To my way of thinking, this is one of the two hardest passages in Ephesians to preach. The other is the one I’m preaching on next month. I don’t mention that because I’m fishing for sympathy—I volunteered—but because there’s one point to be made about both of them; I’ll talk about that later. In general, though, the challenges are quite different. With Ephesians 5, the problem is the way the passage has been misused and abused through the centuries. That one, you might call the “No, Paul isn’t who you think he is and he isn’t saying what they’ve told you he’s saying” sermon. Here in Ephesians 4, the issue is with the text itself, and one you may have already seen: does Paul even know how to read? Compare the text of Psalm 68:18 with the way Paul quotes it, and you have reason to wonder.
To understand what’s going on here, we need to begin—as always—with the context. Read more