0. “And finally..”
Here we are at the end of this book, the last few paragraphs, and Paul declares, “Finally..” How do you read that?
Is this an incidental postscript? PS I love you. PPS. Don't forget to feed the cat.
Is this chronological, merely the last in a list of innumerated points? Four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves, and finally..
Is this the conclusive climax of a case he is making through the whole letter? The key bit of information which holds it all together, the lynch pin, the punchline?
I would say the latter, as there is a distinct movement through Ephesians as a whole, from theory into praxis, from the abstract into the detail, from a historic foundation into the complex application, from the what/why into the how-to. In this way, I propose preach Ephesians as a whole, as an argument in which the weaponry of the armour of God is the conclusive finale which we must read back onto the rest of the text, it is an interpretative key, a calibration of emphasis.
0.1 What was Ephesians all about?
So, think back, last two months of Sunday evenings, if Ephesians was going to be a single sentence, what would it say?
You are one in Christ now, so be united and stand firm in him.
At slightly greater length, Ephesians unpacks the mystery of a gospel of God's grace which makes the constitution of church unity gloriously possible and urgently imperative. This unity is a truth imperilled in application not only by fallible Christian incompetence but by vicious and targeted spiritual opposition.
You, St Marks, you are one in Christ now, so be united and stand firm in him.
Look to your neighbour, we are not just sharing a tube carriage, we are a we, we are a team, a gang, we constitute a body.
You, St Marks, yous are one in Christ now, so be a unity and as such stand firm in him.
0.2 Why did Ephesians need to be said?
What problem was it answering, what emphasis should we infer? Ephesians case for Unity needed to be said, and needs to be said over and over. Being one in Christ, as a principle and a practice is
Valuable
Vulnerable
Ephesians needs to be said to advocate unity and to counter
Ignorance of Unity
Misapplication of Unity
Opposition to Unity
0.2.1 Ignorance.
God's unity which patterns church unity is not self-evident, it is not natural, it is not the default course of action. It is truly a mystery. In the absence of a Trinitarian God who is a unity of diversity, the world tends two ways: ignorantly into atomised individualism
0.2.2 Misapplication
Seen in the monolithic unity of bureaucratic behemoths – both annul the glory of the relational personal humanity and the image of God they bear.
0.2.3 Opposition
Thirdly, unity needs stating because the is opposition in the spiritual realm. Have you felt the pain of a tapestry unravelling as fast as you can weave it? Ephesians needs to be said because there is an urgency to Unity. We live time-limited lives, and for our 90minutes on the pitch there is another team with a vested interest in our disunity.
0.3 How do we apply Ephesians?
I will try to preach a grand vision of a functioning united whole. To try to prise it into life disruptively, unity is not nothing, no mere minimal tolerable consensus. The application of Ephesians is unity, dazzling unity, fully fledged towards the excellence of a thing..
To stand firm and fight for unity with proportional seriousness, that we would harrow hell with a portrait of trinitarian us-ness, to constitute as a body more than the sum of its parts. That is my prayer for St Marks, each member individually and we collectively.
1. Ephesians is a call to be church as a unity in Christ
Just to recap, let me try to persuade you that the last few weeks in Ephesians have in fact been all about unity.
8th Oct - Ephesians 1. 1 – 14
We began some weeks ago, Steve introduced Ephesians' breathless hymn of praise. A letter addressed to the church is Ephesus. 1v1 to the saints plural.
v3-14 This one long sentence declares that through Jesus blood we have received forgiveness of sins, and that in this Christ event rich blessing gushes into our reality, Paul using every superlative, from before the foundation of the world with a plan for the fullness of time. What was the plan? → v10 TO UNITE
The display of, the experience of, the ontology of unity, the metaphysical unity, union with Christ, that is the end game, that is the means and the meaning of the gospel. Unity with Christ in Christ through Christ.
15th Oct - Ephesians 1. 15 – 2. 10
Then, on the 500th anniversary of the reformation, Mark told us from v15-23 that we are saved into unity with Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Into Christ, as the one head of one body, the Church.
We then contrast Unity in Christ is Life, contrasted with Death, 2v1-10 we were Dead in sin. By contrast with being in sin, we are in Christ 2v6 Raised in Christ, v7 receiving Grace in Christ and Kindness in Christ, v10 created for good works in Christ. In all this, we are v5 Alive together with Christ ~ writing to a you-plural about an experience we have together.
22nd Oct - Ephesians 2. 11 – 22
Sebastian used a football analogy for being Unite'ed. Being united contrasts being a One over and against being a Two. Arguing from this contrast is really important. The native state of the world's tribes and tongues is not unity.
So, 2v11 "Remember.." You used to be a disunity, a dis-integrated, disparate fractious factional dispersity: alienated. Remember. And this is how the world perpetually is: Them&Us. Them on the inner circle of privileged priority seating in private members clubs for cliques of the cogniscenti. Them, the haves vs the have-nots, the clean vs the unclean great unwashed. Remember being on the outside looking in. Remember militarised zones, quarantines, kerfews, apartheid. Remember a city red in tooth and claw. Remember because you may have forgotten.
2v13 "But now.." in Christ we are brought near, we have access to a peculiar Oneness. Don't forget it's peculiarity.
2v14 "he has made the two one." United to the body corporate, a more than sum of parts, a whole, a thung thing, not nothing, no accidental ceasefire, incorporated as a thing.
What is that thing?
v19 think of it as a citizenship, like a citizenship test gives access to certain rights and responsibilities, we as London citizens are cosmopolitan multiplicity identifying as one body because we all share in the one tube map.. but so much more so, in Christ we are a diverse membership incorporated into one household, you are brought onboard as a stakeholding associate in the firm.
v20-21 – Paul then introduces a building metaphor, again as a picture of oneness, a building is the very deliberate coordination of diverse construction components, no longer planks and bricks in the yard, we are the structural integrity of a solid whole, reciprocally dependent, mortared in place, to stand for a long time as a monument to stark one-ness.
29th Oct - Ephesians 3. 1 - 20
I couldn't find that Chris' sermon on Eph 3 was recorded. This chapter unpacks what unity means. Unity has a mysterious purpose beyond itself, unity has a because, it is no mere utilitarian convenience, expedient cooperation, unity is more-than the truism that it is good to get along, unity, church unity, counter-intuitively diverse unity, displays a cosmic truth, it the wisdom of God, in his long plan and far-reaching to reunite all things.
3v1-13 such a unity is the church: v6 church is members of the same body with a purposive unity. v9 The purpose of this unity is to display*the* wisdom of *the* God who created all things, who is now uniting all things. Unity is front and centre in the gospel, unity is the motivation of gospel, the vehicle for the gospel, and the fruit of the gospel. In making the two one in us, God is making God known, because God is the maker and the uniter, the author and the perfecter, the origin and the resolution.
Paul goes on in 3v14-20 to pray that we would understanding of the fully full fullness of God's love, v18 "together with all the saints.."as grasping the peculiar love of God is a sort of tacit knowledge, a knowledge known by experience, experienced through participation within an irreducible collective consciousness: simplistically, we know love by loving and being loved, a state which God enables by love which is v20 "this power at work within us” which reflects back “glory in the church." This benediction calls us to know love by being church.
5th Nov - Ephesians 4. 1 – 16
Ephesians divides into two halves, crudely, three chapters theory, three chapters application, Paul transitions from being church unity in theory to doing church unity on the basis of so being.
4v4 Paul espouses: There is ONE body, ONE spirit, ONE hope, ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism, ONE God and Father of all. - has he made his point?
Unity unity unity ~ but now in practice, the rubber hits the road, what does this unity look like?
So, from Eph 4, Ruth considered organisation as memory, the needful reminders through time of Who God Is, and Who we are, and through time it becomes a practice.
In the doing of church unity note how Paul transfers from those same saints/apostles/prophets which were stolid static building materials in 2v21's analogy for being a unity, into 4v11's apostles/prophets/teachers etc who constitute a living body, in the animate doing of church unity on-going.
What can we say about this unity? That it is radically diverse in its gifts and characters, and that it is purposively so. Consider how your body works, the necessity of diversity: hands and feet, ears and mouth. And so Paul says we are to grow up into:
4v15-16 "whole body, joined and held together, by every joint.." I love that. When I picture the body of Christ, I tend to think of organs, but there are also joints, what are they..? The body as it matures will grow, and must learn such as hand-eyecoordination until it becomes a corporate complex structure of parts, an organic, subsidiary, interdependent unity.
12th Nov - Ephesians 4. 17 - 32
This united body is made up of parts in relationships within a boundaried whole. David and Sarah considered the parts in Ch4-5, Caroline the inter-relations, and I will at last address the definition and defence of the boundary of this united whole.
In David's portrait of parts he painted three walks, and we saw the disconstituted parts as absentee aliens agitatedly pacing the room, the away-facing, hollowed hardened hearts and calloused treads of those who have counted themselves out of the unity.
19th Nov - Ephesians 5. 1 – 20
Then, by contrast Sarah addressed these individuals. Unfurling hibernating hedgehog individualists from their myopic retreat, to come out and play. Wake Up oh sleeper! You cannot stand aloof, you must become immersed in the messy sensate, particulate, deliciously diverse, unexpected happenstance into which you are thrown, the God-authored world which comes at you, which others you, that which is not escapist projection or bland anaesthetic numbing Wake Up oh sleeper! to the really real.
4v17-5v20 This unity depends on the active engagement of the constituent parts, attentively attending to the reality beyond themselves.
26 Nov - Ephesians 5. 21 – 6. 9
Duly unfolded from the self, we then engage relationship. And so, lastly, last week, Caroline took the passage which considers the unities in three key relationships. Unities which require submission to one another.
As you attend to the world beyond yourself you will find yourself bound to entities utterly unlike yourself.
These connections are the ligaments of the broad unity:
Unlike you in Gender.
Unlike you in Generation.
Unlike you in Economic Class.
I will return to these in a minute, because I think that these three domains are still the front line in out battle for unity.
2. Diverse Unity vs Homogeneous Disunity
To Unite all things
You are one in Christ now, so be united and stand firm in him.
We are to be united, which goes beyond the mere absence of conflict into a positive definition where we are together more than the sum of our parts. I want to call us to a high view of intentional unity, beyond utility value or efficiency, towards the emphatic poetic.
2.1 Personal Unity
(vs Abstract Monolithic Unity and the annulling of selfhood)
Throughout Ephesians God is referred in his separate persons yet working as one: from a Father God, in Christ the Lord, through the Spirit. As well, the church is considered as a whole, but addressed repeatedly a persons, agents individually gifted, named, intimately and inextricably the identity and operation of parts is bound to the cooperation of parts.
So, personal unity. This unity is not the blur of Buddhism, we do not merge like oats into porridge, we do not blend molten and homogenised as dissolved identities within a soup of indistinction. Unity fashioned after an infinite personal God is not a headless faceless committee, quorate to vote in a consensus around a tawdry lowest common denominator. God's unity is not just-a-bit-average. Risk-averse inoffensive unadventure, an entropic diminuendo towards grey homogeneity. Rather, in unity we are brought to an exquisite harmony tuned to a vast and varied coherent chorus, a symphony of infinite distinct parts. Layered and complex and personal.
2.2 Structured Unity
(vs Anarchy and the annulling relationship)
And yet this multiplicity it is a one thing. A structured one thing, a body under a head, 1v10 – 'head' becomes a verb, headify Jesus, a body headed with enemies underfoot. One body, jarringly structured as a one to we self-made, self-sufficient individualists.
And, I speak for myself, we individualise with good reason. Hell is other people: broken families have raised shattered children who trust slowly and risk little, with an aversion to hierarchy, structure and intimacy. We freelance free-range free-market libertarians, adolescent agitating anarchists, chaffing at the bit, raging against the machine, untethered from any shackles of responsibility or deference. We have learnt that humans are elaborately incompatible.
~ God ministers among us to help us unlearn this.
2.3 Excellent Unity
(vs Minimal)
Unity is not binary, not a tick-box exercise, not merely the absence of division. Unity, qualitative unity, ever closer union, if you will. Because our unity is from God and about God, it is like God in that it is always more-than, there is always more, eternally to explore further up and further in to unity.
2.3.1. An excellence of Cooperative Unity
(vs Competitive)
2v22 describes our establishment as built together then 4v12 extends we build one another up. We are a cooperative unity, by contrast with a competitive enterprise.
Philosophically committed to the idea of progress evolving through competition. This is not nothing. At risk of deviating, but, just to say, the house which Sarah and I live in with some other esteemed members of the evening service, have begun to get food delivered wholesale from Suma Wholefoods.
Now, I'm sure they're not a utopia, and this model is not the answer in many conditions, but they have been operating for 40 years on a cooperative basis. Everyone in the company owns the company, there are 160 of them, and they all earn the same. I was really unsettled by that, I'm not even sure why I was so unsetteld. Go deep, St Marks, press into provocative cooperative unity. And if you'd like some chickpeas come and speak to me after the service.
2.3.2. An excellence of Diverse and Asymmetric Unity
(vs Self-similar symmetric)
God calls his church to a radically diverse unity, being radically inclusive in who we unite. What are we uniting – 2v11 Jew and Gentile, chalk and cheese - separated, alienated, strangers – living with no hope.
The world wants unity, the vogue for the ampersand, from Mumford&Sons to Harris&Hoole. The world pines for unity. From Kinfolk magazine to the UKIP party we all pining for old fashioned community wrapped in an instagrammed veneer of nostalgia for unity. But it is a tribal unity, united around a love of beards and craft beer, or united around a suspicion of immigrants. This is not God's unity. We are a club that exists for the benefit of its non-members, doors wide open for the most unlikely others.
2.4. Embattled Unity
2.4.1 Contextually Contentious Timely Unity
(vs Vague or Acontextual)
Consider the domains: Gender/Generational/Economic
Ephesians moves from theory into practice in Ch 4. At 6, that practice hinges into this language of armour and battlement. And it does this from the springboard of these three difficult relationships, transactions which (almost neatly align as) Money, Sex, Power ~ I'd love to say more about Money, Sex & Power ~ and how a framework of being a united whole, a diverse body of parts gives rich and purposive meaning to difference in these areas. This is very loose sketch.
In Ephesians:
Money – servants obey masters ~ we engage through money: economic/financial means of wealth or class
Sex – husbands love your wives etc ~ married or not, we all engage a gendered arena of difference.
Power – Children honour your parents ~ we all negotiate intergenerational power exchange.
Today. Each of these realms is typified for many by tendentious disunity:
Money: horrible bosses on a global scale conspiring to concentrate wealth in the hands of a very few
Sex: cruel marriages of exaggerated masculinity codependent on over compensated feminine caricatures
Power: chronic and intractable family feuding
Also today. In our own strength we labour for an abstract unity:
Money - mechanical wealth redistribution through tax, it doesn't change hearts towards responsible unity, it just sends wealth offshore and dehumanises a subsidised class.
Sex – against abuse, we problematise difference we dismantle gender.
Power - generational peace achieved only by ghettoised demographics. Rendering contexts for intergenerational continuity as impossible.
2.4.2 Diabolically opposed
None of those are the unity which Paul would call us to in Christ:
Personal unity through responsible diversity.
Why is unity contentious and difficult? Because it not the mere coagulation of identical units, it is the choreography of asymmetric persons, in complex non-identical non-reciprocal exchanges of love. (love-for-love is not necessarily like-for-like)
In this, difference is not a problem to be ironed out, but an opportunity to display God in the dance of our unity. And for this reason it is diabolically opposed.
This sort of personal unity is hard, it doesn't come naturally, there are these things to hold in tension, we constantly prone to muddled and self-interested disunity. But it is this, and only this, personal and asymmetric dance of unity which is the sort of unity speaks of God's character and person, and for this reason, this sort of unity is opposed by vested interests opposed to God's character, and by spiritual forces of evil opposed to God's person.
3.0 Spiritual Warfare
Before addressing the armour, consider, do you think we need it?
Ephesians thus far we have observed what a glorious form of personal unity that God is, which we are invited into, towards this we must be awakened each to new life, and that as we relate we need to learn how to interface in the areas of Money Sex and Power. It will be difficult, but you are a smart lot, and with this knowledge, you'll figure it out.
That is not the end of Ephesians, and to leave at that point in grossly incomplete, in my experience. Paul's claim is that the Christian life is a battle. His risk analysis would advise you to expect opposition and to take proportional precaution.
If you want to do lasting good, create new life, grow a church, get married, stay married, end well. Expect opposition.
Expect opposition from an enemy who is smarter than you. Expect opposition. The church doesn't need any more pointless premature martyrs. There are no prizes for burnout. Expect opposition. No bonuses for the walking wounded. This is not a kamakazee religion. Life is complete with enough danger before you go cycling with no helmet. Expect opposition from a liar who lies about lying. That there is a fight, and the chief lie is that there is no fight.
So, spiritual warfare. A caveat. I have not experienced the more cinematic versions of this, the exorcisms. I'm open to that.
My conviction is this, that there is God's Spirit, a Spirit of truth. There is His true truth which is alive and brings a world to the light fruitful order. And then there is untruth: The lies of a distorted reality, opaque layers of alternative truth, slippery and unanchored from reference in the real, lies which darken and destroy.
How this untruth manifests to our experience is culturally specific. A conscious enemy varies the language of attack according to the most effective way to control a given culture through fear, shame, or guilt.
But the battle is always truth against lies, substantial reality against a warped distortion.
I consider CS Lewis' Screwtape. If he were to consult on the best way to addle the unity of St Marks, of Richborne Terrace, of the Pawlett Jacksons. It is always sowing lies.
Three primary lies
There is no Battle
You fight for nothing
You fight alone.
3.1 “There is no Battle.”
Jeremiah meets this. 6v14 They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace.
A lackadaisical approach to spiritual reality, where church consists in passing the ball between players inside our own half, waiting for heaven, treading water in luke warm tea, we float down the Liffey, a lethargic faith, indulging an indefinitely extended adolescence claiming a tawdry and tedious faith, self-satisfied, preening and postulating masters of in the great indoors.
It is such an attractive lie, perhaps Satan's primary lie in my life. Culturing in me foppish ingenuousness, less than the sum of my stylised affectations, I am basic cowardice under the guise of pacifism
absentee virility under the banner of compassion, total timidity, asserting nothing, venturing nothing, risking nothing. I make of my own life a commitee-run buereacracy, gingerly treading an inoffensive line, obsequious flaccidity to the last, non-commital, a theological RSVP maybe, a life of ease, animated occasionally by bouts worldly sorrow and self-pity
Dear Phil. There is a battle.
3.2 You Fight for Nothing
The Christian fight it is worth it
Unity against division is worth it
There's a fight, but is it worth it? Like Ecclesiastes, “What has been will be again..” Oscillating between cynicism and idealism, especially in the arena of church unity.
I go in with unrealistically high expectations of what church could be. I get burned on the battlefield of life, and return with unhelpfully low ambitions for what church should be.
The oscillation between flimsy idealism and premature pessimism is a collusion with the worst parts of myself, hunkered at the bottom of a well, the enemy takes me out.
Dear Phil. The armour of God is not naïve about the fight, and it is a fight worth fighting.
3.3 You Fight Alone
As Elijah, 1Ki19 "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. .. I am the only one left, and now the Israelites are trying to kill me too.."
Obadiah had saved hundreds of prophets, it was untrue then, it is untrue now. But the mindset of the imperilled individual is pervasive, down to the reading of the passage about the armour of God. The solitary superhero, pilgrim making his progress, one man's battle against the world the flesh and the devil.
Just as the whole of Ephesians has been holding in tension the one-and-the-many, so in this way we apply the armour, equally to the whole and the parts. It is both-and a forcefield for the whole ship, and buoyancy aids for each. Particularly in the case of the shield, (we'll come to) there is a WE experience of being an army, a collective, holding a line, not a cloud of individuals, we stand firm arm-in-arm line, a chain linked whole in a tortoise formation.
Dear Phil, We do not fight alone, we argue for God's diverse unity, by our diverse unity necessarily together, necessarily by his help.
4.0 Weaponry
Paul would have spent a lot time with soldiers around the Roman Empire generally, but more intimately he would have spent a long time chained to one while in prison, perhaps also whilst writing this letter.
The elements are listed in the order that they would be put on, the first three strapped to the body always, the second three being carried or taken to hand when summoned to an imminent fight. And from a soldiers typical armoury Paul omitting the spear, the remaining weapons are all defensive for close hand-to-hand combat.
I will toy a little bit to tease out further extrapolations of the pieces, but belts and breastplates are used by such as Paul and Isaiah to refer to other virtues or gifts. Simply put, the emphasis is to put on the whole armour:
The Whole Armour is:
The Whole Gospel: Justification -- Redemption -- Sanctification -- Glorification
For the Whole Person: Body Mind Heart - Ethics, Emotions, Intellect
Each aspect of your interior life is a gateway for the enemy. Cover all bases. That would be enough, in terms of how far we can stretch the clothing metaphors here:
4.1 Belt of Truth
The soldier's belt, hold everything else together. First on and presuppositional, foundational, without which everything is topsy-turvied.
Belt keeps straps flapping robes down ready for action. As with Peter's slightly different belt calling us ‘gird up the loins of your mind’ tightening his robes round his waist to prepare for rowing the boat.
By a belt of truth, reality is tethered to us, held in place, anchored to immovably to our person. This foundational true truth is no mere truism, or incidental factuality. But the exclusive and acute actuality of the universe's substance: that there is a God who is there. And who is personal, and who came in Christ. Who rose again.
Without basic true truth, other things unravel. You cannot deflect the firey darts of lies without previous certain assurance of the truth of truth first.
4.2 Breastplate of Righteousness
You can destroy a whole person by assassinating their character, outing a moral defect in any area of the life of an otherwise good person can disqualify themselves totally. If you can't find dirt on a person, insinuate it, or better still cause it. Satan knows this, he knows how far from good we each have been, he knows our favourite sin, he knows the way to your heart. Guard your heart.
The best way to guard your heart is to be righteous already, rather than when you're halfway through the chocolate cake, halfway up the stairs... Shame begets sin begets shame, it's vicious cycle.
Christ breaks the cycle. The breastplate of righteousness is not yours, it is his righteousness, imputed at the cross, and imparted daily.
He is your breastplate, he guards your heart.
4.3 Shoes of Readiness given by Peace
There is a temporal dimension to being Christian. I'm great with a manuscripted sermon. Tidily premeditated. How is my readiness if you catch me on the bus after a ragged day at the office?
Readyness! timeless truth at all times for all things in all situations. Always be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have, for all events that present themselves not on your terms. Are you ready? Christ is coming. Look busy.
That is not it. This readiness comes from a Gospel of Peace. Rest in that. Do you know God as your peace, the foot-massaged quality of peace.
I'm put in mind of David's three walkers from Eph 4, and the agitated pacing. When I'm not at peace, I pace around, procrasti-Netflix, channel switching, itchy feet.. But a gospel of peace, to my feet, and you can participate in that, rest in that, stand firm and calm in that which Christ has already done.
4.4 Shield of Faith against firey darts
Satan, a roaring lion, the troubler of the peoples, accuser of the brethren, he rains down a volley of lies.
At a time when shields were made with wood, military engineers devised the ingenious tactic to shot arrows on fire, you strike the shield, burn the shield.. Roman shields were large and door-shaped with inflamable metal or water-doused leather veneers.
More than perhaps the other items in the weaponry, the shields gain a certain quality in multiple. Made fantastic in Asterix & Obelix, these shields in multiple formed tortoises, or in one book, a rolling sphere.. The principle relates back to unity, that we constitute a whole, and that whole is subjected to spiritual attack.
So then, firey darts. Somewhat as James says of the tongue being as fire. Dangerous, contagious, the devastating work of fire. Your shield stops the firey accusations, the lies, the gossip.. it stops with you and spreads no further.
4.5 Helmet of Salvation
Not a great deal to say about this. I like the idea that protecting your mind is important, as Satan wants to get inside your head ~ but I'm not sure that that is how the ancients necessarily located the thinker. It applies never the less keeping your head ~ its a good principle, and that we would run head first, eyes on the prize, and it is the head which gets crowned.
Salvation here is the hope of future glory, we advance in hope head up, eyes fixed on Christ, helmet of assured salvation on.
4.6 Sword of Spirit/Word
Sword is short stabbing hand-to-hand weapon, and the “Word of God” is not Logos (the in-the-beginning-was-the-word), but Rhema, most helpfully understood here as the Bible ~ spoken words revealing God.
Pressing the metaphor, we can think of two concerns if this before us is a sword.
Misusing the sword ~ like playing with knives, as Sarah cautioned us in Eph5 ~ the foolish talk, crude joking, and empty words ~ we are to be careful with our words. How much more so with something you know to be sharp, turning it on one another – not what it is for.
Disusing the sword. There is an enemy and he is familiar with the Bible, we see in his engagement with Jesus, they go verse-for-verse. What a victory it would be for him if he could persuade us to relegate the bible, diminish its importance, cast it as a blunt theological instrument, an antique.
What are you? What is the battle?
What is St Marks, how would you attack it?
You, St Marks, you are one in Christ now, so be united and stand firm in him.
🎙️ Ephesians 6 - Unity