St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians: A Practical Exposition

140

Acts xv. 23-29.

141

Romans xiv. 56; cf. Phil. iii. 15-16.

142

Cf. Hort, Ecclesia, p. 169, who brings out that all members of the local churches, better and worse, are regarded as members of the universal Church. 'There is no evidence that St. Paul regarded membership of the universal Church as invisible and exclusively spiritual, and shared by only a limited number of the members of the external Ecclesiae.' See also app. note E, p. 267.

143

1 Cor. xii. 13.

144

Acts xix. 1-7.

145

1 Cor. x. 16, 17.

146

See app. note E (#pgepubid00074), p. 269.

147

In ii. 20 and iii. 5, 'Apostles and prophets' are spoken of together almost as one class included under one definite article. And of course the apostle Paul remained also, what he is first called, a prophet (Acts xiii. i). Apostles were also prophets; but not all prophets were apostles. They can be, therefore, grouped apart as they are here (iv. 11).

148

2 Tim. iv. 5.

149

1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6.

150

Acts xiv. 23. This is interpreted by the phrase (Acts xx. 28) 'The Holy Ghost made you bishops.' Cf. Titus i. 5, 'I left thee … to appoint elders in every city… For the bishop must be blameless.' I assume here the practical identity of bishops and presbyters, as Acts xx. 28, Tit. i. 5-7, Acts xiv. 23 (with Phil. i. 1) seem to require. But 'the presbyters' or the 'presbyterate' was the more general name for the governing body of a church, and an apostle can therefore call himself a presbyter or include himself in the presbyterate (1 Peter v. 1; 1 Tim. iv. 14), whereas he would hardly call himself a 'bishop.'

151

Rom. xii. 1.

152

1 Cor. xv. 58.

153

Col. iii. 5, 12.

154

Heb. ii. 1; x. 19; xii. 1.

155

An interesting expression of this sort of feeling is to be found in George Crabbe's poem, The Library. On the whole we must have improved since his day in our perception of the connexion of Christian doctrine with Christian practice.

156

2 Pet. iii. 16.

157

Rom. vi. 1 ff.

158

'To work all uncleanness.' Marg. 'to make a trade of.'

159

Rom. vi. 17.

160

Eph. iv. 24, R. V. Marg. 'the new man which is after God, created,' &c.

161

1 Cor. xii. 25, 26.

162

Zech. viii. 16, 17.

163

Ps. iv. 4, according to the LXX. But the English version 'Stand in awe and sin not' is probably correct.

164

2 Thess. iii. 10.