Back to unity
Let us pick back up some of our previous verses and add a couple more
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (Ephesians 4:11-13–ESV)
We will revisit the 12th verse next week, but see how the open arms of God provide gifts that make a difference? These gifts are there to equip the saints that the body of Christ, that is living people, may be built up.
What is the point of that? Attainment of unity. There is that word of emphasis Paul layers in here and there throughout his letters. We are to attain to the unify of faith. We are to attain knowledge of God. We are to become mature and rise to the stature of fullness in Christ that he would have.
Wrapping up
God sent Jesus who descended into our world. He lived and was tempted and tried like all people are. He did not fall in sin at any point. At his 30th year of life, he came to a lake in Israel where John the Baptist was urging men and women to faithfulness. John, the last of the Old Testament prophets one coming after God had been silent for 400 years, baptized Jesus connecting the old with the new. Jesus walked on the earth for three years teaching with authority, healing, impacting, changing, challenging. The Jewish nation would not accept the pattern he demonstrated and handed him over to the Gentiles. Together they ended his earthly life. He descended a bit further to the spirits who had died beforehand and preached to them. But God the Father was not through. Death could not hold the giver of life and God raised him from those depths and seated him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. Jesus came back to his father with arms full of those Satan had captured. Jesus turned around and gave gifts to those whose lives had yet to run their divinely appointed courses. That, my friends, is quite the nutshell. That nutshell will not sink, but float well on the river of life all the way to the Celestial City. Ride on! Ride on!
Richard Ulrich says
My friend, Dr. William Conrad, points out that the Kingdom of God has two sequential parts. The first is the redemptive rule of God in each believer. The second is the realm where His reign will be exhibited over the whole earth, “in the ages to come” (Eph 2:7). Unity and diversity in our lives and in the church is very dynamic; and from time to time it certainly exhibits disconcerting discord and divisiveness . The advice St. Paul gives in this regard is “if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Rom 12:18 KJV). The mark of any successful manager or statesman includes “ability to get consensus” according to the late historian, Dr. Rufus Fears. This often implies a kind of compromise which is hard to sort out and to reconcile with principles. RAU