Ephesians

The Underlying Error of the World

If you know how to balance a checkbook (I never mastered the art myself, but I understand the general principle), then you know how one little error can upset all your calculations and change the entire picture. You do not need a lot of errors to find yourself in a lot of trouble. Just one transposed figure, one error in subtraction—and all the rest of your absolutely faultless calculations can be thrown into error. A single slipped digit in a column of figures can cause a dozen checks to bounce like ping-pong balls!

That is the way it is with the error that underlies the thinking of the world. There is much truth and cogent logic in the world’s reasoning, but human thinking is mingled with error. Unless we know how to distinguish the true from the false in the calculations of our lives, we will inevitably find ourselves in a moral and spiritual catastrophe.

In Ephesians 4 Paul tells us that there is a fundamental error in human thinking. The basic premises and assumptions of human thinking are distorted. So we cannot begin with those premises and assumptions, and simply add Christianity onto our worldly worldview. We must completely alter our way of thinking. We must shed the old ways of thinking, and start over with new premises and assumptions, which come from God Himself.