Applied Learning Paper
Study of Ephesians 4:1-16
Heather Confer
Understanding the New Testament
Professor Dr. Ralph Curtin
Trinity International University
August 25, 2008
Introduction
People attend churches on Sundays, they give their tithes to church, they worship God in Church, they belong to a church, but what is church? Churches are made of mortar and brick, wood and nails made by human hands. Yet these are just the structures of church used as tools in growing faith, but can also hinder the mission that the church was designed for (Love, 2007). The word church comes from the Greek root word ekklesia which means a crowd that’s called together (Campbell, 2003). In Ephesians 4:1-16, Paul is telling us that the people are the church, united together in a common goal to spread the gospel. God equips His people with spiritual gifts so that the church will have the competence to do God’s work. The church is a union of Christians blessed with gifts from God continually growing toward maturity to bring others to Christ (Campbell, 2003).
Unity (Eph. 4:3-6)
Symbolically, Christians publically show their unity with Christ through baptism. Christian believers are baptized into one body through one Spirit, by one Faith, in one Lord (Campbell, 2003). Galatians 3:27 says that we are clothed in Christ. In order to serve Christ, the church must work united with each other. The unity of the church is reminiscent of the unity of God, the Trinity. Working toward unity in the church does not mean limiting allegiance to a particular church affiliation or denomination. We are not to focus on legalistic traditions, but on the solidarity of the belief in Christ (bcbsr, 2008). In 1Corinthians 1:10 Paul says, “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no division among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” Paul is not calling us to be...