Ephesians 4:18

Unbelievers' minds are darkened and cut off from God's life because of ignorance and hardened hearts. Sin is rooted in a moral, not merely intellectual, blindness.

Cross-references · 24

• Matt 13:15for this people’s heart has grown callous, their ears are dull of hearing, they have closed their eyes; or else perhaps they might perceive with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and would turn again; and I would heal them.’
• Eph 2:12that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
• Rom 1:21–23Because, knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.
• John 12:40“He has blinded their eyes and he hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and would turn, and I would heal them.”
• 1 Th 4:5not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who don’t know God;
• 2 Cor 4:4in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.
• Jas 4:4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
• Col 1:21You, being in past times alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil deeds,
• 1 Jn 2:11But he who hates his brother is in the darkness, and walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
• Gal 4:8However at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods.
• Rom 8:7–8because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.
• Rom 11:25For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,
• Acts 17:30The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
• Rom 1:28Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;
• Rom 2:19and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,
• Ps 74:20Honor your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth.
• Dan 5:20But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him:
• Isa 44:18–20They don’t know, neither do they consider: for he has shut their eyes, that they can’t see; and their hearts, that they can’t understand.
• Isa 46:5–8“To whom will you liken me, and consider my equal, and compare me, that we may be equal?
• Acts 26:17–18delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you,
• Ps 115:4–8Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
• 1 Cor 1:21For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe.
• Mark 3:5When he had looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their hearts, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored as healthy as the other.
• 2 Cor 3:14But their minds were hardened, for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains, because in Christ it passes away.

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