Bite 67: Grace and Gifts in Ephesians 4:1-16

Understanding the Flow of the Passage

Did you know that in the original Greek, there were no pieces of punctuation? For a person who deeply appreciates grammar, that sounds like anarchy. But that is only because I don’t speak the language and I don’t understand the nuances of the words which are replacements for all grammar needs.

In our English translation, the editors put parenthesis in starting at Ephesians 4:9, but when I do my sentence diagram, the program eliminates all punctuation in order to keep it simple and closer to the original text, I think. And in my head, I see the punctuation as “cheating.” I want to look at the words and see how they relate, without someone else telling me quite as much how they think they relate.

But I do believe the parenthetical is spot-on. Paul took a detour to explain (and worship) the actions of Jesus. Starting from heaven, Jesus’ travel itinerary and his objectives, all the way back to heaven. Who else can do that? And if he can do that, what is there that he can’t do? Or won’t do? Even that he hasn’t done?

So I see Ephesians 4:9-10 as interpretative of Ephesians 4:8. Then Paul gets back to the flow of what he was originally saying in verse 11. Let’s look at it in our passage.

Our Passage

1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, 
urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling 
to which you have been called, 
2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, 
bearing with one another in love, 
3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 
4 There is one body and one Spirit—
just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 
5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 
7But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 
8 Therefore it says, 
                      “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, 
                       and he gave gifts to men.” 
9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean 
but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 
10 He who descended is the one who also ascended 
far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, 
the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, 
for building up the body of Christ, 
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith 
and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 
14 so that we may no longer be children, 
tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, 
by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, 
we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 
16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together 
by every joint with which it is equipped, 
when each part is working properly, 
makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.1

Context as a Whole

If we omit, for a moment, the insertion of Paul’s explanation of the quoted hymn in verse 8 (we discussed it here), it reads:

7 But grace was given to each one of us 
according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 
8 Therefore it says, 
“When he ascended on high 
he led a host of captives, 
and he gave gifts to men.”... 
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, 
the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, 
for building up the body of Christ2

After looking at the ESV editor’s cross reference on the word grace in Ephesians 4:7, we are reminded that Paul speaks about his stewardship of God’s grace (Ephesians 3:2), that the mystery of the gospel is revealed to apostle and prophets by the Spirit (Ephesians 3:6), and that he is a minister of the gospel by the gift of God’s grace (Ephesians 3:7) . The idea that grace and gift are connected or might even be equivalents is not new to us in this letter.

What are the Gifts?

We can see that the grace is also a gift as defined by Paul. But what is the gift? Or what are the gifts?

When I looked at the cross reference in Ephesians, which is my preference for where to start investigating (remember in Bite 2 about our concentric circles?), I’ve already come to understanding about how Paul equates God’s grace with gifts. I’m sure today’s scholars can shed light on my understanding. Let’s create a Bible Word Study and look in a dictionary or two in order to see what else we can learn.

Defining the Term

Looking at the Bible Word Study document in Logos, I was surprised by what I didn’t see. I didn’t see the references in 1 Corinthians to the giftings of the Holy Spirit. Which either means that this gift in Ephesians 4:7 is a different gift than those in the letter to Corinth or Paul uses synonyms just like any other writer. Or speaker. Let’s glance at the examples in the word study.

Usage of a Synonym

What I’m noticing in the list of verses, however, is that one of the verses in ESV uses the English word gift twice, but it’s only listed once. Any time a word is used in a verse, the verse appears in the word study list as many times as the word is used in the verse.

Following the norms of language, the two words can be treated as synonymous within that one verse. And why are we laboring this point? So there isn’t any chance for neat-o-gesis or any other wacky forms of Bible study. There isn’t anything magical about one word being used for gift or the other. A gift is a gift. Just like in English, a gift is synonymous with a present.

We also verified that when Paul says dōrea or the other word we’ve seen for gift in Greek (χάρισμα charisma, in case you’re wondering), he doesn’t have some secret or tricky meaning up his sleeve. The definition is that gift is “a free gift, benefit.”

Aren’t you glad we unloaded out of our backpack what we think about the word gift at the door? Nothing wrong with the word; who doesn’t love a present? When we get a gift that makes our lives better and that we didn’t even know we needed? Amazing! When that happens to me, I discover the love the bestower of the gift has for me. That he knows me better than I know myself.

What was Given?

In Ephesians 4:11, Paul begins to outline what Jesus gave to the recipients of the letter.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,4

With a list like this comes the danger of losing the point of the passage in favor of feeling all cool and scholarly by defining the terms. We do not want to forgo the definitions, but keep in mind that the task of defining is for the purpose of seeing the meaning of the big picture, not to find some “a-ha!” definition that we think no one else has seen before. Let’s define the Greek words behind the English words so we can understand better what Paul is saying in our passage.

Apostles	one sent as a messenger or agent, the bearer of a commission, messenger5
Prophets	a person gifted for the exposition of divine truth6
Evangelists	one who announces glad tidings; an evangelist, preacher of the Gospel, teacher of the Christian religion7
Shepherds/ Teachers	(shepherd) metaphorically a pastor, superintendent, guardian8 (teacher) to teach or speak in a public assembly9

Side Note

Perhaps you're asking, "Why did you combine shepherds and teachers instead of dealing with them separately?" Great question. As you read the passage, do you see that the translators used articles in front of each of the other nouns? The apostles. The prophets. Etc. Except in front of the word they translated as teachers. 

There are A LOT of details around articles in Greek. Anyone that says that articles in Greek are simple is way smarter than any of us. Not simple. However, I have learned that when the article is present in front of one of the nouns of a sequence and not in front of the next one, those two nouns go together in some way. 

When we look at the NET in hopes of finding clarification, sure enough, the editors included a study note (sn). If you're interested in more information about this, here is a link and you can find note 13 in Ephesians 4:11. End side note.

The Sorts of Workers that were Given

There’s a little mash-up in job descriptions for those last two categories, if you notice. Have you maybe experienced the situation where your pastor is great at teaching, but the shepherding aspect is somewhat lacking? Not every preacher/teacher is going to guardian well and the reverse is also true. Recognizing how different workers have been gifted and not forcing the issue may well benefit the body in the end.

I guess I already wandered into reflection there for a moment. Thinking I was going to get into the why’s of Jesus’ gift, I have changed plans. We will take it up here the next time, exploring the purpose as Paul explains it.

Reflection

Like we already began to discuss, there are different work assignments involved with the gifts Jesus gave to the church. If we recall the beginning of our passage where Paul urges a walk that is worthy of the calling and all that involves, how does the church get there? Is patience overlooking offense or being walked on? How does the church maintain unity? What is bearing in love and what is sweeping sin under the carpet?

How would the church ever know? Feelings? Gut reactions? Some kind of mystical anointing of a spirit? Maybe. How about this instead…based on the Word.

The Gifts in Life

Jesus gave us gifts of folks who brought the gospel news (the apostles who actually met and learned from Jesus), why wouldn’t we listen to them? I mean actually understand the gospel as given without adding to it? This is found in scripture, because the apostles number among the “dead guys” so we can’t ask them personally. Only what they recorded.

Which means that folks that have been given to dig into the Word, understand it, and expose it, are necessary. This doesn’t mean that we don’t need to be students of the Word ourselves, but there are those who are gifted this way. We have these prophets in our midst today as the authors of books, teachers at seminary, etc. They are creating the tools for the rest of us to use to help us access the Word.

Once the Word is exposed and understood, how will everyone else hear it? Through the grace of the evangelist. You’ve heard these gifted speakers. Billy Graham was renowned. In my experience, Brian Haynes, Matt Chandler, Tim Keller, all gifted evangelists. Pastor Brian was my pastor for a while, I heard Pastor Matt once in person at an Acts 29 BootCamp, and I’ve listened to hours of Tim Keller on podcasts. They all bring the Word to the masses and it changes lives.

And with lives always in process, having those gifted to shepherd, lead, guide, comfort, bandage, and so forth are such a benefit to the body. Always drama, crisis, or alternatively rejoicing all at the same time. How to apply all aforementioned labors of love to daily living? It takes gifting to really know, I think.

Wrap Up

Again I say, having those gifted for exposing the truth of scripture does not excuse us from also understanding the Word for ourselves. Obviously we agree on that point already or we wouldn’t have spent this time together. Our Bible Study Bite for today is encouragement to keep on keeping on in our efforts to understand the purpose of the biblical authors and then apply it to our own lives.

Not other people’s lives so much, just to be clear.

There is a side note above, right? About what is going on with the shepherd/teacher idea. It’s not beyond us to learn a little about Greek articles. Now please don’t head into conversations and be dogmatic about whatever you learn, because I’m guessing unless you are an expert in the field, you do not have all the information. Actually, the expert doesn’t know everything either.

There is a bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect that speaks to this. “The more you know, the less confident you’re likely to be.” Which makes me think two things for myself.

1. Don’t be confident that I’m right.
2. Learn more so that I will understand how much I don’t know so #1 will be easier.

I hope you’re encouraged to keep studying with me. Having you here encourages me, too. If you found anything useful in our time together, would you please share this with another student of the Word? Thanks for studying with me today!

1. Ephesians 4:1–16 (ESV)
2. Ephesians 4:7–8, 11-12 (ESV)
3. Mounce, W. D. (2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (p. 1129). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
4. Ephesians 4:11 (ESV)
5. Mounce, W. D. (2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (p. 1094). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
6. Mounce, W. D. (2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (p. 1260). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
7. Mounce, W. D. (2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (p. 1159). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
8. Mounce, W. D. (2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (p. 1249). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
9. Mounce, W. D. (2006). Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (p. 1123). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.