Ephesians 4:14

ἵνα μηκέτι ὦμεν νήπιοι : that we may be no longer children. Statement of aim following on the previous statement of goal or limit. The verse is regarded by some (Harl., etc.) as connected immediately with Ephesians 4:11-12, and coordinate with Ephesians 4:13. Others understand it as an explanation of what the attainment of the goal spoken of in Ephesians 4:13 means. But it is best to take it as subordinate to the immediately preceding statement. That is to say, as Ephesians 4:13 has set forth the goal to be reached and the limit put upon the bestowal of the gifts referred to as given by Christ, this verse now gives the purpose which was in view in setting such a goal before us and in giving the gifts of Apostles, prophets, etc. (Mey., Ell., etc.). That purpose looks to a change which has to take place in us from the condition of νήπιοι and κλυδωνιζόμενοι to that of ἀληθεύοντες, αὐξάνοντες, etc. The μηκέτι implies something different from the existing condition, and that existing condition, we see, is one of immaturity, assailed, wavering faith, and subjection to the distracting influence of false teachers. In his address to the elders at Miletus (Acts 20:29) Paul had spoken of “grievous wolves” that would enter the Ephesian Church after his departure. But the statement here is wide enough to apply to the Church generally and not merely to the Ephesians. νήπιοι, literally infants (Matthew 21:16; 1 Corinthians 13:11), and then minors (Galatians 4:1), the immature or untaught (Matthew 11:25; Romans 2:20; Hebrews 5:13, etc.). κλυδωνιζόμενοι : tossed to and fro. κλύδων means a dashing or surging wave (Luke 8:24; James 1:6; cf. Thayer-Grimm's Lex., sub voce); and κλυδωνιζόμενοι means tossed about by waves (cf. LXX of Isaiah 57:20). In the changefulness and agitation which were the results of their unthinking submission to false teaching their νηπιότης or lack of Christian manhood was seen. καὶ περιφερόμενοι πάντι ἀνέμῳ τῆς διδασκαλίας : and carried about by every wind of doctrine. The ἀνέμῳ is the instrum. dat.; the article τῆς denotes that doctrine in the abstract is meant “every kind and degree of it” (Ell.). διδασκαλία means teaching, either in the sense of instructing (Romans 12:7; Romans 15:4; 1Ti 4:13; 1 Timothy 4:16; 1 Timothy 5:17; 2Ti 3:10; 2 Timothy 3:16; Titus 2:7), or in that of doctrine, the thing taught (1Ti 1:10; 1 Timothy 4:6; 1Ti 6:1; 1 Timothy 6:3; 2 Timothy 4:3; Titus 1:9; Titus 2:1; Titus 2:10). Here AV, RV, Ell., etc., take the second sense. “In the fact that now this, now that, is taught according to varying tendencies, there blows, now this, now that, wind of doctrine ” (Mey.). ἐν τῇ κυβείᾳ τῶν ἀνθρώπων : in the sleight of men. For κυβείᾳ TWH give the form κυβείᾳ. The prep. may be the instrumental ἐν (so Mey., Haupt, etc.). But the contrast with the following ἐν ἀγάπῃ (Ephesians 4:15) points rather to the usual force of ἐν as = in (so Vulg., Copt., etc.), the κυβεία being the “ element, the evil atmosphere, as it were, in which the varying currents of doctrine exist and exert their force” (Ell.). κυβεία means dice-playing (e.g., in Plato, Phaedr., p. 274 D), and then deception, fraud. Some (e.g., Beza, Von Soden, etc.) give it the sense of levity, or putting at stake a shade of meaning occasionally expressed by the verb κυβεύειν (e.g., Plato, Prot., p. 314 A). The idea expressed here by the κυβεία itself might be simply that of hazard, unsettlement, with reference to the uncertainties into which the νήπιοι were cast by the diverse forms of false teaching under which they fell (cf. Haupt). But it is in the character, not of gamesters, but deceivers that the false teachers are immediately presented (cf. Mey.). This “sleight of men” is in contrast with “the faith and the knowledge of Christ,” or it may be with the pure, sure word of God by which the faith and knowledge of the Son of God came. ἐν πανουργίᾳ πρὸς τὴν μεθοδείαν τῆς πλάνης : in craftiness with a view to the machination of error. The renderings of the great Versions show how difficult it is to do justice to this sentence in English. The AV takes refuge in a paraphrase, “and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive”. Wicl. gives “to the deceiving of error”; Cov., “to the deceitfulness of error”; Bish., “in craftiness to the laying in wait of error”; Rhem., “to the circumvention of error”; RV, “in craftiness, after the wiles of error”. The Vulg. has in astutia ad circumventionem erroris. πανουργία, used in 1 Corinthians 3:19, of a false wisdom, means here, as in classical and also in later Greek, cunning, knavishness, treacherous deceitfulness. The ἐν πανουργίᾳ is taken by some as a definition of the ἐν κυβείᾳ, adding to the idea of hazard and destruction contained in the latter, the idea of fraud. But it is rather a distinct clause, emphasising the dishonesty and trickery of the false teaching. Its authors used all the arts of deception to persuade the νήπιοι that their self-made doctrine was the Divine truth. The prep. πρός is not to be identified with κατά (= after, according to), but has its sense of with a view to, furthering, tending to. The noun μεθοδεία (or μεθοδία according to TWH) is nowhere found in the NT except here and once again in this same Epistle (Ephesians 6:11), and seems not to occur in non-Biblical Greek, whether that of the LXX or that of the Classics. Its meaning here, however, may be safely taken to be trickery, cunning arts, treacherous wiles; as its verb μεθοδεύω, which means primarily to pursue a plan, whether honest (Diod. Sic., i., 81), or dishonest (Polyb., xxxiv., 4, 10), came to have the sense of following craftily, practising deceitful devices (Diod., vii., 16; 2 Samuel 19:27). The gen. πλάνης is usually taken as the gen. subj., = the πλάνη which practises craft. But it may rather be the gen. obj., expressing the object or result of the μεθοδεία, = “the cunning art that works to error”. The article gives the noun the abstract sense or the force of a personification, = Error. Here, as elsewhere, πλάνη has the passive sense of error, not the active sense of seduction, or misleading (Luth., de Wette, etc.). But the question remains as to the precise idea here. The term means properly speaking error in the sense of straying from the way, wandering hither and thither. That sense is frequent in classical Greek Aeschyl., Eurip., Plato, etc. In the NT the word is usually said to be used of mental error, wrong opinion, as e.g., in 1 Thessalonians 2:3; 2 Thessalonians 2:11; 2Pe 2:18; 2 Peter 3:17; Jude 1:11; 1 John 4:6. But it is doubtful whether that sense fully meets the case in some of the passages thus cited, e.g., 1 John 4:6. In such passages as Romans 1:27; James 1:20, it denotes error in practice, a wrong way of life or action. This seems to be its force here. Consequently the idea of the clause is more definite than “in craftiness tending to the settled system of error” (Ell.). It means “in craftiness, furthering the scheming, deceitful art which has for its result the false way of life that strays fatally from truth.”