By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
I just finished teaching a class on the Book of Ephesians. As I ended the class, I summed up what I believe we were to take home from this five-week study.
The first half of the book is all about our salvation. What it is. What it means to our future. How we receive it by faith and not deeds.
It is perfectly summed up in Eph. 2:8-10: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
It seems that every time someone brings up these verses, they forget V10. God chose to save us and not because of anything we did or could do. It is purely his love and mercy for us. However, after we are saved by his grace, he expects us “to do good works…”.
So, after God adds us to his family, the Church, we don’t get to just sit around and bask in His glory. No, we then get to roll up our sleeves and get about doing his work on earth as his hands and feet, as his Church.
The second half of Ephesians is about doing that work. Verse 4:1 reads “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”
As I studied this chapter, I saw something a little different than I have seen in the past. The work we are to get about doing is not feeding the hungry or visiting the sick or clothing the naked…although they are essential to our calling. It’s about building a united Body of Christ.
V3-4: “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
I’d have to give the Church a failing grade in this. It seems to me that we treat other denominations and differing viewpoints with suspicion and ill will. Instead of understanding that we all walk in the light that we are given, we argue our understanding is the full revelation of God, leaving no room for another interpretation of the Scriptures. We build walls that don’t allow for differing viewpoints.
Paul calls himself a “prisoner,” which means he can only do what his master tells him to do. That’s just like Jesus said in John 5:19: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing,…” Jesus doesn’t say that we must all believe alike, what he is expecting is that we will be true to the revelation he has given us.
And we are to do that (v2) by being humble and gentle, patient and loving when relating to those who differ from our understanding.
V7: “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.” This isn’t the grace of salvation. This is about the grace to be humble. The grace that allows us to love our brothers and sisters even when we don’t agree over everything.
God allows a little sibling rivalry but he does not tolerate sibling violence. We are not allowed to tear each other apart. Our calling is to be unified.
V4-5: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Let us pray to be unifiers and not destroyers.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.
