Pastor’s Corner: “God’s Colors of Light”
Ephesians 5:8-9 (NIV) – 8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)
Light is remarkable, yet we go about our lives hardly giving it any thought. Scientists refer to light as both obvious and mysterious, and whenever they think they’ve got light figured out, light beautifully surprises them. Countless scientists have devoted their entire career to proving whether light is composed of particles or waves, yet remarkably it’s both. And when combined with water and soil, light helps plant life to grow, they need the light from the sun to shine upon them (It’s in Christ that we live and move and have our being). Not only that, but it moves faster than everything in the known universe – 186000 miles per second, which means that every second it travels almost 8 times around the world. (God is light… and He is all around us).
But I think one of the most interesting things about light is that it contains all colors. Light is a singular white beam, but it can be separated into many colors. Light is not singular in color but is made up of all existing colors. When I was young, I loved watching Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color on television. Though I enjoyed this show while at home, it was better by far at my grandparent’s house because they actually had a color TV. This program, which first aired during the 1960s, featured a variety of entertainment and information, all featured in glorious living color.
Ephesians 3:10 (NIV) – 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. When I read Ephesians 3:10 in Greek, I am reminded of the Wonderful World of Color. The English translation mentions the “manifold wisdom of God” which is a reasonable translation. But the Greek word translated as “manifold,” or sometimes as “diverse,” is actually a more colorful term, literally. The word manifold in verse 10, polupoikilos, is based on the word poikilos, which literally means “many-colored, spotted, dappled.” In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, poikilos describes the “many-colored” coat of Joseph ( Gen. 37:23). The addition of polu- to poikilos gives us a word that appears only here in the whole New Testament. It could be translated as “many-many-colored” or “many-multi-colored.”
The truly amazing thing about Ephesians 3:10 and 5:8-9 is that we as the church are called to be the beautiful many, many colored lights of Christ in that God and His beautiful plan of the Gospel would be made known to the whole earth and heaven! We are the many colors of God’s light revealing His Son Jesus. Paul pens the command that we walk as children of light, and then inserts this truth: We need to walk in light because it is light that produces good fruit. It is the Light of the Spirit that produces all goodness, righteousness, and truth: Jesus – the light and hope of the world. By whom we see, we know, we grow, we commune and are strengthened. He implants His light into our hearts so that we don’t have to walk through hoops to get under it, but we carry it with us wherever we go.
Why does it matter that God’s light and wisdom is many-colored? First, this fact reminds us that we should not limit God’s light and wisdom to one or two shades. It is tempting for us, once we understand something of God, to try and paint all of God with this one color. In so doing, we misrepresent God and fail to see his manifold (many, many colored) nature. Second, the fact that God’s light and wisdom is many-colored encourages us to continue to see and to experience the diversity of God’s wisdom and light. Rather than limiting God to what we already know, we continue to seek, to learn, and to grow in our knowledge of God. Third, the many-colored light and wisdom of God invites us to marvel. Even as I loved to watch Disney’s Wonderful World of Color, so you and I are encouraged to step back, to scan the horizon, and to delight in the stunning beauty of God’s light and wisdom.
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton