Tag: Christian Growth

Return again to Hope and Joy

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[1]

Introduction

For the past few months, an over-arching feeling has pervaded human life: existential fatigue. It doesn’t matter what you believe and theologically hold to or what you don’t; it doesn’t matter what political or philosophical ideology you are aligned with or not; not even your ethical posture in the world can protect you from the pervasive feeling of existential fatigue. We’re exhausted, from head to toe, in every fiber of our being, we are flat-out, 100% exhausted.

I don’t really have a clear and singular answer as to what is causing our existential fatigue, but I have a feeling it has to do with the ever-present fear and anger. It’s exhausting to hate people. It’s exhausting feeling like you are always under threat. It’s exhausting thinking people are out to get you. It’s exhausting to live distrustful, as if everyone is looking to steal something (material and immaterial) from you. It’s exhausting to be shut down, refusing to see the humanity in those whom our local and preferred media sources classify as *the* problem. It’s exhausting because it’s so easy to be led about by the ear and that’s why we’re so exhausted; we’re being pulled every which way, and we’ve forgotten there’s solid ground under our feet and that we have a voice to say ENOUGH.

We’ve lost our hope and joy; we’re practically strangers with curiosity. We’ve sold these down the river because either they feel extravagant right now because everything is on fire or because we’re chasing the carrot of some future oriented hope where our joy rests on the other side of eliminating the problem/s. Rather than expanding our understanding, we’re retracting; rather than asking questions and wondering, we’re curving and curling in like every full stop we use to end our statements.

But hope and joy are fundamental to our Christian walk and journey and only if they are anchored in Christ and not in things of this world (both false promises and false enemies). This is why Paul writes to the church in Colossae, to keep them focused on what is important—the Gospel—because it’s only in the proclamation of Christ—crucified and raised—where they find the source of their hope and joy, where they can dare to become (yet again) curious.

Colossians 1:1-14

Paul begins with the standard greeting[2] letting the church in Colossae know who he is and who is helping to write this letter, Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and brother Timothy to the holy and faithful siblings in Christ in Colossae; grace and peace to you from God our father (vv1-2). While Paul didn’t really know the Christians in Colossae, they would’ve been familiar with him[3],[4] and would’ve felt the weight of his authority (his apostolic calling by Christ) behind the lines.[5],[6],[7] (Paul’s authority isn’t in title but is from God by God’s gift of grace in the calling.) Timothy is known to Paul[8] (bff[9]) but not (necessarily) known to the Colossians, thus, we can assume that Timothy had a hand in writing this letter[10] and that’s why he shows up in the greeting.[11] We can also assume that Paul (and Timothy) were eager to include—via writing—the Colossian Christians into their spiritual[12] family of faith by calling them both the holy and faithful ones, siblings.[13] Of more importance for Paul was the goal of using this address to “realign” the Colossians away from the lures and false premises and promises of the kingdom of humanity[14] and back toward God; in other words, remember whose you are, say Paul and Timothy.

Then Paul (and Timothy) write, We are thankful to God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we are lovingly praying concerning you, after hearing of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have toward all the holy ones thru the hope that is stored up/held in reserve for you in the heavens… (vv3-6a). Immediately, Paul and Timothy lay out the coming themes of the letter: faith, hope, love[15],[16] and thankfulness,[17] all of which are dependent on the good news which the Colossians heard in the word of truth and that which is present to/in them. In fact, for Paul, hope and the gospel go hand in hand. [18] Hope for Paul, and thus for the Colossians, is about “confidence in God” not in some optimistic outcome.[19] It’s about that which is being held in reserve for the holy, faithful ones by God in heaven rather than saccharine and toxic positivity here on earth.[20] In other words, it’s not about material gain here in the kingdom of humanity (no matter how grand the gain might be); [21] it’s about walking in humility with Christ and with their neighbor (in intentional presence of support and advocacy[22]), growing[23] in character[24],[25] and loving as best they can, as Paul then writes, just as also in all the cosmos it is bearing fruit and growing just as also [in] you, from that day you heard and you recognized the grace of God in truth (v6b).

Paul then credits Epaphras with being the means by whom the Colossians have heard this gospel and (rhetorically) exhorts the Colossians to listen to him,[26] Just as you heard from Epaphras, our beloved, fellow servant, who is faithful on behalf of us, servant of Christ, the one who declared to us your love in the Spirit (vv7-8). Who is Epaphras? A Colossian native and who, considering Colossae’s closeness to Ephesus, (probably) meet Paul in Ephesus.[27] He is the one who let Paul know that there was a burgeoning threat among the Christian Colossians.[28] Paul’s description of Epaphras echoes the themes of love and faith where love is the fruit of the gospel much like hope is its thrust.[29] Here, Paul and Timothy emphasize for this Christian community that their faith in the gospel is the source and foundation of their life in Christ and not dependent on ascribing to renegade philosophies and ideologies and mysticisms of the kingdom of humanity.[30]

It’s on this account Paul returns to the talking about praying for the Colossian Christians, For this reason also, from the day which you heard, we, we do not cease praying and requesting concerning you that you might be made complete in the recognition of the will of [God] in all wisdom and spiritual insight, to live a life worthy of the Lord toward all pleasingness in all work by bearing good fruit and increasing to the recognition of God, in all strength, being made strong according to the strength of the glory of [God] in all constancy and long suffering with grace, being thankful to the Father for the one who makes us sufficient [to be grafted in] of the inheritance of the holy ones in the light (vv9-12). Paul begins by praying for the Colossians to know God’s will that’s not only at work in the cosmos but also in their (individual and corporate) lives.[31] This knowledge is founded in the knowledge of Christ Jesus, savior, died and raised, and the power of the Spirit; it’s their encounter with Christ where the Colossians will grasp the will of God[32] in all wisdom and spiritual insight,[33] and thus come into their own identity formed by what Christ says and not what the world says.[34] In other words, the recognition of the will of God is through being grafted into the vine of God through/by which divine wisdom and insight come spiritually. [35] This is not worldly wisdom; this is the wisdom and insight of the reign of God, and it promises to be in conflict and resist the wisdom and insight of the kingdom of humanity. What will be the fruit of this wisdom and insight from the reign of God? It will create Christians who walk worthily of name, those who bear good fruit and grow in knowing God (thus knowing the neighbor), those who are made strong and resilient, those who respond with constancy and long-suffering in the midst of chaos and tumult, and those who are thankful for Christ and the Spirit. Paul prays that the Colossian Christians become those who can reject the lies and falsehoods, the strawmen and red herrings of the kingdom of humanity, those who can resist the lures and dangling carrots and become the ones who can call out such things for what they are: harbingers of death, division and derision, and existential fatigue.[36]

How does Paul dare to believe such imagery? Because of vv. 13-14, [Christ][37] who ransomed us out from the domination of darkness and exchanged [us] into the reign of the son of the love of [God], in whom we have release/liberation, the pardon of sins. It is not by supra/super-human ability by which the Colossians will resist the lies and falsehoods coming at them and luring them, it’s by their faith in Christ which is the source of both their hope and love: hope that carries them through and love that anchors them on the solid ground of the activity of the divine reign inaugurated in Christ and confirmed by the Holy Spirit.[38] Paul prays for them to become those who know and do.[39]

Conclusion

It’s easy to get wrapped up in all that’s swirling around us. It’s easy to be lured toward simple solutions and easy enemies; it’s the path of least resistance to persecute other people for our problems while refusing to look in the mirror and acknowledge the ways we’ve participated in making these problems our problems to begin with. Being angry is way easier than being patient; blaming is easier than being curious; being indifferent is significantly easier than loving.

And as much as I personally understand how easy this is for human beings who are often dehydrated and burdened with a brain that is better suited for hunter-gatherer epochs, I also know that as Christians we are not off the hook here no matter how easy these things are. We could let this letter to the Colossians be a letter to us; we are being exhorted to remember whose we are and where we live (Christ). We are being reminded that the one in us (the Holy Spirit) is stronger and more capable than any spirit of the age promising quick solutions and quicker comforts. We are being asked to turn our gaze away from our phones, tvs, and loud and emotional pundits more eager for ratings than truth, and look to the one who is the source of love, of grace, of hope. We need to remember that our faith, while not magical nor a solution to the world’s problems, is the firm foundation where we stand and from where we begin to build the solutions ones that value love and not indifference, liberation and not captivity, life and not death.

[1] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[2] Scot McKnight, The Letter to the Colossians, TNICNT, ed. Joel B Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 76-77. “Paul’s letters were longer than ordinary letters of the ancient world. In addition, Paul’s letters have predictable sections, including salutation or greeting, a thanksgiving, and the main body. We ought to remind ourselves that ‘grace and peace’ in Paul’s salutations are, after all, the apostle’s way of saying ‘hello’ or ‘greetings.’”

[3] James D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon: A Commentary on the Greek Text, TNIGTC, eds., I. Howard Marshall, W. Ward Gasque, Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 43-44. “At all events, the Colossian recipients of the letter would have no doubt that the Paul named at the head of the letter as the famous/infamous missionary who had brought the message of a Jewish Messian/Christ so effectively to Gentiles.”

[4] McKnight, Colossians, 77. “Paul did not dictate his letters to his secretary, and he probably did not write them out in one sitting. Timothy, in other words, contributed to this letter in content, which is why his name follows and the ‘and.’”

[5] Dunn, Colossians, 44. Whether he wrote it or signed off on it, “…the authority of the apostle lay behind the letter, and that would be sufficient to ensure that the letter was treasured by the Colossians and/or other of the other churches to which the letter was circulated…subsequently to be included in the earliest collection(s) of Pual’s letters.”

[6] Dunn, Colossians, 44. Paul’s claim to apostleship, “…the claim is that his commission and authorization came directly from Christ Jesus. It is as a representative of and spokesman for Christ Jesus, therefore, that Paul would lay claim to a hearing —not simply as spokesman for some agreed tradition or some church council. And for Paul that meant a commission and authorization equal in weight to that of the earliest and most prominent Christian leadership…In other words, the added phrase is not merely a matter of providing fuller identification, as though the name ‘Paul’ was insufficient. It is also and still more a claim to authority and respect.”

[7] McKnight, Colossians, 79. Paul’s use of “apostle” here: “Paul combines the original sense of the twelve apostles…along with the third sense with a prophetic-calling dimension because Paul has been commissioned by Jesus and is a church-planting Gentile missionary. To be called an apostle in tis sense requires that one was an eyewitness of Jesus…that one had a commission from the Lord to represent and speak for him, and that one had performed miracles. Apostles are ranked at the top of the spiritual gifts by Paul…Most important, Paul’s apostleship is described as grace, a gift from God, a theme developed in Col 1:25-27.”

[8] Dunn, Colossians, 47. “Timothy features more frequently in Paul’s letters than any of Paul’s other associates and is given special prominence in several of the greetings…He also served as Paul’s emissary in several delicate negotiations…”

[9] McKnight, Colossians, 81. “Timothy is Paul’s best friend, closest co-worker and associate, and a man about whom we know plenty, even if he is always in the background. Thus, Timothy’s father was a Gentile but his mother a Jew; he was probably converted to following Christ during Pual’ first missionary journey to Lystra, where Timothy surely saw Paul being stoned. Timothy’s mother was a believer…”

[10] McKnight, Colossians, 77. “The letter to the Colossians was written by both Paul and Timothy, which raises the important topic of how letters were written.”

[11] Dunn, Colossians, 47. Timothy is not considered to be essential to the Colossian community, Thus his mention, “…could reinforce the possibility that in this case, of the two authors named, Timothy had in fact greater responsibility for composing the letter than Paul had, with Pual approving the content, adding his persona signature, and named first out of resect…”

[12] Dunn, Colossians, 49. “Their brotherhood was not one of blood relationship, but rather the spiritual bond of the shared experience of believing in Christ Jesus and knowing that they were accepted by and through him.”

[13] Dunn, Colossians, 49. Brothers/faithful “They wished to stress that these Christians, unknow to them personally, were nevertheless brothers just as much as Timothy himself was…It was precisely the Colossians’ continued commitment as brothers, members of the new family gathered around Christ Jesus, that the writers wanted to encourage and sustain…”

[14] Dunn, Colossians, 50. “The crucial feature of the phrase, however, is, as already indicated, that it enabled Paul to realign the identity of the people of God away from questions of ethnic descent and national custom to integration with this Jesus, who, even as Israel’s Messiah, transcended such definitions and concerns…”

[15] Dunn, Colossians, 57. “What Paul and timothy commend here, therefore, is the way in which the Colossians receive the message about Christ …. And committed themselves in trust to the one so proclaimed, making Christ the focus and determinant of their lives form then on…”

[16] McKnight, Colossians, 91-92. “What they heard about was earliest Christianity’s famous triad of faith, love, and hope, beginning here with salvation history’s focal shift…with ‘faith’ in Christ Jesus.”

[17] Dunn, Colossians, 55. “…the themes and language of the thanksgiving are echoed in the rest of the letter…”

[18] Dunn, Colossians, 60. “That the gospel is summed up here in terms of ‘hope’ ….is a reminder of how closely its original eschatological force still clung to the word.”

[19] Dunn, Colossians, 58. Hope here in NT/Colossians/Paul “…the sense here is characteristically Jewish: hope as expectation of good, confidence in God…As such it is closely related to faith, confident trust in God.”

[20] Dunn, Colossians, 61. “…the claim being made is that the good news of Christ Jesus unveils the reality of human destiny in the sure hope that it holds forth…”

[21] Dunn, Colossians, 61. “The implication maybe that the Colossians should hesitate before making too much of the success of their own evangelism, and this prepares for the warning notes that become prominent from 2:8.”

[22] McKnight, Colossians, 93-94. “Since Paul specifies the object of their love—‘for all god’s people’—we see here an expression of ecclesial-shaped commitment to one another in presence, advocacy, and participation in Christoformity. He does not have in mind a general humanitarian benevolence but instead…a devoted commitment to presence, advocacy, protection, provision, and mutual sanctification with other followers of Jesus.”

[23] McKnight, Colossians, 99-100. “Paul’s point concerns the catholicity of the gospel: what the gospel is doing among others in the empire (here ‘throughout the whole world’), it is doing also among them. And what it is doing is ‘bearing fruit’ and ‘growing,’ to actions that describe how God is at work in the world through the church.”

[24] Dunn, Colossians, 62. “…the closeness of the two verses favors the idea of growth in character, but both ideas may be implied—the success of the gospel in producing so many mature and moral people.”

[25] Dunn, Colossians, 62-63. “Either way the verb denotes the experience…as well as the intellectual apprehension of God’s outreaching generosity…as transforming power…”

[26] McKnight, Colossians, 104. “Paul’s words about Epaphras are far less idealistic than they are rhetorical; by labeling him with these terms, Paul presses his case that the Colossians are to listen to Epaphras as an unauthorized minister of the gospel. From a different angle, these terms describe the ideal minister of the gospel.”

[27] Dunn, Colossians, 63. Epaphra “As a native of Colossae…he presumably first encountered Paul and was converted through his preaching during Paul’s long stay in Ephesus…, some 120 miles distant on the coast and directly accessible by road down the Lycus and Meander valleys…”

[28] Dunn, Colossians, 65. “Presumably it was to Epaphras…that Paul owed knowledge of the threatening circumstances at Colossae, to which the main thrust of the letter is directed…”

[29] Dunn, Colossians, 65. “As hope is the main thrust of the gospel (1:5), so love …is its main fruit…It is described more fully as ‘love in (or by) the Spirit’…”

[30] Dunn, Colossians, 68-69. Of the second half of ch. 1: “…very Jewish character of the language…This emphasis on…the Jewish character of the gospel to which the Colossian Christians were committed is unlikely to be accidental. It suggests that Paul an Timothy thought it desirable to emphasize just this fundamental feature of their common faith. The most obvious reason is that the Colossians were confronted by local Jews who were confident of the superiority of their own religious practice and who denigrated the claims of these Gentiles to share in their own Jewish heritage…”

[31] Dunn, Colossians, 69. v.9 “For a theist who believes that God’s active purpose determines the ordering of the world, lies behind events on earth, and shapes their consequences, one of the most desirable objectives must be to know God’s will. The corollary, spelled out in the following phrases, is that such knowledge gives insight into and therefore reassurance regarding what happens (often unexpected in human perspective) and helps direct human conduct to accord with that will. Such desire to know and do God’s will is naturally very Jewish in character…”

[32] Dunn, Colossians, 69-70. Knowledge used to come thru the law “But for Paul in particular there was now a better and surer way of knowing God’s will and of discerning what really mattered: by the personal transformation that flowed from inward renewal…”

[33] Dunn, Colossians, 70-71. “Here, too, the wisdom in particular is understood as given through the law…but it is equally recognized that such wisdom can come only form above….And particularly to be noted is the recognition that wisdom and understanding come only from the Spirit….”

[34] McKnight, Colossians, 109. “Paul’s prayer is for a kind of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding that will lead them into Christ. If the apocalyptic mystics were elitists, the Pauline vision for the church counters each: the truth of the gospel is not esoteric and for elitists, it is based on a relationship with God in Christ and not on passwords, it is for all…and it is all summed in Christ as the truth…”

[35] Dunn, Colossians, 73. v.11 “The sentence runs on with continued emphasis that such fruitful living is wholly dependent on divine enabling. The power of God is a familiar Pauline theme…and prominent in Ephesians…It is also deeply rooted in Jewish thought…”

[36] Dunn, Colossians, 78. “…darkness can be legitimately and authoritatively resisted, as having had its license revoked…Within a unitary kingdom…subjects of the king can reject al other claims to final authority over them….”

[37] Dunn, Colossians, 82. “The one step clearly taken beyond Jewish thinking on forgiveness is the location of forgiveness no longer in the cult, or even simply in directness of prayer to God, but once gain ‘in Christ.’ As particularly in Galatians, it is the possibility of Gentiles being ‘in Christ’ that brings them within the sphere of God’s gracious forgiveness. ‘In Christ’ is the key to all.”

[38] McKnight, Colossians, 113. “The wisdom is Christocentric…and mediated through the Holy Spirit.”

[39] McKnight, Colossians, 114-115. “…sound thinking is to lead to sound living, and while this theory is often claimed, the connection between thought and behavior is not automatic. Many who know do not do, and many who do do not know.”

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Christians! Grow! Become AS Christ!

Psalm 51:11-13 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your holy Spirit from me. Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.

Introduction

Ephesians 1 called believers to remember the work of Christ as God’s word in the world. In remembering, we find Christ with us and this presence is the source of our hope. Remembering and hope then become the ground upon which we kneel and pray, giving space and time for the divine Spirit in us (the deposit and guarantor of our faith) to mold our will to the will of God moving us as participatants in God’s mission in the world made known to us in remembering Christ: bringing the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation to the beloved.

Ephesians 2 exhorted believers toward wholeness: wholeness with God, with the neighbor, and with the self by pressing into Christ’s destruction of the division-wall of the fence, the eradication of enmity, and the lessening the bite of the law as a means to creating in-groups and out-groups. This destruction, eradication, and lessening brings people of various stripes and types, walks and talks, lives and vibes together: together with God, with each other, and with themselves; this is the source of peace Christ brings to those who follow him.

Ephesians 3 encouraged believers to grow and grow! in the knowledge of God’s profound love. The believer is always growing and bringing the outer person in line with the inner person. Thus, the idea of getting to a fixed point where the believer thinks they know everything is eliminated as Ephesians leans to the reality that the believer—individually and communally—will always be in a posture of learning about God’s love made tangible in Christ because the Spirit revealing God’s self to the believers anew through remembering Christ. This process prepares and causes Christians to grow into the able partners of God.

Now the text moves from theologically infused doxological statements creating the groundwork of the believer’s life in Christ with the neighbor to the glory of God. In Ephesians 4, we turn toward the natural outpouring of faith eagerly working itself out in love toward the neighbor. Love is not only the bedrock but is the very power that motivates us and that desires to be born from us as we are born from Love.

Ephesians 4:1-16

Therefore, I, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to conduct yourself in manner worthy of the vocation into which you were summoned, with all humility and gentleness, with forbearance enduring with one another in love, hastening to guard the unity of the Spirit in the peace that binds together…speaking truth in love, we might grow in every way into him, who is the head, Christ, out of whom the entire body is being fit and brought together thru every joint of the support according to the proper activity of each part causing the growth of its body for the purpose of building itself up in love. (Eph 4:1-3, 16)*

Here in Ephesians, the content swings from doxological to ethical; for the author of Ephesians, to praise God results in right Christian work[1] in the world that is (also![2]) doxological, bringing the praise of God to the lips of those encountered by the loving hands and feet of the believers.[3] The therefore and then Paul’s I, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to conduct yourself in manner worthy of the vocation into which you were summoned, provides the hinge transitioning into the ethical portion of this doxological letter. How are the Ephesians to conduct themselves? What is the worthy manner of their vocation as priests in the world? The author begs them to act with humility and gentleness, and to act with forbearance [by] enduring with one another in love. To act with humility and gentleness is, like Christ, to shrug off that which is privilege and power in the kingdom of humanity and to become as and like our neighbor in the reign of God like Christ did (ref. Phil 2).[4] And this “shrugging off” is the ground of the forbearance that is suffering with one another in love.

According to Ephesians, the believer is to identify so deeply with their neighbor that the neighbor’s problems become their problems; here, the believer cannot ignore the neighbor as if the neighbor’s well-being has no impact or import to the believer’s well-being. Rather, the believer shrugs off their own comfort, their own power, their own privilege, shrugs off their own self[5] as privatized and prioritized over the neighbor.[6] Ephesians puts the believer on the hook: to be as Christ in the world, to humble themselves, to choose to be gentle, to bear the burdens of human existence, to step in and under the trials and tribulations and refusing to let the neighbor go, to grab their hand and whisper, I will not leave you or forsake you. This, according to Ephesians, is the answer to the what now? of the season of Pentecost: we are to bring the love of Christ[7] deep into the world. And to do this, according to Ephesians, is how they will know we are Christians by our love—the unequivocal love that is our foundation of our mutuality, equity, and union with our neighbor,[8] the essence of divine peace within our lives, the substance of our life together, the marrow of our actions, and the air we breathe in and out.[9]

For we are, according to Ephesians, one body, one spirit, just as also you were summoned in one hope of your vocation; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and parent of all people… The church is one historically in remembering Christ, one currently by being in the presence of Christ through the proclamation of the Word of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and always will be one because the source of this unity is God who is before all people and through all people and in all people. In other words, the foundation and source of the church—yesterday-today-tomorrow—is always God.[10] And God is (also!) the source and foundation of our mutual love, union, and our equity among each other because we are each recipient of God’s grace given according to the measure of the free gift of Christ.

Because Christ was given to the whole cosmos (Jn 3:16) none of us can claim to have more grace than another person and none of us can try to obtain more because the divine gift of Christ is free.[11] We are all, each of us, under the headship of Christ. According to Ephesians, we are not under any human person holding authority in the kingdom of humanity, but under the divine leadership of God made known in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this church/“institution” must run differently, not like the kingdom of humanity, by lording over others assumed authority but by pressing into the omnipresent divine equity of the reign of God.[12] We may all have different vocations within this communal vocation to be priests in the world to the glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor (v. 11)); yet, this doesn’t indicate, according to Ephesians, a hierarchy of human beings within the body of Christ (v. 12).[13]

According to the inner logic of Ephesians, these vocations within the divine vocation to the community of believers functions in two ways: 1. assisting the body of Christ to grow into maturity[14] in the love of Christ to be as Christ in the world,[15] and 2. causing the body of Christ to grow away from being held captive like infants by the blusterous and empty yet attractive doctrine of the kingdom of humanity oriented toward deceiving and misleading(vv. 13-14). Thus, through faithful teachers and preachers and ministers[16] who speak the truth in love, so then does the entire congregation confess and live rightly into their vocation to the glory of God and the well-being of the neighbor.[17] The whole congregation—the entire body is being fit and brought together thru every joint … according to the proper activity of each part—is charged as a “personal partner”[18] of Christ to confess Christ not just within the unique gathering, but into the world by loving acts in word and deed.[19] According to Paul, this confession by each believer causes the growth of its body for the purpose of building itself up in love.[20]

Conclusion

Beloved, we are exhorted and begged through the words of Ephesians to grow…to grow up! [21] For the love of God, to the glory of God, and for the well-being of our neighbors, we are to grow up and be(come) the body of Christ in the world, bearing into the world by acts of love that which has been born in us through faith. As those summoned to be formed by, to live into, and to participate in God’s good will made known in Christ and deposited in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are called to live in humility and gentleness. We are not to be prideful about our own faith and lives as if we are superior to our neighbor. We are not to act cruelly by forcing others to conform to our ideology/ies. We are exhorted to bear the burdens of our neighbor, not turn a blind eye because we have ours as if that’s all that matters. We are to dare to live radically by adhering to divine inspired equity among humanity, willingly stepping into the voids created between groups by the kingdom of humanity to call into reality the possibility of the reign of God. We are to be the socio-political wild cards, like Christ, ready at any moment to do what it takes to bring God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation deeper into the cosmos.

*Translation mine and v. 16 with the help of my Greek professor, Ann Castro ❤

[1] Allen Verhey and Joseph S. Harvard, Ephesians, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2011), 131. “Ethics is fundamentally a response to God.”

[2] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 132-133. “In Ephesians… ‘therefore’ signals a link, not just a transition. It is a moral theology in the first three chapters, announcing the ‘immeasurable greatness of God’s power’…, attentive to the grace and the cause of God, but always already with an eye toward the implications of the gospel for the lives of Christians and the common life of the churches. And it is a theological morality in the last three chapters, announcing the gospel now in the imperative mood, attentive to the sort of conduct, character, and the community that are empowered and required by God’s grace and cause.”

[3] Barth, Markus, Ephesians: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on Chapters 1-3, The Anchor Bible Series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), 426. “Moral indoctrination therefore appears to be derived from dogmatic doctrine. However, the content of Eph 1-3 is doxological rather than dogmatic. The direct connection of the ethical chapters 4-6 with the praise of God rather than with a doctrine of God is a specific feature of Ephesians.”

[4] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 138. “This community maintains and performs this unity when the members of the community practice ‘humility and gentleness [and] patience, bearing with one another in love’ (4:2). These are virtues for living in community with those who are different from you. These are virtues to make and maintain community of peaceable difference” peace like dividing wall down peace.

[5] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 157. “The unity of the church does not require an oppressive uniformity. It requires self-giving love and peaceable difference. That is the way and the will of triune God, the ‘one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all’ (4:6). The unity of the church includes diverse people and it is nurtured and sustained by a diversity of gifts.”

[6] Barth, Ephesians, 427-428. “If to love includes bearing one’s neighbor, then love is not just an emotion or ideal of the individual soul; rather the personalities of specific neighbors and personal relations actually existing among the saints become the field and material of love. According to this passage there is no love except in relation to specific neighbors. Love is not a disposition of the soul which can be perfect in itself, without being given and shaped in ever new concrete encounters. It is always specific. Always costly, always a miraculous event.”

[7] Barth, Ephesians, 427. “The ‘love’ mentioned here is probably the brotherly love among the saints which bears testimony to God’s and Christ’s love.”

[8] Barth, Ephesians, 461. “‘Love’ needs the neighbor and is dependent upon him. The neighbor—even the one who is a burden and whose character and behavior prove cumbersome—is much more than just an occasion or test of love. He is its very material. Love is not an abstract substance or mood that can be present in a man’s heart even when there are no other sin sight and no confrontations are taking place. It does not exist in a vacuum, in abstracto, in detachment from involvement in other men’s lives. Rather it is a question of being surprised by a neighbor, accepting him, going out to him, and seeking solidarity and unity just with him even if this should mean temporary neglect of, or estrangement from, others.”

[9] Barth, Ephesians, 427. “The gracious election of the Jewish and Gentile neighbor is the presupposition, the unshakable ground, and the undying source of the saints’ mutual love. The love that rules among them is the necessary and indispensable result of God’s care for them. It is the essence of the ‘good works’ created for them, and the ground on which they are to walk…”

[10] Barth, Ephesians, 429. “The unity of the church is …. Not constituted by something underneath or inside the church or her several members. Rather it is eschatological: the reason for the church’s hope for unity, and for her commitment to unity, is ‘deposited in heaven’ (Col 1:5). Not the attainment to unity, but the guarantee of that attainment is, in the best interest of the church preserved at a place ‘out of this world.’”

[11] Barth, Ephesians, 435-436. “By providing for all saints equally, God constitutes the unity of the church. No one member possesses anything that is not given to the whole body of Christ. It is impossible for any group inside the church to claim an extra gift from the exalted Messiah.”

[12] Barth, Ephesians, 481. “…the task of the special ministers mentioned in Eph 4:11 is to be servants in that ministry which is entrusted to the whole church. Their place is not above but below the great number of saints who are not adorned by resounding titles. Every one of the special ministers is a servus servorum Dei. He is a ‘pastor’ of God’s flock who understands himself as a minister to ministers.”

[13] Barth, Ephesians, 435. “God appoints Christ to be head over church and world…; the exalted Christ will fill all, and he appoints ministers to the church… That is all!”

[14] Barth, Ephesians, 443. “The heretical teachers are bluntly accused of bad intentions. All the more do unstable and immature saints need teachers who can lead them out of error and toward solid knowledge of the truth.”

[15] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 168. “The church is Christ’s body, filled with Christ. And the church must grow into that body, ‘to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’ By the grace and power and blessing of God, the church is and is called to be an agent in blessing God in words and lives of doxology, in service to God’s cause by its proclamation and its display of ta new humanity ‘to the praise of God’s glory.’ That is the final and climactic purpose of the one gift of grace God gave to the church (4:7), of the leaders Christ gave to the church, and of the many diverse gifts of the saints.”

[16] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 169. “We need teachers and leaders who hold tight to the confession of the unity creed, who hold tight to ‘the faith and knowledge of the Son of God,’ who proclaim a gospel of peaceable difference and hold us to it. Those who would divide, who would boast about some little truth they think they know well or some little good that they think they do well, and who for the sake of that little truth or that little good undercut the unity and peace that God intends, are less than faithful leaders and teachers. They are to be regarded as crafty and deceitful schemers (4:14). Our lives and our common life must be shaped by the truth o this one body, one Spirit, on hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all. Instead of using speech as a weapon against other Christians, instead of engaging in deceit or speaking in ways that destroy the unity of the body, we are to ‘speak the truth in love’ (4:15)…”

[17] Barth, Ephesians, 444. v. 15 “The passage calls for the right confession, and it urges the whole church and all its members to be a confessing church.”

[18] Barth, Ephesians, 450. “The church is a personal partner…rather than an impersonal outgrowth or extension of Christ.”

[19] Barth, Ephesians, 444. “The truth entrusted to the congregation is the truth of all-conquering love. Where there is no love, the truth revealed by God is denied. Equally, without ‘truth’ there may well be a ‘conspiracy’ that aims to subjugate men to human “opinions’ (Calvin), but no solid unity and community.”

[20] Barth, Ephesians, 449. “Most likely the apostle intends to say that tin their mutual dependence and communication all church members are chosen tools of the head for communicating nourishment, vitality, unity, solidity to the body (or building) as a whole. The weakest member or part is in this case as essential to the life and unity of the whole as the strongest.”

[21] Verhey and Harvard, Ephesians, 176. “Live a common life worthy of God’s grace and gift, worthy of God’s promise and plan. Grow up! Build a body fitting to Christ as the head! Love one another!”

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