Ephesians 3:1-13 – I love how this entire passage is sort of an aside. Paul starts in verse 1 “For this reason I, Paul, ..” and then interrupts himself a few words later in verse 2 ” – assuming that you have heard of …”. He picks it back up again in verse 14 “For this reason I …”
The aside is simply to reiterate to these gentiles that God was watching out for them. So much so that he picked out Paul specifically to preach to them. God gave Paul, and the other apostles, access to a profound mystery. Not any of the mysteries that you and I would think of – what is the trinity, how was Jesus God and Man, how are we reborn at baptism. This “mystery of Christ” was “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Doesn’t sound to mysterious to you and I, does it? In fact, we take this truth for granted, but in that culture I suspect it would be profound. It had been for centuries, Gods people and the rest, the Jews and the Gentiles. This separation was right and proper and God ordained. How could it be that these two could be made one? Only God could do o and he did in Christ, giving both the same inheritance.
What’s really cool is in Ephesians 3:9-10, that the church would make known the power of reconciliation. That we would “bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known …” (ESV) Not only the intangible reconciliation of God to man, but the very real, visible and touchable reconciliation of Jew and Gentile. At the foot of the cross Jew and Gentile are one.
Perhaps the church today can do this same thing, revealing the reconciliation of God in our own fellowships. Can we bring the instrumental and non-instrumental together? How about the ICOC and the ‘mainline’? Are we not all “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel”?
Paul goes on and makes his point in Ephesians 3:14-19, which is this. Don’t settle for a shallow gospel. He nearly begs God that the Ephesians would understand how grand this faith that they have is. He says it is rich, broad, long, high and deep and that it surpasses knowledge. Paul’s amazement with God and his love and his plan is obvious in this passage. It’s as if he’s saying “See it’s like this. No,no, that’s not good enough, it’s like THIS! No, I don’t think you understand it! It is so amazing! See, it’s like … ”
After all those superlatives, after nearly wearing himself out trying to get them to understand, Paul goes on in Ephesians 4:1 to call them to live “in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called”. What does that look like? Verses 2-3: Humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, love and “eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.” This is in the context of Paul’s continual reminder throughout the letter that God has made Jew and gentile one. Two who were separate and who did not understand or know each other. If God has gone to all this work to unite Jew and Gentile, shouldn’t they be eager to maintain it? Since they are different people with different histories and a history of division, what would it tale to maintain this unity that God had established through his Spirit? Just what Paul calls for: humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, and love. You were tow, and now are one. Resist becoming two again, after all there is only one body, spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism and God.
In Ephesians 4:11-16, Paul indirectly charges the leaders with the unending work of striving toward perfect unity. Each of us leaders have been established by God to equip the members for the work of ministry and build them up until we are mature, not subject to the schemes of men and doctrinal fads. “When each part is working properly, he says, the body as a whole will grow.
As I read this, I feel as though we in the US are far to individual in our faith. Paul, as seen here, saw the the health, growth and maturity of the saints collectively, not individually. We tend to see our faith as a personal, individual thing. I think we deprive the Spirit of opportunities to work and our vision is shortsighted. Look at verses 15-16 in the ESV (emphasis added):
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
We are the joints that equip the church, if we take our faith as our own, as personal, we deprive the church of what may be an essential ligament and therefore limit her growth. Of course we, as only a ligament, are very limited in what we can do on our own as well.
It’s interesting to me that after all that attention to telling these Gentiles that they are no different than the Jews in Christ, Paul then calls them in Ephesians 4:17 to “no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.” I suspect, if he were to write to a primarily Jewish audience, he would tell them to “no longer walk as the Jews do, in the futility of their minds.” His point is to leave the old ways behind and embrace the new live in the likeness of Christ. And he goes on in verses 25-32 to describe some of the new ways they should live.
Great stuff, Doug. I like how you tied the fact that he was talking to Gentiles and telling them not to act like Gentiles together. I never thought of that. I suppose Icould just replace Gentile with “Jeff” and tell myself to stop acting like me. That’s pretty deep, man!
Regarding the Mainline/ICOC “unition” (is that a word?) I think you have something. I don’t know about where you are, but over here in NH a few of our flock went over to the Mainline “pen”. I am as unified with them now as before, so what’s the diff? There are some folks over there that love God more than me. So why not be united? You bring up a good point.
Just for some fun: have you ever tried taking a chapter of one of Paul’s letters and removing all the prepositional phrases, superlatives, and other “extra stuff”, just to find out what is at the root of all he is saying? I have done that and it reveals a lot of meat that the flowery stuff overshadows. Give it a go.
Jeff – Same here. I can think of 4 men I was pretty close to that have left our fellowship for Mainline congregations. Three of them are still in Columbus, one is not. (Two of them wander in here now and then, which is cool.)
I think of them no differently than before.
Jeff,
I’m going to show how persnickety I can be and maybe make a point. I could say it’s a pet peeve of mine but it also has to do with a conviction. And, as always I’m probably off on it. Anyway, I don’t think any one can love God, from God’s perspective, more than any one else. We have a few definitions of love in the NT, mostly 1 and 2 John but also 1 Cor 13. An example is: “1 John 5:2-3a This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands.” So basically, (and I have to keep it basic for me), we either obey God’s commands or we don’t so we either love God or we don’t. Now what I’m not saying…I’m not saying someone who sins/disobeys God doesn’t love Him when he sins and loves Him when he doesn’t. I’m not saying that we have to make it our mission to scrutinize everyone we meet to see if they really love God or not by seeing if they obey His commands. Actually I’m not saying a lot and it would take forever to say what I am not saying. So, the only thing I am saying is that when we say in context that they love God MORE, do so and so MORE than me and it has to do something with THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD and we have and ICOC BACKGROUND then red flags go up, in my mind. Because it falls back to the un-Biblical practice that the ICOC, (and the world), taught that we were better than others or even others in our own fellowship because we read more, went to church more, shared our faith more, lead more people, gave more money, had more people into our home, etc. We tried to find ways that we were different and somehow better. So I understand what your saying when you say they love God more than me. Your saying their not so different from me why should I feel weird about having a brotherly relationship with them. And, I agree with you wholeheartedly I just think the “more” path is a dangerous one and one we need to flee from.
I understand this opens up a peta of cans of worms because it has to do with perspective but maybe it still came out to be a point.
Not a bad concept, beg. I don’t know that I am 100% on board with it yet. But you could convince me. I am certainly no authority on the subject of love.
Let me bring up a few passages that indicate that love indeed can increase (or decrease) and see if you might sway my thinking.
The first indicates that our love (for each other) is supposed to be growing.
2 Thes. 1:3
We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.
Question: If our love for each other is capable of growing, could not the same be said of our love for God, our wives, or anyone else?
This next one goes the other way, but the concept stays the same.
Matthew 24:12
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold
The whole image of a love growing cold is one of a slow fading rather than a “shut-off” switch.
Here is one that talks about knowledge and insight being akin to ferilizers assisting our growing love.
Philip. 1:9
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight
Thoughts?
Jeff,
Like I said, a peta of worms and this will probably open up more!
I agree with you and the scriptures. Even if you think of 1 Cor 13 no one is completely patient, no one is completely kind, etc. When we become Christians we all start at some point and grow from there. But, I think from God’s perspective you either love Him or you don’t. The “more” stuff comes from us and our perspective. Love is a touchy subject but it’s not a subject of Love it’s a subject of our perspective with “more.” We were taught in the ministry of “more.” That’s one of the reasons there is so much guilt because we feal we can never do enough. And in reality we never can do enough to deserve God’s grace.
Anyway, so your initial statement, (paraphrasing) was in the context of why shouldn’t I be united with them? Some of them love God more than me. From God’s perspective I don’t believe that it’s possible to be on different levels of love with Him but from ours it is. And, that’s where we got messed up. We put so much emphasis on what we did more than others we not only distanced ourselves we began to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. And some, I fear, put more security in their works than God.
And, that’s the only thing I’m saying. When we say “more” in the context of whether someone is a part of God’s body or not often times we are emphasing a performance perspective above God’s.
It’s crazy and confusing and love makes it even more confusing. Think of what you meant when you said they love God more than you. What did you mean?
BTW – I am totally for the ICOC and Mainline COC being united.
Excellent comments, Salguod!
I listened to a lesson on this passage 18 months ago by John Piper that absolutely blew me away:
http://www.biblicalpreaching.info/listentosermon.php?id=405&firstname=John&lastname=Piper
Please consider listening to it as you work through Ephesians!!
Now I understand what you are saying, beg. It seems as though I communicated the wrong thing.
You said, “When we say “more” in the context of whether someone is a part of God’s body or not often times we are emphasing a performance perspective above God’s.”
By no means was I trying to infer that our love for God must reach some higher “level” in order to be a part of the Body. That thought would never cross my mind! Sorry if I didn’t state it properly.
There are surely people who love God more than me. I will stick by that statement. It is the same as saying, “Beg has more faith than me.” But though your faith may be greater than mine both of us are part of the body. The concept is the same with our love.
I can say with all confidence that I love my wife more than any of the people blessed enough to know her. It is not a matter of “do they love her”. Of course they do. (How could they NOT?) But my love for her is stronger. My love for her is greater. My love for her is more than theirs.
That’s all I was trying to say. Sorry for the confusion.
Just one question: What does PETA have to do with worms? (heh-heh)
Peta is like nano but nano is small and peta is big. I can’t remember it off hand but I think it’s lik 10 to the 6th.