When thinking about the overarching theme of the Bible School, the mission that we want to be about, we have returned again and again to Ephesians 4. Specifically, verse 13: "until all of us come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ" (NRSV).
This sentence fragment includes both the mission and the vision. Through acquiring "knowledge of the Son of God" through the corporate study of his Story, we find ourselves growing into "the full stature of Christ".
What is the life that "the full stature of Christ" entails? How do we realize our vision?
When reading Ephesians 4, I have often puzzled over vv. 9-10. In the flow of the text, it seems tangential, a diversion from the flow of Paul's exhortation. The NRSV, in fact, encourages such a sentiment, for it supplies parentheses around the verses. As is often the case with interpretation, however, precisely that part of the text which seems out of place is key to the meaning of the whole. And so it is with Ephesians 4:1-16.
The text reveals a movement from one to many. There is one Body, one Spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father (vv. 4-6). Singularity soon gives way to plurality: some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers (v. 11).
What lies between the one and the many? How do we get from one to the other?
The text locates "Christ's gift" between the two. Christ's gift (singular) is the fountainhead of the gifts (plural) "he gave to his people" (v. 8b), namely, "that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers" (v. 11).
The gift of the one conditions the gifts of the many. If we want to understand our own gifts, we must know Christ's. What is the character of his gift?
Here the text speaks of Christ's ascension. "When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people" (v. 8). There is something necessary about Christ's ascension--his departure as a flesh and blood reality from this earth to "the right hand of God", the "heavenly" seat of all power in the universe--for our own empowerment.
Yet the ascension is previously conditioned.
Translated parenthetically, Paul actually makes the main point. The One who ascended did so only by first descending; "he who descended is the same one who ascended" (vv. 9-10).
What is Christ's gift, the Gift according to which we also receive our gifts?
It is none other than God's descent in Christ. The Word becoming flesh in Jesus' birth. Jesus' descent beneath the waters of baptism (an event itself blessed by the descent of the Spirit). Jesus stooping down to wash his disciples' feet. And finally, one dramatic descent, fraught with irony: the Son of Man "lifted up" on the cross in his descent to the dead.
What is the quality of Christ's gift? It is God's own self, the love of the One given for the many.
And what, then, in turn, are the qualities of our gifts? Whatever the differences implied within the various tasks of the so-called "five-fold ministry" (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers), there is still one ministry: the descent, the humility, the self-giving love operative in those who have joined themselves to Christ's Body.
As the One, so the many. As the Gift, so the gifts.
We see, then, that the movement of the text is not, after all, one-way. The many give themselves back to God, which is to say, also to one another.
" . . . until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ" (v. 13).
-Joe
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