Ephesians 4:7-16

Some Scripture-Digging Tips

Do a paired passage dig.

Read this passage alongside Psalm 68:18 and dig into the Greek and Hebrew linguistics for the words quoted in Ephesians 4:8 to better understand why Paul placed those particular words there in his letter.

Discern the differences.

Dig into the deeper definitions of the various verse 11 giftings to see how they differ and complement each other.

The Technicalities

I don’t get far into this passage before letting out a weighty breath in response to the words. “To each one of us,” breathing in sharply at the unexpected inclusion, “grace was given,” breathing out slowly, weight lifting into worship. I’m not sure where to place the emphasis more – on the “each one of us” part or the “grace was given” because both feel equally and mutually and wildly important truths to lean into, stare at, and take a moment to really sink into my spirit.

Since Paul is shifting toward a discussion of God’s intentional appointing to specific and very special work, it feels appropriate to interrupt him with Jesus’ pointed parable about the very same topic from Matthew 25. And, I don’t mean to beat the topic to death, but we have been talking about our spiritual bank accounts since the beginning of this book, and this Matthew 25 parable picks right up where we left off together.

“The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip,” the New Living Translation version of Matthew 25:14-15 reads. “He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone.” And then, Jesus says something that stops me in my cross-referencing tracks, using the same familiar and often-repeated phrase Paul has in these last 78 verses.

“He gave to each according to his own ability,” Jesus said. As I read the words, Paul’s “according to” Rolodex fell open in my mind like an accordion let loose. He repeats the same phrase, kata ho, nearly a dozen times in the English rendering of this letter (16 times in the Greek usage of the phrase and 24 altogether before the letter is finished). Here, in Matthew 25, Jesus sets the according-to precedent of God giving His people highly valuable spiritual gifts to His own servants according to their own ability. In other words, He gives special gifts that are distinctive to you. You might be a teacher, and so might she, but both of you have distinct personalities and unique teaching styles. Your natural capacity displays the gift in wildly different ways. The King James Version of Matthew 25:14 renders the text as “his several ability” instead of “his own,” and, I’ll be honest, I’ve only ever read “several” as meaning “more than one.” (I’m apparently not the only one, because even my grammar checker flagged that “his several ability” phrase to be changed to “his several abilities.”) So, I was surprised to learn that it also means distinct or separate. Various derivatives of the same Greek word describe a private person, a common person, or an unskilled layperson, and it all feels a little bit like fertile ground waiting for the power-seed to be planted. And then God comes along and tucks that seed into your spirit, entrusting you to do with it as you distinctively will according to His working in you both to will and to do (Philippians 2:13).

In just the same way, in Ephesians 4:7, Paul says that God gives out of His rich storehouse of gifts (TLB), and that comes with one truth-bomb of its own—that God does not give His Spirit by measure (John 3:34). He gives it without limit. Then, in verse eight, Paul quotes a verse from Psalm 68 that holds a surprising tie-in to the Matthew 25 parable and sets up the provision of distinct spiritual gifts in the verses to follow.

“When He ascended on high,” Paul writes, quoting Psalm 68:18, “He led captivity captive and gave gifts to men.” The idea that David is portraying is a plundering of war. The enemy comes in, annihilates God’s people, takes them as prisoners of war and into captivity. Then God comes along and frees the captives. Their captors become the new captives, the enemy’s storehouse of stolen riches becomes their gift. You can see how the Bible explains itself through the cross-references to the verse (specifically in Acts 2:4, 33, and 10:44-46), but the part that I want you to see is in the word usage of the ascending that isn’t necessarily found in the list of cross-references.

It turns out, the first use of the Greek word that Paul uses for “ascended” (anabainō) isn’t in Jesus’ ascension to heaven after His resurrection (as I thought it would be). Instead, it’s in Matthew 3:16. You see it right there, after Jesus was baptized, He anabainō-came up immediately from the water. And, do you know what happened next? The Spirit of God descended like a dove and came to rest on Him (ESV).

He ascended on high, far above all the heavens, Ephesians 4:10 reads, that He might fill all things. And, when He did, His Spirit descended upon us, filling even us with His distinctive gifts. Take a glance back at Psalm 68:18. You’ll see a piece of David’s original words that Paul didn’t include but absolutely demonstrated: “that the Lord God might dwell there.” (Remember Ephesians 2:22 and the truth that we are all being built up together for a dwelling place in which God lives by His Spirit? I breathe out again, in awe of the verses dancing together in ways I never saw coming.)

“Jesus personally gave some to be apostles,” Paul wrote in verse 11, “some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.” To some, He gave the gift of getting the holy ball rolling – to shout from the rooftops, street corners, washrooms, and wildernessses the story of His salvation. To others, He filled to spill over with Spirit-whispered words of instruction and truth, of comfort and correction. And then there were the ones who received a shepherding gift, the others who were filled with a unique ability to explain Jesus’ Words and parables in an untangled way that people suddenly understood. Why? To create the real-life cloud of Hebrews 12:1 witnesses that cheer unbelievers on to salvation and then exhort them toward holiness. All of these gifts were instilled for the singular purpose of equipping God’s people for their ministry work, to walk worthy of their Ephesians 4:1 callings.

“Growing gifts,” The Second Testament calls them, and I think of little spiritual watering cans pouring out the thing that we need at the moment that we need it, with the sole end goal of building up the body of Christ “to a position of strength and unity” (Ephesians 4:12 TLB). And, that John 3:34 promise of His Spirit that He gives without metron-measure? It’s all to make us collectively metron-measure up to the fullness of Christ. And His measure? It’s a good measure – pressed down, shaken together, running over, and poured into your lap (Luke 6:38).

All because He ascended.

 

Let’s Get Personal

I got married before Pinterest was conceived, and gathered inspiration the old-fashioned way: with stacks of magazines and pages torn out and tucked into a binder by category. The starting point? The wedding gown, always. I didn’t try on many gowns before finding “the one” that you always hear about. Four or five, maybe, and only two shops into the hunt. My magazine cutouts showed a true mermaid silhouette. Strapless, please. And only ivory. Nothing bright white.

“Mermaid skirts are beautiful,” the woman tasked with fitting me said casually, buttoning up the back of the first selection, “but are hard to move around in.” I hadn’t thought of that, I told her, thankful for her expertise. I tested her theory, walking up and down the dressing room hallway I imagined to be a runway, stepping up onto the riser and back down again, agreeing begrudgingly. So, we shifted, and I set my sights on the still-form-fitting, but much more movement-forgiving second option: the trumpet skirt. It turned out there was a whole slew of tests that “the” dress had to pass. There’s the walking test and the sitting test. Then, there’s the slow-dance test (will he trip on my skirt?) and the more ambitious jump test (will everything stay tucked in?). You also test for running (for the end of the night), volume (for the car), weight (for my body’s next day ache level). And then, of course, the mirror-in-all-angles test. Finally, after all the tests were passed, after I embraced the gown in a tearfully happy commitment that was almost as emotional as the engagement itself, it was time for the tailoring.

There was fabric pulling and clamping, pleat-pinching and length adjustment. Tighter here (a little bit more, is there room?), looser there, on and on across multiple fitting appointments.

“Can you sew in an extra layer of cups,” I joked with the seamstress (except I was also measurably serious).

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I later whispered with a wink to my newly-minted husband as we swayed on the floor for our very first dance. “They come off with the dress.”

I say all that because there’s a particularly poignant detail inside of the Ephesians 4:12 “equipping of the saints” that you can find tucked up in the Greek word in which the “equipping” word finds its root. Sure, it means “to render fit,” but that’s not all that it means. The etymology points to adjusting and preparing, with one specifically-detailed definition: “to fit out.” Suddenly, I began to think of all the fitting we do throughout our lives. We fit our children’s feet to their shoes, their height to the adventure they’re begging to try. We tighten the hidden elastic straps in the waistband of their jeans, loosen the shoulder straps of the snow bibs. Then, when they are older, we fit their suits, tailor their gowns, tucking and tying, moving and measuring, constantly adjusting the clothing to fit the endless growth.

And here, in this passage of Ephesians, Paul says that the job of the growing gifts is to equip and fit the saints, throughout all of their body changes – the swelling faith, building muscle, as the childhood chubs melt away and they grow into fully functioning spiritual adults. Those growing gifts are fitting God’s people for the spiritual armor Paul is about to school them on a couple of chapters from now.

Now, listen, every female knows the unspoken rule that you don’t fit your body to wear the dress. You fit the dress to your body. But these growing gifts are not about tailoring the dress, the suit, or even the armor to fit you. They are about tailoring the person wearing it. It’s a deep, intrinsic mix of pastoring and teaching and endless alterations. It requires so much of us, of our time and energy and focus, our faith and intentional prayer, “until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ” (Ephesians 4:13 MSG). When it’s all done the way God intends, when it’s both delivered correctly and received intentionally, we are all the pieces of the fitted-to garments, joined together, framed together, sewn together because of the thread of the effective working that each one supplies, seamlessly lining all of those perfectly fit-out pieces up, letting God stitch it all together.

“Under His direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly, and each part in its own special way helps the other parts,” Paul writes in The Living Bible’s translation of Ephesians 4:16, “so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

The job of the evangelist, the pastor, the teacher who holds these growing gifts isn’t to fit God’s Word to us. It’s not to soften the sensitive parts, take out the tight parts, add some layers to hide the trouble spots. It’s to present the Jesus-shaped garment, and then show you how to fit yourself to it.

It’s not about tailoring the dress.
It’s about tailoring the person wearing it.