“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:2
Ephesians 4:2, Gentleness, and Literary Terms
Instructions to live a God-honoring life are not complicated. Often, lessons are presented in short, easy to digest and apply snippets. Why then is it so easy to be swept away by self between the reading and the application? In a few words: miscommunication, stress, strife, disappointment, overwhelm, temptation, and sin.
The object for Christians is to serve others through kingdom mission, which is gathering as many people as possible to enter heaven with us. We each fill different roles but with the same mission in mind. Every believer, in every group, and every mission field needs to be unified to have this mission succeed.
How can we start out optimistically end drastically different? Remember the words from above: miscommunication, stress, disappointment, overwhelm, temptation, and sin. It’s easy to prattle these words off in a list, but when we are walking through the valleys associated with these words it makes applying Ephesians 4:2 difficult. Difficult but not impossible.
We cannot control what happens to us in life, but we can control how we react to things. Read that again and let it sink in. Our personal response is actually the only thing we can control in life. In spans of moments to months of acute stress and overwhelm, a gentle answer doesn’t seem emphatic enough. During miscommunication or strife being, humble isn’t our first instinct. While in the throes of temptation, slow, wise forethought isn’t our default programming. We want justice, we cant change, we want both yesterday, but that’s rarely how life works.
In literature “the crisis” is the turning point of the story. We will have many turning points in our lives, because until we reach heaven, we choose poorly and behave badly and must turn from those mistakes with contrition and move towards restoration.
Sometimes, before the dust of our current trial settles, we must commit to “the crisis moment”, the change, in our own story. We have to recognize the road we’re on and choose to take the more difficult but much better way. Jesus is the way. He showed us Ephesians 4:2 in action. He was completely humble and gentle; He was patient, He bore with others in love.
The literary term “climax” means the point of highest emotional intensity. That emotion can be happiness, dismay, fear, exhaustion, any human emotion. Often the climax and crisis occur at the same time for a character in a story, however that’s not always the case.
Personally, during my time recent experience of stress, overwhelm, and burnout, I had to take an honest, hard look at the past months of bimonthly doctor visits, work hardships, and adjusting expectations from Covid impacts. I realized Ephesians 4:2 hadn’t been my motto. Over months, hardness, defeat, and need for control, in any area, had settled in my heart.
My climax and crisis moments closely coincided. Since this realization, the hard work of allowing God to make tender a wounded heart has commenced. It’s a hard road, restoration, but I’ve realized the old adage is true, we can only control how we react to things.
Another thing I’ve realized is being gentle isn’t being weak. Some pastors use Jesus’ life as the definition for gentleness, which is power under control. Jesus never once forgot who He was and what He was
capable of. Instead He harnessed His power, presented it at the right time and in the right channel, and all for the glory of His father. He kept nothing for Himself. I had to ask myself, how much more of an impact can I make when I put to death my own strength, wisdom, and control for His? Won’t my life mean so much more when I seek humility and gentleness, and patience for the cause of the Kingdom. Gentleness isn’t weakness. It’s realizing His great power that resides in me and using it at the right time, in the right channel, and all for the glory of God. Ephesians 4:2 can be personified in me only when I give everything to the Father and keep nothing for myself.
Hector, a great warrior prince from the Iliad, sought glory for himself which could be won in battle. His quest for greatness and immortality, through an honorable death on the field, brought about that exact fate. Let us remember the price for gaining glory for our own account and decide to personify Ephesians 4:2 for God’s glory and for God’s kingdom.
“Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” Ephesians 4:3
