Week Four Wrap-Up
Ephesians 4
Define
This week we defined the following words:
- Walk – (Peripateo) to walk (a) to make one’s way, progress; to make due use of opportunities (b) Hebrew for, to live
- Apostle – (Apostolos) a delegate, messenger, one sent forth with orders
- Prophet – (Prophetes) one who, moved by the Spirit of God and hence his organ or spokesman, solemnly declares to men what he has received by inspiration, especially concerning future events, and in particular such as relate to the cause and kingdom of God and to human salvation
- Evangelist – (Euaggelistes) a bringer of good tidings, an evangelist
- Pastor – (Poimen) 1 – a herdsman, esp. a shepherd (a) in the parable, he to whose care and control others have committed themselves, and whose precepts they follow 2 – metaph. (a) the presiding officer, manager, director, of any assembly: so of Christ the Head of the church (1) of the overseers of the Christian assemblies (2) of kings and princes
- Teacher – (Didaskalos) 1 – a teacher 2 – in the NT one who teaches concerning the things of God, and the duties of man
- Futility – (Mataiotes) what is devoid of truth and appropriateness
- Blindness – (Skotto) 1 – to darken, cover with darknes 2 – metaph. to darken or blind the mind
- “put off” – (Apotithemi) to put off or aside or away
Investigate
This week we began to go on a “solo D.I.V.E.”. We were to develop our own list of words to define, questions to investigate, and to make a list of attributes of God using a concordance.
Share your list of words, questions, and attributes. Did you use an outline, verse map, or some other method to organize your study?
Embrace
Paul urges us to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which [we] have been called” (vs 1).
He also exhorts us to use the gifts we have been given for “building up the body of Christ” (vs 12).
We are all gifted in some way to help edify the church.
Paul addresses what he terms as “the old self”, that being who we were and how we acted in our sinful past. Although he is once again reminding us of how it used to be in our past, he transitions to showing us what we should be doing as “the new self” (vs 24).
As we read Paul’s message of putting off the old habits of sin and walking in a new way of living in Christ, we spent time with God asking Him to show us any area where we still need to work on renewing our way of thinking and acting.
Share your Wow moment(s) from Ephesians 4 in the comments below
I think my wow moments are pretty much coming from the re-reading of the scriptures. I’m going to have to keep doing that. The “wow” moment that got me this time is when Paul talks about how to live (to live worthy of your calling.) And it just shows to me that God wants us to have a higher standard of living. He wants to pull us out of the “muck” and have us live a way befitting a child of a King. These “rules” are beneficial to us, but also say a lot about the character of God and the rich quality of life he wants for us. I think the party line tends to be that God takes the fun out of living etc etc…when really he’s taking us from (as Paul says) a deluded mind to mind that is full of truth. A lot to chew on.