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Support and Resources For Pastors and
Christian Ministry Professionals
Thomas F. Fischer, M.Div., M.S.A., Editor
The Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
Series B
"Body
Building"
Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16
Rev. Kelly Bedard, B.A., M.Div.
Goal: that we would maintain the unity God has attained for us
Malady: unworthy living--arrogant, deceptive, immature, and
loveless--hoarding and hiding God's good gifts from/for all Body members
Means: One God, the Father of all, who is over all and
through all and in all; One Lord, Jesus, the grace-giver and
Body-builder; One Spirit, the unity- and peace- and faith-keeper
Notes:
1. tapeinophrosune {tap-i-nof-ros-oo'-nay}, v2: having a
humble opinion of one's self ; a deep sense of one's (moral) littleness; modesty,
humility, lowliness of mind. (Strong's)
2. kubeia {koo-bi'-ah}, v14: dice playing; metaphorically, the
deception of people, because dice players sometimes cheated and defrauded
their fellow players. (Strong's)
3. "The unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (4:4) does not
just happen spontaneously. It needs some keeping. It needs some focusing. In
the context of writings by Paul and those who follow him, we know that love is
not an ideal we summon up by discipline and motivational hype, but a fruit of
a relationship, most often expressed as sharing in the life of the Spirit. The
unity is generated on the basis of that relationship as an ongoing phenomenon.
The result is wholeness--peace in the broadest sense. (William Loader)
4. The idea of unity in Ephesians is not about a huddled unity which keeps
itself safe, but about an expansive and open unity. This is so because its
understanding of God is like that. God is clearly personal, but also able to
be thought of as being like a fluid which flows through all the universe. A
positive relationship with God opens us to all of life. It is not about
withdrawal or escape. As we shall see, Christ's body becomes an image for
dreaming about the goodness of God filling the whole world. It is like Christ
is a large body which keeps expanding as it incorporates more and more of
reality and brings more and more of it into unity (both with the body and with
all other reality). (William Loader)
5. I know as a theological truth worth insisting upon that there are no
theological truths worth insisting upon... The truth that alone can
redeem our theological certitudes, posturing and chatter from utter
insignificance is finally not combative but conciliatory. If God is indeed agape,
then we have reason to hope that God will look mercifully when viewing our
woefully inadequate insights and self-interested truths and make far more of
what we say and believe than we have any right to hope for... Yet beliefs
and doctrines that appear to us to be mutually contradictory may in truth be
evidence of the glorious diversity of the spiritual gifts flowing from Gods
love in Jesus Christ. (Ronald Goetz)
6. In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity. (Philip
Melanchthon)
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