Ephesians 4:3 The Unity of the Spirit. I. What is to be kept: "the unity of the Spirit." That unity may be regarded as twofold. It may be viewed in two lights: as outwardly manifested and as inwardly wrought. In either view it is the unity of the Spirit. II. This unity is to be kept. (1) There mu... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:4 I. Consider the unity or oneness of the Church as set forth by the unity or oneness of the body. "The body is one," says the Apostle. Notwithstanding the several limbs of which it is composed, one life animates the whole. The parts mutually subserve one another. They instinctively feel... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:4 Church Unity. In these words, which unite the passionate enthusiasm of thanksgiving with the clear-cut precision of a creed, St. Paul draws out to us explicitly that which is the great subject of the whole Ephesian Epistle: the existence and the nature of the Holy Catholic Church of... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:5 I. How is the lordship of Jesus constituted? Not by the suffrages of men, but by the will of God. It consists in the exaltation, the reward of servantship, and is constituted by God directly and acquiesced in, and acknowledged, and accepted with gladness by the Church. II. What does... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:5 I. The Apostle speaks first of one Lord. Those words would have at once recalled to a Jew the sentence which had been repeated to him since he could speak: "The Lord thy God is one Lord." And surely much of the emphasis of this Divine sentence lay in the word "thy." Multitudes of thin... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:7 The Church Edified and Edifying Itself. I. There are various outward appliances all meant for the edifying of the body of Christ. These may be regarded as comprehending generally all the spiritual instrumentalities and gifts brought to bear upon the Church and its members from without... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:8 , EPHESIANS 4:11 A Glorious Ascension. To ascend on high must have meant for Christ a large increase of His quickening influence, more power to act beneficially on human minds and hearts, to purify and energise, to inspire and elevate, as hitherto He had not been able. That was His s... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:8 The Origin of the Christian Clergy. No doubt from the first the Christian society which we now call a Church existed in Christ's faithful followers, even from the beginning, and wheresoever, in any time or country, two or three were gathered together by the communion of love or faith... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:9 Consider: I. The ascension of Christ in the light of its previous and preparatory history. That the Son of man ascended from the deepest depth of human history and experience, from the lower parts of the earth, up above all heavens, presupposes His descent. In His descent He became t... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:10 Christ Filling all Things. I. Let us understand, first, how Christ fills all things, not with His body, for, as it has been well said, "Christ's body may be anywhere at any time; but Christ's Spirit is everywhere at all times." Of that body of Christ, of spiritual body at all, still... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:8 , EPHESIANS 4:11 A Glorious Ascension. To ascend on high must have meant for Christ a large increase of His quickening influence, more power to act beneficially on human minds and hearts, to purify and energise, to inspire and elevate, as hitherto He had not been able. That was His s... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:11 The Christian Ministry. I. The Christian ministry is simply this: a teaching, a helping, of men's personal feeling and life. The man who seeks to change his ministry from a teaching and helping into a priesthood, an official prerogative, whether as a sacrificer or an absolver, is fa... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:12 I. The work of the ministry is a work for all believers, and a work for none but believers. The command to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature is a command given to all the disciples of Jesus Christ, and the exhortation to teach and admonish one another is i... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:14 Modern Thought: its Influence on Character. The words "modern thought" are used by not a few in our day as a badge of reproach. For the emancipated children of the Reformation to disparage thought simply for its modernness is, indeed, passing strange. Unless our thinking be modern, w... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:15 The real test of all religion is, and must be, its power to raise and to regenerate the life of man. There are three chief needs which the life of man must fill up. He has in him the lower nature of the flesh, with its appetites and its passions, by which he is fast bound in the chain... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:17 The Life of God. I. Let us see what St. Paul means when he talks about the Gentiles in his day. For that also has to do with us. I said that every man, Christian or heathen, has the same duty, and is bound to do the same right; every man, Christian or heathen, if he sins, breaks his... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:17 The Walk of the Gentiles. I. As to the nature of this walk, one leading feature or characteristic of it is vanity of mind. The life of men walking in the vanity of their minds is either all but wholly aimless, or else its aims are mean and frivolous, or at the best disappointing, ta... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:19 Spiritual Insensibility. I. There is a certain pitch of wickedness at which moral insensibility comes on; and when _that_comes on, the case becomes almost hopeless. There is little prospect of repentance or reformation then. No matter how bad any poor sinner has been, there is still... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:20 I. We have here distinctly affirmed that the living voice of Christ Himself is our teacher. "Ye have heard _Him_" says Paul. Remember that the New Testament everywhere represents Christ as still working and teaching in the world; remember that He Himself promised the prolongation of... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:22 I. Note the very significant, though brief, outline sketch of the facts of universal sinful human nature which the Apostle gives here. (1) The first of the characteristics of the sinful self is that every Christian life, whatsoever the superficial differences in it, is really a life s... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:24 I. The great purpose of the Gospel is our moral renewal: "the new man," created in righteousness and holiness. Notice (1) the profound sense of human sinfulness which underlies the text. (2) The Apostle specifies as the elements or characteristics of this new nature righteousness and... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:26 Anger, Noble and Ignoble. In this injunction, delivered by St. Paul to a body of Christians, the privilege and duty of anger, as well as the danger attending its display, are fully recognised. They might be angry; they must be angry. Circumstances would continually arise to call out... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:27 "Who is the most diligent bishop in all England?" asks old Hugh Latimer in one of his quaint sermons. "I will tell you: it is the devil. He is the most diligent preacher of all others; he is never out of his diocese; he is ever applying to his business; his office is to murder religi... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:28 St. Paul's Exaltation of Labour. I. When we look on one side of St. Paul's character, it is so full of spiritual fervour and rapture, there is such aspiration in it, such ardent pursuit of large ends, he is so wrapped in his great mission to convert the world to the revelation of Jes... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:29 I. One special talent by which we may glorify God and our Saviour and edify one another is the gift of speech. The tongue is called in Scripture more than once man's glory. As the first duty of the heart is to God, so is the service of the tongue due to Him. Prayer and praise are the... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:30 The Sealing of the Soul. The presence of the Holy Ghost in the soul is many things. It is the life of the soul; it is the teaching of the soul; it is the comforting of the soul; it is the consecration of the soul; it is the purification of the soul; or rather all these things have i... [ Continue Reading ]
Ephesians 4:31 Love the Foe and Conqueror of Selfishness. Christianity denies the assumption, and challenges it all along the line, that pursuit of the higher life need be, in any sense or degree, necessarily selfish. It may be selfish, but it is just as possible that it is wholly otherwise. And m... [ Continue Reading ]