MATURITY
Ephesians 4:1-16
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
The contrast between v14, “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” and v15, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” is very revealing. On the one hand the immature church is one that is unstable, chasing after the latest trendy idea and therefore easily manipulated. Such a church has no sense of truth and certainly no Christ as Shepherd. On the other hand, the church that is well equipped by the gifts of Christ, is well-grounded in the truth and therefore has the confidence to express it with love towards others. Here is a church that clearly has Christ as the head and unitedly serves him.
Paul makes it clear that Christ bestows gifts to the church. These gifts, such as the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, minister to the people and equip them for works of service. We should understand the following text to mean that as the people then involve themselves in works of service, the body is built up. The building up of the body is not the task of the gifts of Christ. They are to equip the people for works of service so that the body may be built up.
But Paul’s description of the resulting church is instructive: unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God (truth), and become mature (love, or more broadly, the gifts of the Holy Spirit), attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (completeness).
It is not just that as we are well taught we will come to the unity of truth; we must be practitioners (as people involved in works of service) as well. What this simply means is that if we are to know truth, we must be involved in acts of love. In other words, truth cannot be grasped in a theoretical environment. It is only when we are involved in service, when we have a stake in the truth, that we will be built up. This is the call of Paul at the top of the chapter: Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. And so Paul, describing the path to maturity in Christ, or fullness of Christ, puts together the twin building blocks of Christian maturity—truth and love—and tells us that as we “truth in love” we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.