Working through the first read As I work through the 16 verses of Chapter 4, I wanted to do a call out to kep topics from my notes. A detailed summary to follow.
- Its all about the body of Christ, which is the Church, where Jesus is the head and we are the body
- For the body to function as one we need to be unified and in unity and work in peace, so that the body functions in all its glory as the bride of Christ
- In order to successfully function as a unit, there are various roles and leadership positions called to smooth working from pastoring, shepherding to apostleship
- In addition, we should be cautious and vigilent to ensure we dont get destroyed/diseased by false doctrine and the worldly ways. The body needs to grow in love to a mature man.
- There is something spiritual about our mundane acts of living from being a husband or raising a household, loving our wives. Taking this not serious leads us into great trouble with the world, flesh and the devil.
- The walk Paul refers to is not a mere stroll but a constancy of pace that requires being awake, diligent, even if its mundane and regular. We have to live out our lives.
- The qualities that are the fruits of our conversion is humility, gentleness, patience, love and showing tolerance which leads to unity in spirit.
- [4:4-6] Body -> Spirit -> Baptisim -> Faith -> Lord -> One God & Father
- [4:7] The emphasis on the free gifts reminds us that is not our works (as we saw in Eph 1) and if freely bestowed on us by God.
- [4:8] Lead captives a host of captives refers first to our newly regenerated self, while the host of captives refers to our old self, which was a captive flesh and the world under the prince of the power of air