"Vanity of mind" is the waste of the rational powers on worthless objects, of which idolatry is one of the more glaring instances. The root of it is departure from the knowledge of the true God.
Leviticus 19:4 Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 26:1 Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God.
Psalms 96:5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.
Psalms 106:36 And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them.
Psalms 115:4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
Isaiah 2:8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:
Ezekiel 14:6 .......Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
Ezekiel 20:16 Because they despised my judgments, and walked not in my statutes, but polluted my sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols.
Ezekiel 20:18 But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols:
Ezekiel 20:24 Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols.
Ezekiel 23:30 I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.
Ezekiel 23:39 For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day into my sanctuary to profane it; and, lo, thus have they done in the midst of mine house.
Ezekiel 23:49 And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 37:23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
Habakkuk 2:18 What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?
Acts 15:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
1Corinthians 12:2 Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.
2Corinthians 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Numbers 16:26 And he spake unto the congregation, saying, Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins.
Proverbs 9:6 Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.
1John 5:21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
James 4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
1John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
1John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
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James 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
James 4:9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Isaiah 52:11 Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.
2Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
2Corinthians 6:18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
2Corinthians 7:1 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
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Ephesians 4:17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
Ephesians 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
Ephesians 4:19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
Ephesians 4:20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
Into such profligate and brutal sensualities as these the heathen world are sunk; But you have not so learned Christ, as if his religion were a mere system of speculation, that might leave you practically attached to such abominable vices.
The outward conduct, resulting from this corrupt nature, must be cast off at once as a filthy garment; and the inward desires must be denied, crucified, and mortified, till wholly abolished.
( Romans 6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.)
The Ephesians had also been taught according ‘to the truth in Jesus,” that they must be continually renewed more and more in the inward judgment, temper, and affections of their souls, by the power of divine grace, into the humble, spiritual, holy, and loving mind of Christ; that so they might “put on the new man;” and that their habitual conduct might be conformed to his example, and evince that they were newly-created after the image of God, “in righteousness and true holiness,” or the holiness of truth; even that holiness which springs from a real belief of “the truth as it is in Jesus” .
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
These important and essential practical lessons they had been taught by the apostle, and by Christ himself, if indeed they were true Christians: and in connection with the means, motives, and assistance afforded them, they would effectually lead them to a conduct entirely different from that of their Gentile neighbors.—The corrupt conversation, including doubtless the bad habits of the heathen, is distinguished from “the old man,” or the depraved nature whence all these evils spring. The root would still remain after the converts had “put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man;” and this would render watchfulness and diligence needful to the end, till “the body of sin was abolished.” If “the old man” means no more than bad habits, as many explain it, how does it come to pass that these bad habits have always been so general, not to say universal; while good habits have been exceedingly rare, if any instances can be adduced, which never yet have been in a satisfactory manner? We never read of bad habits in any degree among holy angels; nor would they have been heard of among men, if they had not apostatized from God, and become “dead in sin,” and “by nature children of wrath.”—The state of the unconverted Gentile is indeed here particularly adverted to; yet it is most certain that the nature of the unregenerate is similar, even in those who profess to be Christians.
The apostle acquaints us to what the truth as it is in Jesus, that is, the doctrine of the gospel, does direct us to, enjoin and require of us; namely, to put off the old man, that is, our former heathen conversation, and manner of life.
Our apostle acquaints the converted Ephesians and us, that the saving knowledge of Christ, instructs us better than to practice such licentiousness and wickedness as the unconverted Gentiles wallow in. But ye have not so learned Christ; that is, the gospel of Christ.
Nothing curbs sin, nothing cures sin, in a licentious sinner, like the doctrine of Christ revealed in the gospel; no moral precepts from the school of the heathens, which some so much magnify and applaud, can compare with this, which lays open the root of this accursed disease, and leads us to the remedy which the wisdom of God has appointed for it's cure, even the blood of his own Son. Then blessed be God for revealed truth!
That holiness is not only the reforming of the mind; and not only of the mind, but of the spirit of the mind: by which we must understand the highest and most refined faculties of the mind, that part which is most free from the dregs of sin, and which comes up nearest to God, as the spirit of the mind and understanding does.
Verily, not our minds only, but even the spirit of our minds, need renewing, because corruption is got into the highest powers and superior faculties of the soul, and because we must serve God with all our mind; and if so, with the spirit of our mind; and blessed be God that regenerating and renewing grace is a universal principle, as sin was.
As a child of God, you are called to holiness by the Gospel, the other worldly people around you have no such calling; walk not as they walk.