The Epistle for next Sunday

Ephesians 4

Unity in the Body of Christ

¹As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. ²Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

⁷But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ⁸This is why it^a]">[a] says:
"When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men."^b]">[b] ⁹(What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions^c]">[c]? ¹⁰He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) ¹¹It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, ¹²to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

¹⁴Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.


Whenever people enter a new organisation they are always expected to follow the aims and expectations of that group. It is no different for us as Christians, but how spectacularly we mess up and hinder rather than help the aims of Christ. It must have been the same for the early Christians so Paul paints a picture of the kind of life people must live if they enter the fellowship of the Christian Church.
Barclay describes the words in the first three verses of this passage as "jewels"! Five basic words of the Christian faith. I will look at them one by one.

Humility: The Greek word for "humility" which Paul uses here was actually coined by Christianity. In Greek there was no word for humility because humility was not counted as a virtue at all. The ancients looked at humility as as kind of cowering, cringing thing which was to be despised and not desired. The Greek adjective for "cringing" was used to describe a plant which trails along the ground. And yet the early Christians set humility as the very first of all the virtues; and it is the virtue on which all the others depend and from which they flow. Where does this virtue come from and what does it involve?

Christian humility comes from self-knowledge. I have often had to face myself in all my stupidity and unworthiness and it is a very humiliating thing. I think that most of us dramatize ourselves and see ourselves as the centre of things. There is a story which Barclay tells of a man who dreamed his waking dreams before he went to sleep at night. He would see himself as the hero of some thrilling rescue from the sea or from the flames; he would see himself as a great speaker holding a vast audience spellbound. He would see himself walking to the wicket in a Test Match at Lord's and scoring a century or in some international football match dazzling the crowd with his skill; always he was the centre of the picture.

That is just what I am like sometimes! I remember as a child thinking that I was in some way special. Somehow put on earth by God for some special mission. How easily deceived we are! True humility comes when we are forced to face ourselves - warts and all - and we see our own weakness, our own selfishness, our own failure in work and in personal relationships and in achievement. It is so essential (but not easy!) to look at ourselves without the rose-tinted glasses of self-admiration and self-dramatization and self-love.

It is helpful to put our lives beside the life of Christ. God is perfection, and to satisfy perfection is not difficult, it is impossible! As long as we compare ourselves with second bests we come out of the comparison well. It is when we compare ourselves with the perfect that we see our own failure. When I compare myself with Jesus Christ there is no room for pride. This is an ongoing lesson which I find I have to relearn over and over again.

The second of the great Christian virtues is gentleness. True to form, brother William assists us in understanding the Greek word (which is beyond translation!)

In Greek the word for gentleness (Praus) has two main lines of meanings.

Aristotle had much to say about this concept. It was his custom to define each virtue as the mean between two extremes. On the one side there was too much of some quality, on the other side there was some defect; and in between there was the quality in exact proportion in life. Now Aristotle defines gentleness as the mean between excessive anger and excessive angerlessness. It is the mean between being too angry and never being angry at all. The person who is gentle is always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time. Perhaps that helps us to understand what Paul means by the word "gentle".

But there is another fact which will help us to find the meaning of this word. This Greek word "praus" is also used to describe an animal which has been trained and domesticated until it is completely under discipline and control. So, the person who is gentle has every instinct and every passion, everything to do with heart, mind, soul, tongue under perfect control. How I remember thinking that I had mastered these things when I was younger. Now I know better. Gentleness is difficult and the rate of failure is high - too high! Such self-control is beyond human powers. When we have mastered gentleness we can say that we are "God-controlled".

This then is the second great Christian virtue - the second great characteristic of the true member of the church. This is the person who is always angry at the right time, but never angry at the wrong time; this is a person whose self has died and whose whole life is directed and controlled by God. Barclay says that "he is God's gentleman."

The third great quality is patience. This word has two main directions of meaning.

It describes a spirit which will never give in and which, because it endures to the end, will reap the promise and the reward. The Christian patience is the spirit which never admits defeat, which will not be defeated by any task, which will not be broken by any suffering or controlled by any sin or defeated by any hatred or unforgiveness by others. This patience will never be defeated by any disappointment or discouragement, but which keeps going and endures to the end.

Chrysostom defines it as the spirit which has the power to take revenge, but which never does so. Lightfoot, according to Barclay, defines it as the spirit which refuses to retaliate. He uses an analogy of a puppy and a very large dog together. The puppy yaps at the big dog; he worries him; he bites him; he growls at him; he attacks him, ad all the time the big dog, which could annihilate the puppy with one snap of his teeth, put up with the puppy with "a grave and forbearing dignity."

And now a few thoughts about the fourth great quality - the quality of love. Something so new that Christian writers had to invent a new name for it; or at least take a word which was a very unusual Greek word.

Paul now goes on to set out the basis on which all Christian unity is based. In our time of proliferation of Christian groups this is crucial advise. First he says there is one body. A brain must function through a body which is coordinated and unified. In the same way Christ needs us to be united. Unless there is a co-ordinated oneness in the body the wishes and thoughts and plans of the Head of the body cannot be realised. The unity of the Church is essential for the work of Christ. Of course, as Barclay points out, this does not have to be a mechanical oneness of administration but it does have to be a oneness of heart and mind and love of Christ.

Then Paul speaks of the oneness of the Spirit. The word for Spirit is "breath". Unless the breath is in the body the body is dead and the life-giving breath of the Spirit is what energises the Church. It is the operation of the Spirit in the body which gives the body life. There can be no Church without the Spirit.

Next Paul speaks of the one hope in our calling. We are all moving towards the same goal. his is the great secret of our unity. We may all have different methods, different organisations, even different doctrines but we are all moving towards the goal of a world redeemed by Jesus Christ,

Paul remind the Ephesians that there is one Lord. This was the nearest credal statement of the early Church: "Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil. 2:11). As Paul saw it it was the dream of God that there should come a day when all the world confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord. The word used for "Lord" was the regular word used to describe the Roman Emperor. Quite a risky requirement for the early Christians!

There is one faith. Barclay points out that this does not refer to one creed. Rather it means that all Christians will surrender completely to the love of Jesus Christ. They may describe their surrender in diferent terms, owever they describe it it is common to all of them.

There is one baptism. One gateway for all Christians into the Church. In the early Church it was nearly always adult baptism. It was a public confession of faith and a move from paganism.

Finally Paul says there is one God who is the Father of all. This the unique thing about the Christian God. Not that he is King, not that he is Judge but that he is Father. Our belief about God begins in love. He is also above all. No matter what things may look like to us when we read the newspaper of watch the news, things are not what they seem to be. Our Father is still in control, guiding, directing, sustaining, upholding, loving. He is in all.

Mark