Speaking the Truth.
Build. Mature. Grow. Paul mixes metaphors here, interspersing images of construction crews with ones of growing up and growing stronger, to explain God’s formative work among his people. It’s through love and language, Paul says, that God fashions a temple, matures a family, nourishes a body. Gospel truth shared between saints, ordinary conversations shaped by love; these are God’s ways for forming his people to look like his Son.
The danger facing both Ephesus and us resides in the everyday fable, false stories about God and his world. Like infants in the ocean, unable to find their footing, immature believers lose their balance whenever new doctrine whips into their lives. Faltering as the tide pushes and pulls, the unseasoned disciple can’t resist this pressure, can’t stand to face this force. They stumble into schemes devised by deceivers, swept away into teachings unreliable and untrue. But the matured and maturing keep one another upright along the shore, giving each other stability by speaking the truth in love.
What words reverberate between you and your companions? Are your conversations dominated by sports scores and home decor? Or do your discussions consistently find themselves enchanted with the True Story, recounting this tale of God and his love? Have your talks devolved into life-leeching gossip? Or are your times together spellbound by the rumor of God’s coming kingdom, enchanted by the whispers of redemption almost arrived?
Our physical bodies grow when nutritious foods enter our mouths; Christ’s Body grows when God’s nourishing Word exits the mouths of others. So how long has it been since your heart and head aligned, setting forth truth while setting out to serve? The goal of the Christian life is collective—our lives mixed and melding with the lives of others likewise saved, supporting one another as we climb up the trellis, reaching higher, bearing fruit, blooming alongside each other. Words matter in this community, where language and love mix to make us more. More human. More holy. More like him.
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