Chapter four immediately transitions from doctrine to practice, from position to walk. Those who claim to be without sin do not have a leg to stand on Scripturally. Any honest reader would admit that any chapter of the Bible reveals just how far short he or she falls. If we could just get Ephesians chapter four right in our lives, then how much richer would our walk with Christ be, how much more effective our testimonies, and how much more joy we would have!
1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Paul begins chapter four the same way he began chapter three, by reminding us that he is the Lord's prisoner. The transition word "therefore" tells us that what Paul is going to say next requires not only an affirmation of who he is (his credibility to make the statement that follows), but also that it hinges on the truths he has laid out up to this point (salvation not of works, the body of Christ in the Church, Paul's suffering for their glory, the exceeding power and riches of the Lord). Paul beseeches (“the action of begging earnestly after, or imploring with great urgency” according to White) the Ephesians to walk worthy of the vocation (“occupation, profession, business, function or calling” according to Vance) to which they are (present tense) called. Whether the Ephesians were or were not walking worthy is mere speculation, though I suspect the Ephesians did walk worthy, given Paul's positive comments throughout (and that 4:l is not phrased as a rebuke).
This is then an exhortation, an encouragement, which we all need, because we are all vulnerable to walking unworthy at any given moment. Notice too that the walk is in no way influencing salvation here; there is no implication that the walk could jeopardize the truth of Ephesians 2:8-9, because the walk is work. That is evident in verses 2-3 here, where we are given instruction on how the walk is to be done.
In this case, the elements of the walk are directly connected to the contents of chapters 1-3. In other words, walk in a way that maintains the body of Christ in the local church: lowliness, meekness, long suffering, forbearing, and keeping the unity in peace. Many of these words are in present-progressive because it is an ongoing process to maintain peace and love our brothers and sisters in Christ. They can be, and often are, difficult to cope with, because they all suffer the same malady that you and I do: the struggle with the flesh. Marcus Aurelius speaks to this well in Meditations Book 2: “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil” (17). It would seem that even a blind squirrel like Aurelius finds an acorn now and then!
On this matter of peace with the brethren we could also consider Paul’s statements in Romans 12:18, I Corinthians 1:10, Colossians 3:15, and I Thessalonians 5:13. Why is this issue so important that it is specifically noted in five of Paul’s thirteen epistles? Quite simply, it is one of the most notable ways that we testify of the efficacy of Christ to the world around us. Despite its lofty rhetoric of “world peace” and “unity,” the world has never even come close to achieving a fraction of what Christ is able to do for a born-again believer. When the boundaries of race, gender, wealth, and status are (all but) erased, there is no explanation outside of Christ (Galatians 3:28). However, when we walk unworthy and find ourselves pitted against one another over the petty desires of the flesh (like we see in I Corinthians 1: 11-13, 3:1-4, and 6:1-8) then our testimony is no better than that of lost people.
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