Once at a Bible study I attended, I asked the question, “How does holiness and personal worship intersect? Can you have one without the other?” The men replied by saying you cannot have one without the other as they go hand in hand. But to answer how they intersect was not as easy. Personal worship is defined by how one personally worships the One True Living God. Yet we see in Ephesians 5:17-20 that personal worship only brings us closer to holiness as we become imitators of God (see verse 1 and 2). An imitator is a follower or mimic. Paul himself tells to imitate him as he imitates Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1), but here in verse 1 he tells us to specifically “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” Or to put it another way… follow your Papa, as beloved children. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:16,”You shall be holy, for I am holy”, so since our Heavenly Father is holy, we should imitate him.
If you look at this portion of the book you can see Paul shifting from the deeds of the flesh in verses 3–8 with the outflow of holiness in worship in verses 19–20. Sandwiched in between are the warnings to those who give credence to those are in darkness, and how an imitator of God should walk in this world. I like how verse 9 is a summary of Galatians 5:22-23, and how directly after that in verse 10 we are admonished to, “try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” Clearly a parallel to verses 15 and 16, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” One can only walk carefully if they are proving everything as acceptable unto their Lord. Which is how holiness and personal worship intersecting.
We didn’t talk much about verses 3–8 in our Bible study, but feel free to visit desiringgod.org or thegospelcoalition.org on sexual purity (which in the Greek, fornication means the selling of one’s sexual purity), crude talking (you could also read the book of James), being covetous, and being wise to false teachers. Their resources are just a smattering of blogs and websites that can help one leave the darkness and come to the light of the gospel, Jesus Christ.
A link is below to each of the websites:
Grace and peace, James
*Scripture from ESV, Crossway Publishers, 2001