MDB 58: Ephesians 4

When's the last time you went to a private social club? If you think that kind of thing is for the rich alone, guess again. The Yellow Pages are filled with lists of social clubs in which anyone in the neighborhood can become a member. They meet mainly on Sunday mornings, but don't be foolish enough to wait for an invitation.

Think of them as a Red Hat Society for gnostics. You will find therein a decidedly internalized and individualized faith. You will find, much like the Red Hats, a group of folks who act as if they are enjoying life to the fullest, no matter where they are or what they are doing. And what do they do? They do exactly what they wish to do. Any prescriptions, and thus caution, are thrown to the wind. In this Sunday club, then, it comes as no surprise that God is He Who Exists for Me.

But in reality, this private social club has been called out of the world of clubs, not to be just another club--albeit a little cleaner (if not a lot less fun)--but to be the anti-club, the place where the mantra above is flipped: I am he who exists for God. Otherwise, I would have no meaning. Apart from knowing God, we're anchorless in a torrid sea, unable to know our worth as creatures among other creatures wrought and redeemed by a transcendent God (I'm paraphrasing R. Clapp here, A Peculiar People, p. 42; see also Eph 4:14).

And this brings us to today's devotional passage. One word, among a few others, that sums up Ephesians 4 is this: friendship. I know that sounds trite to modern ears, but that might have more to do with how trite our friendships are in this shallow, isolated age. The apostle Paul often exhorts the church in Ephesus to simply act like a community of friends. Chapter 4 of the letter is littered with such exhortations: support each other in love and preserve unity (vv. 2-3); use your gifts to knit the body together and strengthen it (vv. 12, 16); "speak truth to one another" (v. 25); don't sin in your anger against a friend (vv. 26, 29, 31); and work an honest job in order to share with those in need (vv. 28, 32). 

In short, Paul writes, practice friendship. For a church without friendship is like "a gold ring in a pig's snout" (Prov 11:22).