I LIVE IN Southern California, over 30 miles from my office in Pasadena. We moved here decades ago to find mortgages that we could realistically afford on a beginning seminary professor’s salary. That move was good for us and for our kids, who are now grown and gone. This is the childhood neighborhood they remember.

But the tradeoff has always been the commute. When the traffic is good, I can make the drive in about 40 minutes; the typical drive is closer to an hour. When the traffic is bad…well, the record so far for the round-trip commute is 7-1/2 hours.

Yes, you read that correctly.

On that day, I was carpooling with a couple of my colleagues, which made the hours pass more easily. We talked, we bantered, we complained. At times, we seemed almost delirious from the long slog, cracking the most random of jokes and laughing at everything.

But those friends have moved on, and I’ve been driving solo for years now. In the evening, if I’m tired, I listen to music to keep me awake. Otherwise, I listen to audiobooks, generally memoirs or other nonfiction. It’s my way of redeeming the time, of doing something constructive with all the hours spent in the car.

“Redeeming the time.” The phrase is a biblical one, drawn from the words of the apostle Paul in his letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, as translated in the King James Version. In Ephesians, Paul writes, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Eph 5:15-16). In the New International Version, Paul’s instruction is:

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

When Paul says that “the days are evil,” he’s not referring to our calendars, but to the times in which we live. In the previous verses in Ephesians, he’s already described the world as a place filled with darkness, and calls them to “live as children of light” (Eph 5:8). We are therefore to live wisely, treating every day as an opportunity to do God’s will.

The parallel passage in Colossians reads, “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time” (Col 4:5). Again, that’s the King James. But the NIV translates this as:

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. (Col 4:5)

In both the Ephesians and Colossians passages, Paul encourages his readers to “walk” wisely — that’s literally the verb — with an eye toward “redeeming the time.” That translation by the King James is fairly literal, but needs some explanation. The verb translated as “redeem” is used four times in the New Testament, once each in the passages we’ve read from Ephesians and Colossians, and twice in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. There, it refers to how Christ has redeemed us through his sacrificial death on the cross (Gal 3:13, 4:5). We have been ransomed, bought back from the curse and condemnation we deserved under God’s law.

Moreover, the word Paul uses for “time” doesn’t mean clock time. Rather, it refers to what we might call the “right time,” or the “proper season,” or the “opportune moment.” The overall suggestion is that God’s purposes are constantly unfolding, on his schedule rather than ours. All of this is background, then, to why the NIV translates “redeeming the time” as “make the most of every opportunity.” Whatever our way of thinking about time and how to spend it, Paul wants us to see things from a heavenly perspective.

And in Colossians, Paul applies that specifically to how we relate to those outside the community of faith. This does not mean we are required to explicitly preach the gospel in every conversation with anyone who is not already a believer. It does mean, however, that we are to be wise in our walk, to always be conscious of the fact that the way we live is a witness to others.

Don’t forget: these words of Paul’s in Colossians follow what he said about the transformation of household relationships; in Ephesians, the words precede the household codes. Every day is an opportunity to live as God would have us live, in our households and in our communities. And in Colossians, Paul emphasizes that we must bring the same perspective to how we relate to those outside the church.

What, for example, will someone see and hear when they visit our church for the first time? I remember a man at our church who came early to reserve his preferred seat, leaving his Bible there to mark the spot, and left to get a cup of coffee. In his absence, a family came and took that seat, probably thinking someone had mistakenly left their Bible behind. He returned and loudly and angrily chewed them out for moving his Bible to a nearby table. They apologized, got up, and awkwardly looked for somewhere else to sit — then left.

This isn’t just a matter of the man being unconscionably rude. It’s a question of missed opportunity, a failure to see the moment as God did. Perhaps the family was looking for a new church home. Perhaps it was the first time the parents had managed to get their kids to come with them. Maybe they had no history with the church at all and were seeking God.

And maybe it would be a long time before they tried again, if ever.

. . .

I DON’T WANT us to think that Paul is scolding us for wasting a single second of the day when we could be out on the street evangelizing. Redeeming the time is a broader matter of living wisely. It begins with the recognition that we are called to be light in a dark world. How would we see our days if that were our perspective? How would we live in our families and neighborhoods?

And yes, if it makes a difference to how you drive on a crowded freeway, that can be valuable too.