Paul instructs Gentile believers in Ephesus who have learned Christ — not just heard teachings about Him but have been taught the Christ-way of living. The process of Christian growth involves a deliberate act: removing what the old life produced and dressing in what the new creation requires.

From the writers we read together

Nancy Pearcey

Philosopher and Cultural Apologist, The Pearcey Report

Pearcey argues that the problem for many Christians is not that they lack Christian beliefs but that they hold them on top of an unchanged secular framework. Ephesians 4:22–24 diagnoses exactly this: the old self is not merely immoral behavior but a whole way of perceiving and desiring that is 'corrupt through deceitful desires.' Real transformation requires renovation of the mind — the deepest level of perception — not just behavioral adjustment at the surface.

The three-step movement Paul describes — put off, be renewed, put on — is not a single conversion moment but an ongoing practice. The renewing of the mind (echoing Romans 12:2) is a continuous process of replacing the old perceptual framework with one shaped by truth. What 'deceitful desire' — a craving that promises more than it delivers — still operates in you from the old framework? What practice of mind-renewal might begin dislodging it?