Scripture: Ephesians 4: 1-16.

Not many of us outside the U.K. use the New English Bible translation these days. It’s too ‘Oxbridge’ (with phrases like ‘pompous ignoramus’ and so on) for most of us. But a very moving experience occurred at the first public reading of the NEB. After 13 years’ work a group of British scholars presented their new translation to the heads of the Churches in the presence of the royal family at a most impressive ceremony in Westminster Abbey.

What passage would be read? Professor George Duncan of the Church of Scotland came to the lectern and began to read from the fourth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

A packed cathedral and millions of television viewers heard Paul affirming that the things that divide us are not nearly as important as the things that unite us. Seven times in a single sentence he used the significant little word ‘one’.

There is wonderful diversity within Christ’s church. Think of some of the greatest Christians of the last century – Karl Barth, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King, Dom Helder Camara, Maria Teresa, the young man with muscular dystrophy you’ve never heard of who ‘prays without ceasing’, the middle-aged single woman with no children who delights in serving busy mothers, the people who work behind the scenes to keep missionary societies going… All great people.

But yes, there are also people in the church who don’t get along. Their differences of belief or temperament or expectations collide with others’.

You’ve heard the little ‘ditty’: ‘To dwell above with the saints we love/ O that will be glory. /But to dwell below with the saints we know – /Well that’s another story’!

But according to Paul this is not the ultimate reality. The church is united, says Paul: our task is to ‘preserve’ the church’s unity. Yes, there are 34,000 Christian denominations and groups around the world: but what they have in common is greater than what divides them. We are all ‘one in Christ Jesus’.

Yesterday many of us watched on TV that magnificent wedding between Mary from Tasmania and prince Frederick of Denmark. We Australian Baptists resonated with many of the biblical phrases in the Danish Lutheran service; and we knew one or two of the hymns (‘Now Thank We All our God’). I’ve only traveled through Copenhagen, and never worshipped there. But I’ve been to Finland twice on ministry trips. Once I was asked by Finnish Lutherans to help them with a problem: 97% of their young people are confirmed into the church, but a year later only 3% are attending: why? Isn’t that amazing – that an Australian Christian should be asked to help another Christian group at the other side of the world?

Again, to echo Paul’s sentiment: what unites us as Christians is much stronger than what divides us.

The first three chapters of Ephesians are really a ‘preamble’. God, says Paul, has now made known his hidden purpose to unite everything in Jesus Christ, and has called Christians – Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians – to be part of that grand purpose. What is that purpose? What’s the church for?

In chapter four he moves from theology/theory to practice; from ‘faith’ to ‘life’.

The church exists to do in our world what Jesus did in his. We are to live as he lived, do what he did, and be the answer to his great prayer (John 17) that his followers be united in heart and mind and purpose. In summary we are to exhibit unity-in-diversity, through Christlikeness in our character, devotion to our ministry, and maturity in our spiritual growth.

And he offers three sets of five ‘principles’ or ‘qualities’ for each.

1. First: CHRISTIAN CHARACTER.

From prison, Paul urges these Christians to live a life that ‘measures up’ to their calling. How? Paul lists five qualities:

1-1: HUMILITY. This word was given a new ‘Christian’ meaning. The ancient Greeks had no concept of humility in the Christian sense. For them humility was cowering weakness. But humility is really seeing yourself as God sees you. As Paul says elsewhere, it’s having a ‘sane estimate’ of who-you-are. It’s our response to a realization of our sinfulness and God’s holiness, of our creatureliness and God’s greatness. To preserve unity we must be humble. Proud arrogant people (‘I’ve got it all together and you haven’t’) destroy unity. Arrogance has no place in Christ’s church.

1-2: GENTLENESS. This is ‘meekness’, but it’s not weakness. A meek person may be angry, but angry for the cause of God and for the good of others rather than reacting to some hurt of their own. Their anger is constructive. The image here is of a wild horse which is tamed, and responsive to its master. So there’s ‘controlled strength’ in meekness. A meek Christian doesn’t take offence, isn’t concerned very much about his or her reputation or rights. The unity of the Church is often destroyed by people getting offended over what are really stupid and minor things. But don’t get me wrong: ‘meek/gentle’ people are not thick-skinned unfeeling people. They – like their Lord and Master – are both ‘tough’ and ‘tender’.

1-3: PATIENCE. The word here is, literally, ‘long-tempered’ – a word that’s disappeared in English, but its opposite ‘short-tempered’ hasn’t! The old KJV word is ‘long-suffering’ – which describes the attitude of God to his sinning people. This sort of person has the power to take revenge, but doesn’t. It’s the refusal to retaliate, bearing insult and injury without bitterness or complaining; suffering unpleasant people with graciousness and fools without complaint.

1-4: TOLERANCE/LOVE. One translation puts it ‘Making allowances for each other’s faults’. The Greek word for love is agape, loving like God does. Whatever another person does to us makes no difference to our seeking his or her highest good. This sort of loving isn’t an emotional thing: it’s a ‘conquest by the will.’ It’s the power to love even the people we do not like. It’s the strong desire to seek nothing but the highest good of everyone no matter what others may do. It’s love-before-worth rather than love-responding-to-worth. ‘Why, these Christians love each other even before they are acquainted’ complained an early enemy of Christianity.

1-5: PEACE. Peace means right relationships with people whatever the circumstances. William Barclay: ‘It can only exist when we cease to make self the centre of things and when we think more of others than we do of ourselves. Self kills peace. In a society where self predominates, we cannot be other than a disintegrated collection of individualistic and warring units. But when self dies and Christ springs to life within our hearts, then there comes the peace, the oneness, the togetherness, which is the great hallmark of the true church.’

So the unity of the church needs to be worked at – hard! Christians being together in one place or in one institution (like, say, the World Council of Churches) doesn’t automatically create unity. (A host of corpses in a cemetery won’t produce a resurrection). Our unity is rooted and grounded in the kind of unity God has – three ‘Persons’ in perfect harmony. So, says Paul, spare no effort to make fast with bonds of peace the unity which the Spirit gives. Be a uniter, not a divider; a source of harmony, not disharmony; one who is peace-full, not given to strife.

As the little girl prayed: ‘Lord, make all the bad people good, and all the good people nice!’

2. CHRISTIAN MINISTRY.

Paul goes on to say the church is ‘one body’ – each part having its special function. (One small nerve playing up can immobilize the whole body). There is ‘one Spirit’ (and the tide is coming in, linking all the separated, isolated pools of water!). And one hope: ultimately the Christ-follower believes in life-beyond-death because we believe in life-before-death. ‘One Lord’ – Caesar is not Lord. ‘One faith’ – not a creed (we may differ on some points of doctrine) but a living surrendered relationship to Jesus Christ. ‘One baptism’ – the sign of entry into the Church (and my fellow-Baptists may not have a monopoly on baptistic truth!). And ‘one God and Father of us all’ – so we are all brothers/sisters. Remember that!

My wife and I have four children and five grandchildren. The unity of our family is a ‘given’: these special younger people can’t do anything to cease being our offspring. But they don’t always ‘get along’. So we have to work hard to ‘preserve’ and ‘promote’ that unity. We’re planning well ahead (even the expensive restaurant venue) where we’ll celebrate a few birthdays in a month’s time.

So unity is not uniformity. Look at a tree: God made it to be a beautiful unity, yet no two leaves are exactly alike. No two trees are the same. So no two people are the same. Each of us is ‘gifted’, but in different ways. We’re all ‘in the ministry’. The New Testament knows no distinction between ‘clergy’ and ‘laity’. We are all ‘ministers’. All ‘priests’. All ‘laos’ – the ‘people of God’. So we can’t use the word ‘minister’ in the singular, as we might with the word ‘pastor’.

The task of church-leaders, says Paul, in verse 12, is to help us discover our ‘spiritual gifts’, so that the church-as-a-body can function properly.

A few notes about these leaders. There are four or five ‘leadership gifts’:

2-1: APOSTLES were ‘sent ones’, a special unique group chosen by Christ and who were eye-witnesses of his resurrection. Perhaps in a secondary sense today’s ‘apostolic emissaries’ enrich the Body of Christ in their widely-traveled ministries.

2-2: PROPHETS were also a unique foundational gift, but there are also ‘prophets’ today who ‘hear that which is particularly appropriate to the hour, and faithfully pass on the message to the appropriate quarter, wherever and whoever that might be’ (Michael Harper).

2-3: EVANGELISTS. The N.T. only calls Philip an evangelist, although Paul exhorts Timothy to ‘do the work of an evangelist’. The whole church was and is committed to the task of evangelism, which is simply the overflow of the experience of ‘good news’ (using words if necessary, as Frances suggests). Spurgeon was approached by a man who said he wanted to ‘enter the ministry’. Spurgeon asked: ‘What’s your job?’ ‘I’m an engine-driver.’ ‘Is your fireman a Christian?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well,’ said the great preacher, ‘there’s your ministry.’

2-4: PASTOR-TEACHERS. In his very moving farewell address to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:28) Paul tells them to ‘keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock which the Holy Spirit has placed in your care.’ Those pastors or shepherds (same word) were resident in one place, to equip God’s people for the work of Christian service. But pastors are not to be autocrats domineering over God’s people (1 Peter 5:3: acting like ‘little tin gods’ – J B Phillips). They are to be servants of the church (though the church is not their Master, Christ is).

These leaders help us all become ‘charitably mature’. Where there is real love, I believe, we’ll better know what gifts are given to each of us. These gifts are to help us love, which is ‘caring action’. (Notice that love is mentioned three times in this passage). The loving person will find ministries to help others – in the church, in their families, in the world: they’ll find ministries of mercy before those ministries find them! And in the process they’ll discover their ‘spiritual gifts’, which are the reason we’re still on earth and not yet in heaven. Every list of spiritual gifts in the NT is accompanied by exhortations about loving. So the pastor’s task is not to be the ‘professional holy man/woman but to be a sort of ‘spiritual coach’ helping others to learn that ‘everybody can minister to somebody somehow.’

3. CHRISTIAN MATURITY.

So let’s all grow up, Paul encourages. It’s more important for a church to grow up than to grow. Paul completes this section by describing four or five attributes of the ‘mature united church’:

3-1: STABILITY. We are no longer to be like little ships on the ocean of opinion. Children will believe anything an authority-figure tells them. (‘Little children think their parents are infallible. Older children think their teachers are infallible. Teenagers think they are infallible’!). We are to grow into the mind of Christ, believing what he believed, teaching what he taught, ministering as he ministered.

3-2: TRUTHFULNESS AND LOVE. Children (of all ages!) can be hurtful and intolerant (‘my dad makes more money than yours; you’re ugly with that big nose!’). Christians are to be mature here, remembering they’re on the same side of the battle as all other Christians, even those with whom they may differ. And we’ll encourage – even ‘correct’ and ‘exhort’ one another occasionally. If this is done ‘in love’ it will mostly produce a ‘win-win’ outcome. In a church I pastored, we had an elder with very bad breath, who didn’t know it. As a result he was a lonely man. No one told him – including me. We were too nice (or fearful) of ‘truthing in love’ and as a result that poor man suffered needlessly. Let us ‘walk in the light’ with one another, eh? But remember, truth without love can be too hard; and love without truth can be too soft.

3-3: OBEDIENCE. Christ is the Head of the Church – the ‘control tower’. Our final authority is a Divine person, not a set of dogmas or a creed or a Pope, or reformer or church council.

3-4: COORDINATION. A well-equipped bosy will have muscles, diet, exercise, all producing physical harmony and athletic action!

In a moment of quiet surrender to our Lord Christ… where has he touched us this morning – in terms of character, ministry, maturity? Well?

Rowland Croucher

May 2004.