” is paripateo, and it means to live or behave in a specified manner. The Greek word for “love” is agape, and it means a strong affection and regard for a person and their good. It is especially characterized by a willing forfeiture of rights or privileges on another person’s behalf. This is the kind of love that Christ displayed on the cross. He gave up His own rights to do what as best on our behalf. So, to walk in love means to care more about another than you care about yourself, to live in such a way that you are doing what is best for the other person, not what is always best for yourself.

3) What do deceptive words look like in verse 6?
In this passage, Paul just got done telling them what sins to stay away from-immorality, impurity, greed, filthiness and silly talk, or course jesting. The deception was coming from men who were telling them that these things really wouldn’t hurt them. “Everyone is doing it!”, they would say. Gnosticism was running rampant at the time, and Gnostics believed that sin could only touch the body, but couldn’t harm the soul. Paul is warning the Ephesians that these men are wrong and that the wrath of God will come on them.

4) How can we expose the deeds of darkness to the Light?
In verse 7, Paul says, “Therefore do not be partakers with them.” The first step he gave the Ephesians was to not participate in these acts of sin. He reminds them that they’ve been saved from the darkness and are now children of Light. In verse 11, he says again, “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.” The word expose actually means to reprove with conviction upon the offender. In other words, they were to correct the sinner, make them aware of their sinful patterns, not just ignore them!

1) What does it mean to be an imitator of God where race is concerned?
In our world today, the best way to imitate Jesus is to treat everyone as equals- red, yellow, black, and white, rich, poor, EVERYONE!! God doesn’t show partiality (Romans 2:11), and He doesn’t want us to either. Ask yourself what thoughts or attitudes or words or actions in your life need to change to truly see every single person as an image bearer of God.

2) What does it mean to walk in love?
I think to walk in love in our culture today means to look fear square in the face and tell it to leave in Jesus name!! We have been sent so many messages about people that are different than us. They’re dangerous. They don’t like you. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. They’re lazy. They’re thieves. On and on and on, but here’s the deal, until you get to know each person individually, you can’t know any of those things about them. Is it scary to walk in love? YES!!! Do you think Jesus really wanted to die on the cross? He did that, knowing every single thing He was about to endure, because He loves us. We must conquer our fears and walk in love when it comes to people that don’t look like us or talk like us or act like us. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

3) What do deceptive words look like in verse 6?
Today, deceptive words look like racial jokes and racial slurs. They can even be attitudes that are deceptive. Ideas that we believe about other races that have been taught to us over the years or that we have perceived all on our own. I think it’s easy to let a bad encounter taint our view of a whole race. We need to be aware of where our prejudices come from and ask ourselves if we’re stereotyping a whole race of people off of an encounter that we saw on the news, or that someone told us about, or even one that we experienced for ourselves.

4) How can we expose the deeds of darkness to the Light?
For me, this means getting into God’s Word and allowing it to cut out the parts of me that are dark, the parts that don’t glorify God, the thoughts and attitudes I’ve acquired over my lifetime that don’t line up with who Jesus is. It also means that, once I know truth, I must stand up for truth. I must point out to others the darkness I see when I hear their deceptive words, their racial overtones. I must sympathize with others in their suffering. When something is going on in our world that effects those of other races, I need to let them know I care, I see, and that they’re not alone. I must walk in faith and truth and not in fear and lies.

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