Episode 764
Transforming Lives Through Extravagant Love: The Message of Ephesians 4 | Ep 764
Embracing Authentic Transformation
Welcome to the "Daily Bible Refresh" featuring Rev. Dr. Brad Miller as he delves into a powerful passage from the New Testament. In this episode, we explore Ephesians 4:17-52 through the Message version, emphasizing the call for an authentic life transformation grounded in love, truth, and spiritual growth. Here are three key takeaways from the discussion:
1. Authentic Transformation Over Religious Performance: Rev. Dr. Brad Miller emphasizes that Ephesians 4:17-52 is not about superficial behavioral changes or merely following religious rituals. Instead, it calls for deep, genuine transformation that starts from within. This passage urges us to move beyond performative religiosity to embrace genuine spiritual growth that influences our actions and relationships. The journey is about becoming our truest, most authentic selves, rooted in the teachings and love of Jesus Christ.
2. The Political Nature of Personal Change: Paul’s message in Ephesians also speaks to the political implications of personal transformation. By urging Christians not to follow the crowd but instead to reject harmful societal norms, we are called to resist systemic patterns of injustice, inequality, and exploitation. Rev. Dr. Miller highlights that personal change can have a broader societal impact. How we spend our money, treat others, and engage in the workplace plays a crucial role in promoting justice and truth. By transforming ourselves, we can start to transform society.
3. Love as a Revolutionary Practice: The episode underscores the revolutionary power of Christ-like love. Unlike the superficial love often portrayed in popular culture, the love described by Paul is deep and transformative. It challenges the status quo and fosters genuine community. Rev. Dr. Miller encourages us to love extravagantly and unconditionally, just as Christ did. This type of love can disrupt oppressive systems and build authentic connections, nurturing a transformational society instead of a merely transactional one.
Action Step: Rev. Dr. Miller encourages listeners to identify one area in their lives where they might be operating on autopilot or perpetuating unconscious biases. Whether it's a consumer habit or how we communicate with others, making a conscious effort to change a single practice can align us more closely with the principle of extravagant love. This could involve supporting local businesses, actively listening to others, or examining our language and attitudes.
Resource Mentioned:
ABC 123 Bible Study Guide: Available at voiceofgoddaily.com, this guide offers simple steps to deepen your understanding and application of the Bible.
Join us as we embark on a journey of authentic transformation and revolutionary love. Until next time, remember that God’s love is abundant and renewed every morning. Amen.
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The "Daily Bible Refresh" is presented each day by Rev. Dr. Brad Miller who has a goal of speaking a bit of the bible into two million ears (one million people) in three years (2025-2028).
He is the author of "The A, B, C-1,2,3 Bible Study Guide" Free to you by clicking HERE.
Brad served as a local church pastor for forty years and has a background in radio and podcasting. Moreover, he is a life-long student of The Bible.
He believes in the words of Jesus that “scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21)
The "Daily Bible Refresh" is available seven days a week by 6:00 am ET. The episodes are no longer than ten minutes long and are...
- Understandable: A reading from the New Testament (usually the Gospel) selected from the Revised Common Lectionary using "The Message" translation.
- Relatable: You will have a couple of "points to ponder" from the text which will relate to your life
- Applicable: Every episode includes a way you can take action based on the reading
- A recommended resource to help you go deeper in biblical study and spiritual direction.
- A prayer for your day.
A companion resource to the Voice of God Daily Podcast is the “ABC Bible Study Guide” available by clicking HERE.
The "Daily Bible Refresh" is available every day at VoiceofGodDaily.com on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all major podcast directories.
You can help Dr. Brad attain his goal of getting a bit of the bible into two million ears by subscribing to "Daily Bible Refresh" on Apple Podcasts, leaving a five-star rating, and writing a review. More importantly please share with your network of family and friends about the "Daily Bible Refresh".
Please make listening to the "Daily Bible Refresh" a part of your daily life.
Remember… “All scripture is God-breathed and useful”(2 Timothy 3:16)
Transcript
Hello, good people, and welcome to Daily
Speaker:Bible Refresh. My name is doctor Brad
Speaker:Miller, and Daily Bible Refresh is brought to you by voice
Speaker:of god daily.com. And what daily
Speaker:bible refresh is is a daily reading of the scriptures
Speaker:done in a refreshing way. So we read from
Speaker:the new testament only. We read from the message
Speaker:version of the Bible. We read from the
Speaker:revised common lectionary, which is the
Speaker:selected verse of scripture for this very day. We're in
Speaker:year c of the revised common lectionary, and we are in the
Speaker:epiphany season. And we do so by reading the scripture in
Speaker:an understandable manner from the message version of the new testament only. We
Speaker:make it relatable by having a couple of points to ponder, and we make it
Speaker:applicable by having an action point for you to follow,
Speaker:based on the scripture. And we do all that and have
Speaker:a prayer in under 10 minutes. Our reading for the day is from
Speaker:Ephesians 4 17 through
Speaker:52, reading from the message. The old way has to
Speaker:go. And so I insist, and god backs me
Speaker:up on this, that there be
Speaker:no going along with the crowd, the empty
Speaker:headed, mindless crowd. They've
Speaker:refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost
Speaker:touch not only with God, but with reality
Speaker:itself. They can't think straight anymore.
Speaker:Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual
Speaker:obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.
Speaker:But that's no life for you. You learned Christ.
Speaker:My assumption is that you have paid careful attention
Speaker:to him, been well instructed in the truth
Speaker:precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since then,
Speaker:we do not have the excuse of ignorance.
Speaker:Everything, and I do mean everything, connected with
Speaker:that old way of life has to go. It's
Speaker:rotten through and through. Get rid of it and
Speaker:then take on an entirely new way of
Speaker:life, a god fashioned life,
Speaker:a life renewed from the inside and working itself
Speaker:into your conduct as god accurately
Speaker:reproduces his character in you.
Speaker:What this adds up to then is this, no more lies,
Speaker:no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In
Speaker:Christ's body, we're all connected to each other. After
Speaker:all, when you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.
Speaker:Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry, but don't use your
Speaker:anger as fuel for revenge, and don't stay
Speaker:angry. Don't go to bed angry. Don't give the devil
Speaker:that kind of foothold in your life. Did you
Speaker:used to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more. Get an honest
Speaker:job so that you could help others who can't work. And
Speaker:watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your
Speaker:mouth. Say only what helps, each word
Speaker:a gift. Don't grieve God. Don't break his
Speaker:heart. His holy spirit moving and breathing in you
Speaker:is the most intimate part of your life, making you
Speaker:fit for himself. So don't take such a gift for
Speaker:granted. Make a clean break from all cutting,
Speaker:backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another,
Speaker:sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly
Speaker:as God in Christ forgave you. So wake up
Speaker:from your sleep. Watch what God does and then you do
Speaker:it like children who learn proper behavior from their
Speaker:parents. Mostly what God does is love
Speaker:you. Keep company with him and learn a life
Speaker:of love. Observe how God loved us.
Speaker:He loved us not cautious, but
Speaker:extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from
Speaker:us, but to give everything of himself to
Speaker:us. Love like that.
Speaker:Wow. What an extraordinary passage of scripture. It's about living
Speaker:an authentic life of love, and you transform yourself.
Speaker:When you do that, you transform community. So let's talk about it a little bit,
Speaker:a couple of points to ponder. This is indeed about authentic
Speaker:transformation over religious performance. Paul isn't
Speaker:talking here about some superficial behavioral
Speaker:modification or a frugal following. He describes
Speaker:a deep authentic transformation that starts
Speaker:from within. See, in progressive Christianity, we understand this is
Speaker:moving beyond a performative religious,
Speaker:nature to a genuine spiritual growth that affects how
Speaker:we treat ourselves and how we treat others. So it's not about
Speaker:shame or guilt, but about growing in our truest, most
Speaker:authentic selves. And there's the political
Speaker:nature. Another point is the political nature of personal change. Paul talks
Speaker:about not going along with the crowd. He's talking about really making
Speaker:a radical statement about resisting resisting
Speaker:systematic patterns of harm and injustice. In
Speaker:our modern context, this means we might wanna question some
Speaker:of the societal norms that perpetuate things like
Speaker:inequality and exploitation and environmental
Speaker:destruction. It starts with personal transformation, but
Speaker:it also has societal and political implications.
Speaker:How we spend our money, how we treat others, how we treat our workers if
Speaker:we're employer, how we plead our employer if we're a worker,
Speaker:and engage in systems where, engage
Speaker:systems where we can speak truth to power.
Speaker:It also talks here another point is about love as a revolutionary
Speaker:practice. It calls upon extravagant
Speaker:love. Did you get that part of things? Christ like love. This
Speaker:isn't just kind of sentimental woo woo love that's
Speaker:kind of portrayed in popular culture. It's not surface level. It's a
Speaker:revolutionary force that changes and
Speaker:transacts that changes a transactional society into
Speaker:transformational society. Paul says, love like
Speaker:that, and he's calling us to love like Jesus love. And
Speaker:that disrupts a world where oppression is an arm and
Speaker:creates genuine community. So here's your action
Speaker:step. Identify one area where you've been operating kind
Speaker:of on autopilot in your relationships, maybe in the
Speaker:workplace or some other group of people that you
Speaker:are connected with. Perhaps it's an unconscious
Speaker:bias or some consumer habit you have
Speaker:of buying too much or consuming too much of something that's not healthy
Speaker:or good or maybe it's how you talk to others. Choose a
Speaker:practice and have some intentional awareness about that
Speaker:practice and make a concrete change for the better that more
Speaker:aligns with the value of extravagant
Speaker:love. So for instance, you might
Speaker:wanna support a local business that may not be part of some
Speaker:giant corporation or maybe you want to actively listen to
Speaker:someone who, others might dismiss a child
Speaker:perhaps. Maybe you need just to examine your own language
Speaker:or your own unconscious prejudices. Something to
Speaker:think about, something to apply to your life. Before we
Speaker:pray, I want to remind you that we do have a resource to help you
Speaker:apply the Bible to your life. It's, called the ABC 123
Speaker:Bible study guide. I came up with it a couple years ago. I just want
Speaker:to give it to you as a gift. It helps you to read the Bible
Speaker:and to study the Bible as easy as a, b, c
Speaker:123. You just go to our website voice of god
Speaker:daily.com, and you can pick up
Speaker:that resource right there. Let's pray. Loving God, we live
Speaker:in a world that often pushes us toward mindless consumption
Speaker:and superficial relationships. Help us pause and
Speaker:examine our patterns not with shame, but with hope and transformation.
Speaker:Give us courage to love extravagantly even when it costs us
Speaker:something. Show us how to build authentic community that challenges
Speaker:the status quo and reflects your revolutionary love.
Speaker:Guide us in speaking truth, manage our anger for justice,
Speaker:and creating spaces for genuine healing. May our
Speaker:own personal transformation ripple outward to touch
Speaker:our community and our world. Amen.
Speaker:Well, my name is doctor Brad Miller here on the on the daily bible
Speaker:refresh. I'll be with you again tomorrow. Until that
Speaker:time, please just remember that god's love
Speaker:doesn't run out. His merciful love never
Speaker:dries up. It's created new
Speaker:every morning.
