“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient” (Eph 5:6 NIV).
“He [Moses] said to them, ‘Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess’ ” (Deut 32:46-47 ESV).
Signal-to-noise ratio
Apart from a technical meaning (familiar perhaps only to those with an engineering background), this term has come to have a more common meaning: “The ratio of useful information to useless information in any given statement.”1It is becoming an enormously difficult problem in our modern society to distinguish empty words from words which may form our very life, words that can help us achieve eternal life. In fact, there are two problems:
- There is a tendency to rely on the internet as the source of all human knowledge, even those items related to our eternal salvation.
- The Internet is so vast, at around 1 billion (US) sites, and an amount of data that has to be written in scientific nomenclature: 1024 bytes, or more usefully 1024 individual alphanumeric characters.
There are of course several consequences:
- We expect to find any information we want on the internet.
- There is an incredible amount of information on the internet, both true or false, both valuable and worthless or worse. This makes it very difficult to find reliable information, even if the information is actually there.
- The shear amount of information, in the form of Web pages, Facebook groups, private forums, creates so much noise that useful information is difficult to obtain: there is too much noise.
To take the first consequence: Anyone who has studied any subject in depth recognizes how much knowledge is either unpublished, considered proprietary, or in the heads of experts in the field. To take a trivial example, to build a modern reliable automobile in high volume requires the combined skills of a large number of experts and hard won knowledge, almost none of which is readily available. And perhaps more relevantly, of the information I possess either in hard copy (books, etc.) or electronically about the Christadelphian community, less than 1% can be found on the internet.
The second consequence: There are around 400,000 sites with the term “Christadelphian” in them: many are just mentions, and quite a number are from those opposed to us, but that still leaves an overwhelming number of sites to look at. And this excludes the areas of the internet many rely on for their information — sites like Facebook and all the other social media sites.
Noise: Information flies at lightning speed from person to person, often spreading rumors, half-truths, false accusations, etc. They sometimes excuse the basest of sins, by words such as: “If it feels good, do it,” “If it hurts no one else there’s nothing wrong with it.” These are the empty words Paul is talking about: “Let no one deceive you with empty arguments [that encourage you to sin], for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon those who habitually sin” (Eph 5:6, AMP). Among all the words, we have the tendency to choose the ones that best fit what we want, not what is the best for us or the ones that reflect the will of God.
Empty words
In the context of Ephesians, the “empty words” refer particularly to those on whom God’s judgement will fall, who will be subject to the wrath of God. Because those guilty of the empty words are those who are immoral, impure, or greedy, as the NET puts v. 5. They want to persuade true believers that a little indulgence in the normal customs of the time are harmless. And this is one of the great problems of the “noise” on the internet: the sheer volume of “vulgar speech, foolish talk, or coarse jesting” to be found there almost desensitizes those who browse it to what are actually highly immoral activities. The three Greek words translated by the NET in verse 4 as “vulgar speech, foolish talk, and coarse jesting” are all only used once in the New Testament, and are difficult to translate, but are clearly terms for language unsuitable for believers to utter, and ones they should be avoiding. Good wholesome humor is sometimes what we need to brighten our spirits, but the apostle stresses thankfulness over wittiness. As he says: “always giving thanks to God the Father for each other in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 5:20).
Many are the words, empty of spiritual meaning, that we hear or read, and especially in the anonymity of the internet, with its chat rooms and anonymous browsing. How often when looking at harmless news sites do pop-ups or images tempt you to look at other sites, often not so harmless? How often does the language in exchanges, even between Christadelphians, reflect sentiments that ought not to be uttered? How many times do you read opinions that are based on ignorance rather than any appreciation of the truths so clear in the Bible?
How many times do we think:
- “If it feels good, you can do it” ?
- “If it hurts no one else there’s nothing wrong with it” ?
- “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey that counts” ?
- “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”
- “No-one will know if I just…” ?
- “There is no harm in a little…” ?
Is there a solution?
“For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long.” As there are empty words, unsuitable words, there are instead words full of life. Words we can hear at our ecclesias, when we converse with our friends. Words we can read from the Bible, words we can read from the books of our community, and if we are careful many other books that can help us in our life of what we hope is full of thanks to God and our Lord Jesus. And perhaps most important of these, words we hear from our fellow members, whether be it inside the ecclesial building or outside it. But we must stress these ought not to be “empty words” of idle gossip, trivial chit-chat, repeats of scandal, but conversations about those things that matter: the upbringing of children, affairs of our community, Bible-based discussions, and enjoying “speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your hearts to the Lord” (Eph 5:19).
And we can also enjoy the internet, and take advantage of what it has to offer, which is a great deal. If you have a talk to deliver or are studying a particular subject, there are many resources on almost any topic and any passage in the Bible. There are many of the classic books of our community available online. Many audio classes, especially from Bible Schools, are available at sites like the Christadelphian Vault and the Livonia Tape Library. Christadelphian videos are also available on YouTube, although care has to be exercised in general on this site. These tools can allow you to listen to excellent talks on your computer or while driving.
We have to work at it
It is so easy to sit back in front of your computer and let your mind wander along the pathways of all the distractions it presents. It is like the empty words of Paul’s day, full of enticements to indulge in the seemingly harmless ways of the world. All things change and advance, but human nature has changed little over the millennia. As the Phillips translation puts it: “The key-note of your conversation should not be nastiness or silliness or flippancy, but a sense of all that we owe to God” (Eph 5:4). For “conversation” we could insert “internet surfing” or “social media use.”
So how do we make it easy to turn our conversation to paths more suitable for believers? How do we walk in the light of the truth? How do we make our mind turn away from the idle temptations of our society? I do not mean we are to isolate ourselves in our little cocoons of ecclesia and family, for how are we to let our light shine forth if we hide ourselves. And I do not mean we have to turn every conversation with our work colleagues into an overt preaching effort, or refuse to discuss anything but Bible topics — but it should be clear where our interests lie, which does not include off-color jokes or rants about our politicians. For our days are just as evil as those of the Ephesians.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One