ON THE VANGUARD

EXPOSURE
“Have nothing to do with the deeds produced by darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things these people do in secret.”
Ephesians 5:11-12

Back before digital cameras, the choices for people wanting to take pictures were the Polaroid and roll film. While the Polaroid promised a picture within minutes, the roll film had to be rewound and sent off for processing or taken to a one hour development place. I remember both, but most of my pictures growing up were taken with the 35mm roll film. The problem I ran into with this film was that if the camera’s film loading area was opened and the film not rewound fully, the exposure of light would affect and bleach out the photo. When pictures would come back from development there would be sometimes five or so pictures that had the effect of the light. There was nothing more depressing than being so excited to see my memories, only to find my memories ruined by the sun.
This idea reminds me in a way of what Paul is saying in Ephesians 5:11-12. It is in these two verses that Paul, who has already encouraged us to mimic God and step away from even the hint of sin, now urges us to expose sin to the light. Darkness is to not to be a part of our lives in any way, but rather is to be exposed. “Have nothing to do with the deeds produced by darkness…” Have nothing, no relationship, no SUGKOINONEO, with the deeds of darkness. To define it more so, we are not to become partners or share a fellowship with the deeds of darkness. But this command is further definable. ‘Deeds’ in the Greek is written out as AKARPOS ERGON, meaning fruitless business or empty employment. ‘Darkness’ in Greek is SKOTOS, and as we see also in verse 8, means the night, as well as a blindness or ignorance of the divine things. What Paul is saying is that we are not to become partners with the empty employment that comes as a result of joining together with a blindness to sin. That is a strong challenge, yes?
So what are we to do instead? We are to expose the deeds of darkness. We are to ELEGCHO them. Elegcho means to refute, convict, or find fault with. We are by conviction to bring to the light the deeds done in darkness. We are in essence to open the camera before the film has been fully rewound. The darkness works to envelope and entrap the deeds of sin, but the light works to shine on the darkness and shadows and make it difficult for sin to hind any longer.
But why are we to expose them? The response from Paul is because, “it is shameful even to speak of the things these people do in secret.” The things these people do are dishonorable unto God and do not deserve our wasted words. In the secret, KRUPHE, they live a lifestyle detestable before God and they need to be stopped. They need to be exposed because the grip of sin will only continue to keep them down. I am reminded once more of my days of addiction. Sin kept me bound. However, as soon as the sin was exposed and brought into light, the healing was able to begin. Why? It was because sin lost its grip. The secret was no longer a secret; the camera had been opened before I had had a chance to rewind the film. Although the road to recovery was hard, the blunt fact was that the devil no longer had his dark clutches on me.
Maybe it is time, in our effort to do as Jesus would do, that we expose the sin in our own lives so that the enemy’s grip is no longer on us. And maybe it is time we expose in love the sin of others. I John 1:5 tells us that in God there is no darkness at all. None! John continues in the next verse by saying that if we claim we are sinless but really walking in agreement with darkness, we are only lying. Let the lies stop; let the darkness be exposed. Let us walk as He walked, mimic the Father, and live in the light.