Friday 22 October 2010

Background

Many of Paul's letters fall roughly into two parts. In the firstpart of this letter to the people of Ephesus (in modern-dayTurkey), Paul expounded the faith as he knew it; in the secondpart, he drew out the consequences for the lives ofbelievers.

In today's passage, Paul has moved from the statement of his beliefabout God - the secret revealed in Christ and the experience of thelove of Christ. All this has consequences for the way Paul livedand expected other new Christians to live. Sometimes this movementof thought is described as 'from the indicative to the imperative'.This means that as Paul has already indicated what God is like, hewill now move to the practical consequences, the orders under whichChristians live, the imperative.

But this is not a word game. It is at the very centre of Paul'stheology. Paul has utterly rejected the idea that we can earnsalvation through obeying the Jewish Law. It is all about grace forPaul, from first to last. But he did not believe that this meantthat Christians were free to live how they wanted. Paul was not anethical free-thinker, believing you were free to act just as youliked; he did not believe that Christians were free from law,especially the law of love.

But Paul also argued passionately that you could not earn the loveof God through good behaviour. Precisely because the love of Godwas an expression of God's grace it was undeserved. But it evoked aresponse. We find this same pattern clearly in the MethodistWorship Book service for infant baptism. The promises made byparents, godparents and congregation follow the sign of grace, theact of baptism (pages 92-95). Baptism is not given on the basis ofpromises; promises are made as a response to the grace of baptism.For Paul the promises, or signs of grace, are humility, gentleness,patience, and bearing with one another.

Above all, Paul's requirement, the sign of God's grace among them,was unity - what Paul called the bond of peace. The fact that Paulcalled for one faith and one baptism suggests that he felt thatsuch unity was threatened. He based his call for practical unity onthe oneness of God, expressed as one Spirit, one Lord, one God andFather; a trinitarian belief, at least in embryo. Again, it isclear that God alone was the source of the characteristics of theChurch which Paul sought to maintain. The Church itself, not justindividual Jews and Gentiles (non-Jews), were entirely dependent onthe grace of God.

To Ponder

What imperatives follow from what youbelieve?

How important is 'oneness' in Church andcommunity today, and what expressions might this oneness have?

Do you believe that there is only one faith, oris it alright for people to pick and choose what they want tobelieve? Why?