Not Even a Hint

I was thinking about Ephesians 5:3 last night.

“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.”

At least in my religious world, we tend to focus on the first part of the verse, that we shouldn’t have a “hint of sexual immorality.” I suspect the idea is that if we go around willy-nilly, even if we haven’t been sexually impure, we can still lose credibility with those outside the church if they think we’re just like everyone else.

But the verse goes on to talk about “any kind of impurity” and “greed.” I’d never really noticed that before. I don’t think we’ve really emphasized that part of the verse near as much as we emphasize the sexual immorality part. I’ve never seen that verse used when someone wants to buy a big house or buy another car or whatever. Why is that? Why is it that we’ve set up sexual immorality as the end-all sin when the Bible seems to consistently bring up the issues of money and greed?

Is it because our culture today is so much more sexual today than it was 2,000 years ago and so it has become a more important issue? From what I know about 1st century culture this probably isn’t the case (um…temple prostitutes?). Regardless, could we also make the argument that greed hasn’t remained a huge problem? And perhaps we could argue that in America greed has become the norm, if not an honored virtue (every actor, rock star, and rapper to show up on MTV Cribs - see photo...oh, nevermind that estate isn't from Cribs, it belongs to Pastor Joyce Meyer, my bad).

Here are a couple things that come to mind…

The parable of the guy who builds the bigger barns to store all of his stuff, and then dies that very night.

The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. What is the only sin mentioned of the Rich Man? He doesn’t give anything to the beggar outside his front door.

Jesus reads the Isaiah scroll in the synagogue about how he came to bring good news to the poor. Woe to you teachers of the law who are clean on the outside and on the inside full of greed (paraphrased, see Matt 23:25).

We could go on and on of course, but I guess my overall question is, why is it that 2,000 years ago Jesus talks so much about money, wealth, greed, poverty, etc. but today it’s talked about so very little. A family in the church replete with sexual immorality (the husband or wife is adulterous, the teenage kids are having sex, etc.) is likely to be called out and go through some sort of process which may result in their being removed from the church. But can we imagine a scenario where a family equally fraught with greed (excessive sized house, not giving to the needy…I’d better stop there lest I be talking about a family you know and step on any toes – wouldn’t want that) might go through a similar process?