It’s time for the Good Morning Girls Wednesday Share and Link Up. Here’s what I shared with my own GMG group this morning.
This week’s verses are Ephesians 4:1-16.
This letter was written by Paul to the church at Ephesus, but some scholars believe that it was meant to be circulated among all the churches in Asia Minor since the name Ephesus is not mentioned in every early manuscript. Many of the verses this week are about unity in the body of Christ.
I love how Paul compared the body of Christ a human body (vs.15-16).
Christ is the Head of the body.
- The Holy Spirit is the lifeblood.
- The body functions because of the members of the body carrying out their spiritual gifts.
Every part of our body has a job, which causes the body to function and grow. We each have a work to do in the building up of the body of believers.
These verses remind us to:
Walk with humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance and love (vs. 2)
Be diligent to preserve the unity. (vs. 3)
It’s interesting to see how Paul repeated the number one (vs.4-6)…
1 body
1 Spirit
1 hope
1 Lord
1 faith
1 baptism
1 God
That’s 7 times he used the number 1. If you have ever studied what the number 7 means in the Bible…it means completion. Maybe Paul was trying to say that unity bring a completeness or wholeness to the body of Christ. Without unity, the body of Christ just isn’t complete.
I also love the way Paul used an excerpt from Psalm 68 within his own writing. The excerpt (vs. 8) is from a victory hymn written by David to celebrate God’s conquest of the city of Jebusite of Jerusalem. (4:8)
After such a triumph, the king would return home and bring home the spoils and the prisoners.
Paul depicts Christ returning from His battle on earth back into the glory of the heavenly city with the trophies of His great victory at Calvary. Through His crucifixion and resurrection, he conquered Satan and death, and in triumph returned to God those who were once sinners and prisoners of Satan. He distributes the spoils throughout His kingdom-which are the spiritual gifts empowered by the Spirit.
Paul reminds us once again in verse 15 that we need to “grow up” and be spiritually mature. He actually says “grow up…into Him.” We need to be “completely yielded and obedient to the Lord’s will, subject to His controlling power and Christlike in all areas of our lives.” (this last quote was taken from MacArthur Study Bible)
FYI…
I used the John MacArthur Study Bible while studying this week.