Walking in a worthy manner

Paul speaks here of walking in a worthy manner. It is one of his favourite metaphors, and he is referring to a lifestyle—a whole way of walking, of living—that believers are to embrace. If you have become a Christian, then you have been called, sovereignly, by God into his kingdom and into the destiny of his glory. You have been changed. You have been born again. There is a new life. You do realize that to be a Christian is not just to add on some new things to the old. You cannot just say, Oh, I’m the same guy. No changes. I just go to church now. Or I give some money away. Or I, you know, I have a Bible. Even better, I have a Bible with a Bible cover on it. I have a sticker on my car. I have added—no, no. Christianity is not adding stickers to your life.

It is the end of a life and the beginning of a new life: I have been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. Now, I look the same. I have the same address. I may have the same talents in some respects. But what does the New Testament say? Behold, the old has gone, the new has come—a whole new lifestyle in its character. I think we understand how this works in secular matters. Take a soldier, for instance, who is called to join the elite Special Forces. Well, we no longer expect that soldier to be like the other soldiers, do we? That soldier is now to display a standard of valour and fitness and skill that is a cut above—and maybe, in fact, completely different. A different kind of mission. He is a different kind of soldier than he was—and than others are. Or consider marriage. What a calling marriage is. You are a wife or a husband. The old is gone. The new has come. There are things that you used to be able to do—they are no longer appropriate to you. There are things that were inappropriate to you—now they are appropriate. You have obligations; you have blessings. Your calling redefines the way that you are to live. Your whole lifestyle has changed. Well, likewise, when a sinner has been called into salvation through Jesus Christ—entering God’s kingdom, becoming an heir of glory—that Christian needs to realize that he or she is obligated to leave behind, especially, the former ways of sin and to embrace a new life of practical godliness and service to the Lord.¹

Richard D. Phillips