Jesus - Saves

AdamsEve · Chief Honcho Joined: 14 Feb 2008 Posts: 1624

Using Your Gifts

Only registered users can see links on this forum!
Register or Login on forum!

v 1
It is “as a prisoner for the Lord” (Eph 3:1, 6:20) that Paul makes his appeal. The verb (NIV, “urge”) can mean either to plead or to encourage. What the apostle urges is that the Ephesians may lead the sort of life that matches their Christian profession. “Worthy” Paul is insisting that there shall be a balance between profession and practice. He provides a guideline by which possible courses of action can be weighed. Christians will always seek to do what is most in keeping with their calling. By definition it is a calling they have received (literally, “with which they were called”)—not one they have acquired by self-effort.

v 2
The apostle now specifies four graces that affirm this essential comparison between calling and character: humility, gentleness, patience, and forbearance. These are all qualities necessary for good relations with others in the Christian community and outside.

Linked with humility is gentleness or compassion. The element of restraint is included so that it denotes controlled strength and not weakness.

Patience or clemency is a characteristic of God himself. It can mean steadfastness in the endurance of suffering but more often in the NT it describes reluctance to avenge wrongs. It is to be displayed to other Christians and to everyone else (Rom 12:10, 18).

Patience finds its expression in loving forbearance (Col 3:18). To bear with another is to put up with his faults and temperament, knowing that we have our own. Love is a recurring theme in Ephesians. The four graces here are all aspects of love and expresses the perfection in Christ (Philippians 2:2, 5).

v 3
The absence of these qualities may jeopardize Christian unity. That is why Paul presses his readers to exert all their powers to maintain the oneness in Christ that binds all believers to each other because they are bound by him and to him. It is assumed that unity between Christians already exists as given in Christ (Eph 2:13-18) by the Spirit. The “one Spirit” (v.4) is the agent of unity.

“Peace” is what ensures that this God-given unity will not fall apart. The “bond” strengthens rather than hinders.

v 4
“One body” depicts the church as a single community.

“One Spirit” indwells the body of Christ. By him the body lives and moves (1Cor 12:13). Apart from the Spirit it cannot exist. The same Spirit fell on the Jews at Pentecost and on the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius.

The Holy Spirit is the pledge of our inheritance (Eph 1:14) and he is the advocate of the “one hope” to which we are called (Eph 1:18; 2:12). the hope of sharing Christ’s glory at the end of the age (1John 3:2). There is no differentiation between Jewish and Gentile Christians.

v 5
May be intended to convey a single idea,

The sole Head of his body - the church.

Christianity has only one whose claim is absolute.

Believers cannot call anyone else Lord even to escape death.

“One faith” in the one Lord unites all true believers. Faith here is personal commitment to Christ. It involves a recognition of who he is as Son of God and Savior of men.

“One baptism” is the external seal of inclusion into the body of Christ.

It appears to indicate water baptism and not primarily the baptism with the Spirit of which water baptism is the sign. Baptism is regarded as the sacrament (ordained by Christ) of unity.

Mark 16:16
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

There is “one baptism” symbolizing identification with Christ in his death and resurrection, sealing with the Spirit, and incorporation into the body of Christ, so that all Christians become one person in Christ Jesus (Eph 1:13; 2:5, 6; 3:15).

It provides the evidence that all Christians, without discrimination as to color, race, sex, age, or class, share the grace of Christ.

v 6
God stands alone. He is the “Father of all”

God reigns “over” all in his transcendent sovereignty. He works “through” all in his creative activity. He dwells “in” all by reason of His creation of all.

(the Nicene Creed has “I believe in one God the Father Almighty”).

v 7
(“each one of us”). Within the body of Christ each member enjoys a share of God’s grace.

The distribution of grace, and so the distribution of grace-gifts, is in Christ’s own hands and apportioned as he decides.

v 8
Psalm 68:18. “It says” which positively specifies Scripture as the source.

The quote itself, though decidedly biblical, is not without its difficulties, since Paul does not cite either MT or LXX. Three changes are observable. Two of them are only slight: a transfer of person from “you” (sing.) to “he” and a purely stylistic transformation of a finite verb into a participle (“having ascended”; NIV, “when he ascended”). More substantial is the alteration from “received gifts for men” to “gave gifts to men.” Attempts have been made to account for the apparent discrepancy by the conjecture that Paul was quoting from memory and that his recollection was imperfect, or that he arbitrarily doctored the text to suit his line of argument.

v 9
“the lower parts of the earth,” By the time 1 Peter was written, the belief that Christ descended to the underworld during the interval between his death and resurrection may have established itself (1 Peter 3:19, 20; 4:6), yet the passages are differently explained. Again, this obscure expression may simply signify death and burial.

v 10
His exaltation is “higher than all the heavens.” The Jews calculated seven heavens, but higher than the highest heaven is the rightful throne of Christ to whom all things are one day to be subjugated (Eph 1:10; cf. 1Cor 15:28). No one else is qualified to “fill all things” (KJV). it is sufficient to recognize without further dialogue that it is with “his presence and himself” that he fills all things.

v 11
Paul does not list the grace-gifts, but only those who receive them. After “each one of us” in v.7 we might have expected him to include all the members of Christ’s body (as in 1Cor 12:4-11). Instead, we read only of those who are appointed to leadership. Their ministry, is employed for the sake of the whole community (vv.12, 13).

“Apostles” and “prophets” have already been paired as providing a foundation for the Christian church (Eph 2:20; 3:6). “Evangelists” are missionaries who pioneer outreach in areas where the faith has not as yet been proclaimed. The title is bestowed on Philip (Acts 21:8; cf. 8:6-40). Timothy is to “do the work of an evangelist” (2Tim 4:5). Epaphras “handsome” no doubt falls into this category.

“Pastors and teachers” are grouped together in such a way as to suggest that the two roles are regarded as complementary and often coordinated in the same person. Pastors (literally, “shepherds”) probably included presbyters and bishops; they were entrusted with the nurture, protection, and supervision of the church. Teachers are linked with prophets in Acts 13:1 and follow them in the list contained in 1 Corinthians 12:28.

v 12
The equipment of all God’s people for service. “To prepare” “to put right.”

This is what unites all the members of Christ’s body from the apostles to the most apparently insignificant disciple (1Cor 12:22). Christ himself set the example (Mark 10:45; Luke 22:27). It is by this means that the body of Christ will be consolidated (Eph 2:21).

v 13
The ultimate end is the attainment of completeness in Christ. “We all” clearly includes all believers, but not all people (Eph 3:9). Paul elsewhere insists on the togetherness of Christians in an eschatological context (1Thess 4:15-17). In v.3 “the unity of the Spirit” is a gift to be guarded. “We are one now - in the end we shall know ourselves to be one”.

The reference would then be to spiritual attainment (as perhaps in Luke 2:52).
Fullness has already occurred in Ephesians 1:23 in relation to the church. Here it is the fullness of Christ himself. Just as Christians may be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19), so together they are to aspire to “the full measure of perfection found in Christ.”

v 14
Of maturity those who are to abandon childish attitudes and be their age (1Cor 13:11). Its victims will be tossed to and fro like a cork in a surging sea (James 1:6) and whirled around by every chance gust of fashionable false teaching. “Blown here and there” Such is the confusing effect of false doctrine.

The source of this dangerous teaching is traced to “the slick cleverness of men, craftily calculated to lead us astray”. “cunning” is cheating at dice and by extension, trickery of every kind. “craftiness” is the wickedness that stops at nothing. Error is organized with a deliberate direction to undermine the truth of God.

v 15
Paul contrasts the deception of heresy with the integrity of the gospel. The church cannot allow falsehood to go uncorrected, yet the truth must always be vindicated in the focus of love. “Speaking the truth” “doing the truth”. This fundamental concern for the truth is the secret of maturity in the church. It is into Christ as the Head that the body grows up.

v 16
Christ is at once the One into whom all Christians grow and out of whom the church consolidates itself in love. This process depends on the fact that the various parts of the body are interrelated. The whole is continually being integrated and kept firm by each separate ligament “joined and held together by every supporting ligament.”

It is only “when each part is working properly” that the body receives the support it needs. “If we want to be considered members of Christ, let no man be anything for himself, but let us all be whatever we are for the benefit of each other”.

Recap

"He ... ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe." (v. 10)

In his autobiography, A King's Story, the Duke of Windsor told of a strange thing that happened at the funeral of his father, King George V. He described how, as his father's body was being conveyed on a draped gun carriage through the crowded streets of London. The imperial crown, removed from the Tower of London, had been placed over the Royal Standard and secured to the lid of the coffin. However, the jolting of the vehicle caused the Maltese Cross, which prevails over the crown, to fall. "Suddenly," said the Duke, "out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of light dancing along the pavement. One of the sailors, marching behind the gun carriage, picked it up, took it to his commanding officer, and said, 'This cross fell off, Sir. It must be replaced.' The officer was a little bewildered by the unfortunate happening and said: 'Must it be replaced now?' 'Yes Sir,' replied the sailor, 'The crown is never complete without the cross.' "

In Christian terms the converse is also true - the cross is not complete without the crown.

Prayer:
O Father, “a prisoner for the Lord” I want to be able to say that with all sincerity. Prepare me for Your works that all I do will be pleasing in Your sight.

Thank you; in the name of Jesus. Amen

TGIF

_________________