Ephesians 4:14-16
Read Verse 14 –
What comes to mind when you think about infants? What do they need and how are they to be treated?
What comes to mind when you think of being tossed back and forth by the waves?
What teaching or current day example can you give for false teaching to Christians?
What is the main reason why this teaching is so damaging?
The metaphor of maturity is carried over from v.13. There must be no symptoms of arrested development among believers, who are to abandon childish attitudes and be their age (1 Cor 13:11). Paul switches from one metaphor to another as he depicts the features of spiritual infantilism. Its victims will be tossed to and fro like a cork in surging sea (James 1:6) and whirled about by every chance gust of a fashionable heterodoxy. “Blown here and there” (peripheromenoi) is literally “swung around.” It is used of spinning tops and feeling dizzy. Such is the confusing affect of false doctrine.
When you think of cunning and crafty what comes to mind?
What are the general themes of false doctrine you see?
Why do people preach false doctrine? What is their motive?
What example do you have of someone teaching Christians that was/is heretical or is done not for the motives God desires?
What should be the motives of teaching the bible only (hint, see verses 12 and 13)
The source of this dangerous teaching is to be traced in the “slick cleverness of men, craftily calculated to lead us astray”. “Cunning” (kybeia) is cheating at dice and so, by extension, trickery of every kind. “Craftiness” (Panourgia) is the unscrpulousness that stops at nothing. Error is organized with a deliberate policy to undermine the truth of God. Paul may well be tilting at emergent Gnosticism (Col 2:8).
What is the contrast you see between a teacher in verse 12 and 13 motives and those in verse 14?
Read verse 15
What are you supposed to do?
Why do we speak the truth in love? What is the purpose and reason to do this?
If we are to grow in Christ what is the first thing that we are instructed to do (read the first part of the verse again)?
Do you speak the truth in love? How do you and how do you not? Give an example to your spouse…
In verse 15 Paul contrasts the deception of heresy with the integrity of the gospel. The church cannot allow falsehood to go uncorrected, yet the truth must always be vindicated in the accents of love. “Speaking the truth” (aletheuontes; literally, “truthing”) is strictly “doing the truth” and may imply more than verbalization (“dealing truly”). This fundamental concern for the truth is the secret of maturity in the church. It is into Christ as the Head that the body grows up.
Have you ever spoke the truth about some heretical teaching?
Read verse 16 –
Do you see Christ as your head and you as just part of the body?
How does that show in your life?
Is there someone you can ask that will tell you if your reputation shows that the head of your life is Christ? (Is this apparent)?
What would be the reason someone would know that you serve Christ as the head?
Christ is at once the One into whom all Christians grow and out of whom (ex hou) the church consolidates itself in love. This process depends on the fact that the various parts of the body are interrelated. The whole is continually being integrated (synarmologoumenon) and kept firm (symbibazomenon) by each separate ligament (haphes) – “joined and held together by every supporting ligament.” The precision with with these medical terms are employed makes us wonder if Paul checked the details with Luke.
What part do you play in making the body work? At home with your family, at church, at work, etc?
It is only “when each part is working properly” that the body receives the support it needs. The word is really “furnishing” (epichoregia) or supply (Phil 1:19). From Calvin – “If we want to be considered members of Christ, let no man be anything for himself, but let us all be whatever we are for the benefit of each other”.
Have a great week and a great 4th of July holiday.
Andy
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