Introduction: There is a lot of moralistic therapeutic deism (to use Christian Smith’s phrase in his book Soul Searching) about. I lament how many people have chucked the Christian faith because they were insulted at the shallowness and baby talk that passes for ostensibly Christian teaching. If my mind is not engaged, I check out. I think there may be others who understand.

I was having to do what I would normally caution against unless it’s necessary: I was having to view the Christian body today via sermons from solid expositors on YouTube. I was blessed to easily find Sinclair Ferguson’s ministry again. He is a resource for me, one to whom I can rely for depth and wisdom. I have read many of his books and have benefited from him immensely.

With Ferguson my mind is engaged. He refers oftentimes in his teaching to church history, so that believers today understand our kinship and lineage with saints who have gone before us. I wish that Christians today would study church history. I’m sitting in my reading chair at the moment and on my shelves are the sermons of the Puritans, the works of Jonathan Edwards, volumes of Lloyd-Jones and seminal volumes from the Reformation. Why? Because one sees there the connections to the gospel and to the saints of the past and to the development of theology as we refine our understanding in light of the authority of Scripture.

Ephsians 5: One of my favorite sections of Scripture comes in Ephesians 5. I think I appreciate it so much because it is filled with contrasts: not this way but that way; rather than that, do this, etc. We learn best by seeing contrasts. Here’s the way Paul puts it in Ephesians 5:15-21:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Paul Calls Believers’ Attention to the Contrasts:

V. 15–Unwise vs. wise

V. 16–Wasting of time vs. stewardship of one’s allotted time

Vv. 17-21–Secular squandering vs. sacred vocation

Ephesians 5:16 remains one of my favorite gems of Scripture: “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” The older I get, the fewer days I have remaining. That’s a tautology and self-evident. And so this gem from the NT becomes more and more potent when I think on it and in light of the biblical narrative.

We have a portion of days marked out for us. Therefore, the wise person will steward those days rather than squander them. I don’t know about you, but when I reflect on how much time I have wasted on things and activities that were just wood, hay, and straw, I am convicted. I don’t want to repeat that pattern. I think that’s why this passage from Paul is so powerful. It shows the sundry contrasts between the foolish way vs. the wise way.

Encouragement: Maybe it’s just to me, but maybe to you, too: If you have ever known in your gut–at the visceral level–that you have one life, and that you long for it to count for the right reasons, and you long to be a faithful doulos, may we heed what has been revealed: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).