CHAPTER 16 THE EXHORTATION ON CHURCH LIFE. CHAPTER 4:1-16 THE FUNDAMENTAL UNITIES Ephesians 4:1 This Encyclical of St. Paul to the Churches of Asia is the most formal and deliberate of his writings since the great epistle to the Romans. In entering upon its hortatory and practical part we are rem... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 17 THE MEASURE OF THE GIFT OF CHRIST Ephesians 4:7 In Ephesians 4:7 the apostle passes from the unities of the Church to its diversities, from the common foundation of the Christian life to the variety presented in its superstructure. "To each single one of us was the grace given." The gr... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 18 THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH Ephesians 4:13 We must spend a few moments in unravelling this knotty paragraph and determining the relation of its involved clauses to each other, before we can expound it. This passage is enough to prove St. Paul's hand in the letter. No writer of equal power... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 19 ON CHRISTIAN MORALS Ephesians 4:17; Ephesians 5:1 THE WALK OF THE GENTILES Ephesians 4:17 CHRIST has called into existence and formed around Him already a new world. Those who are members of His body are brought into another order of being from that to which they had formerly belonged... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 20 THE TWO HUMAN TYPES Ephesians 4:20 BUT as for you!-The apostle points us from heathendom to Christendom. From the men of blinded understanding and impure life he turns to the cleansed and instructed. "Not thus did you learn the Christ"-not to remain in the darkness and filth of your Ge... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 21 DISCARDED VICES Ephesians 4:25; Ephesians 5:1 The transformation described in the last paragraph (Ephesians 4:17) has now to be carried into detail. The vices of the old heathen self must be each of them replaced by the corresponding graces of the new man in Christ Jesus. The peculiari... [ Continue Reading ]