Bible Mastery - Ephesians 4:32 - 5:1

Thanks for listening to the Bible Mastery Podcast, brought to you by Teleios. In this episode, William and Jeanette Stewart will cover Ephesians 4:32-5:1.

The Bible Mastery Podcast brings you verse-by-verse teaching that’s clear, grounded, and life-changing. We take the Bible at its word—interpreting it in a normal, literal way—so you can uncover its deep truths about salvation, spiritual well-being, and daily living. Our goal is simple: to help you understand Scripture and equip you with the tools to interpret it confidently, without getting lost in noise or speculation.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, and welcome to the Bible Mastery Podcast, sponsored by Teleos and hosted by co-founders Bill and Jeanette Stewart. Here, we give you verse-by-verse teaching from the truth of scripture that's clear, grounded, and life-changing. Our goal is to help you understand the Bible and equip you with tools to interpret it yourself confidently and correctly. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Hi, I'm William Stewart, co-founder of Telehas. I'm here with my darling wife, Jeanette, also a co-founder of Telehaus.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining us today.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

We're glad you're here. We are, as you know, in the book of Ephesians. And uh we are at the end of chapter four in context, which of course means everything. We're in the lifestyle, Christian lifestyle portion of this book, the last three chapters in Ephesians, Paul has been giving some uh commands, admonishments about how to live the Christian life and some ways not to live the Christian life, mostly in related to speech. Last week, uh, which I got to give this verse in 31, we most recently covered things not to say. Now, I don't know why Jeanette gave me that verse, but she gets verse 32, the things to say. Jeanette, please take it away. Oh, you know, I'm sorry, before you start, I should say visit our website, like us, and give us a review, please ask questions. Read our disclaimer, our bio so you know with whom you are dealing. Jeanette, for waiting, please proceed now.

SPEAKER_03 1:56

Thank you. Bye. Yes, a wonderful verse today, starting in uh the last verse of the chapter at Ephesians 4 32. It says, and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. So again, very important are the little um sometimes words we want to overlook, like and, because there are several words in Greek that can be translated this way in English. This one is day, and it really would be a better way to say, on the other hand, so instead of verse 31, which Bill nicely told us last week were all the things that we shouldn't say, um, rather or instead be kind one to another. So I guess our first question would be well, how we're talking about speech. What on earth does be kind to one another mean uh when it comes to speech? But the word kind is interesting because it's crestos and it really means be profitable. So be useful. So it's basically saying when you speak to other individuals, let your speech be profitable or useful to each other. So again, so important. The when we speak, we should be speaking to the benefit of the person who's listening to us. Speech is not about us, it should be about them. And that's what the word kind really means here. Bill, do you want to comment on this word before I go further?

SPEAKER_02 3:44

And I would just say the word kind for Christos sounds like priestos for Christ, but it's actually a different word. That I sound is an eta instead of a iota in the Greek. So close, but there is a distinction. Just in case anybody was done.

SPEAKER_03 4:03

Thank you for that clarification. So let your speech be useful for the hearer. And then he says, tenderhearted. Well, again, this um is, I think we've seen this word before. Um it really means full of compassion. So when you're speaking to other people, be compassionate towards them. You know, you're recognizing again that um your delivery should be for the benefit of the other person. So easy, isn't it, to be critical and you know, to kind of want to score one upmanship. Well, I'm gonna tell you this. And this is just the opposite. This is saying be compassionate, have a tender heart towards other people. Any comments on that word, Bill? Oh, I know you like this word in the Greek.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

This word here in the original Greek is youth splikna. So the youth means good. Splikna means innards. So guts. So you can imagine that there's a Greek hoplite out in the battlefield, he swings his sword, life in somebody's stomach, all the guts run out. So very vivid. So it's basically uh indicating that uh we feel compassion, good compassion, good guts, good guts, yeah. So we and we even say this like that in English as well. I'm not sure the best way to phrase it, but we feel it in our guts uh compassion for somebody. Same sort of feeling, I guess. Some people, when they feel really deeply compassionate, they feel it deep inside your stomach. If I have that sensation, maybe you think you've got, but maybe I don't feel enough.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

Well, you know, in English we have the expression gut wrenching, right? For something that really grips you, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yes, same sort of thing. Interestingly, anatomy. I've been a musician, I just have to say this. There's the sphinctic artery and vein, giving one form in and out of intestines, as well as the sphank nerve. So this is an important word that still comes down to us. So yeah, thanks for listening, Beth.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Yeah, that's a great word. Good cuts, have good cuts to the other person. So really be compassionate, and then um the next is so important. It says forgiving one another. So uh the word actually here for forgiveness is uh charisma, and it really means to show favor, be kind um to one another, even as God for Christ's sake have forgiven you. So I think the question we would ask is okay, if we're supposed to forgive one another the way God forgave us, how did God and Christ forgive us? And that's a very amazing question to contemplate, isn't it? When we are forgiven by God, we are forgiven completely. Um, you know, we're forgiven for our sins, past, present, and future. He didn't wait for us to ask for it. He forgave before we even were born, right? So this idea of how we're forgiven, it was complete. It wasn't waiting for us to ask. And I think um this would really tell us when we do this for other people, you know, we need to have this mindset of total forgiveness. Now, it doesn't mean that there aren't um ramifications or results from things for which you're forgiving, but he's basically saying don't it's it's over, don't hold a grudge, move on. The results are the results, you deal with them, but uh it should be complete forgiveness. And Bill, I know you have things to add to this, it's such an important concept.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

You're so kind. I I will add medical studies, well, at least one that's shown that people who forgive have better well-being. And this is such an important point where the Paul's making in the Tibetan wisely described. How can you serve God if you're embittered towards somebody and that's weighing on your mind? How can you think about ways to serve and ways to love? Uh, this is really a critical aspect of a Krishna violence. It doesn't mean if somebody's done you wrong, you go back and deal with them again. Forgiveness doesn't mean you go and put yourself in the same vulnerable situation that you were in before, that somebody wronged you. But it doesn't mean that you harbor that over again and let it influence how you might act towards them in a superficial way or what you might say to other people about them. And um, you know, in that sense, we should be quiet, unless you and the church are going to take corrective action. We should be able to shut up about them, live our lives, forgive them, but don't make our souls smaller. Yeah. Do you you want to? I saw one comment on the report, but do you have a follow-up on what I just said?

SPEAKER_03 9:28

No, I you know, just to emphasize it, probably all of us have interacted with people who have hung on to a grudge or bitterness or anger. Uh, they haven't really forgiven. And they might say, Oh, yeah, I forgave that person, but their emotions about the event still control them. You know, some sometimes we see this for um grown adult kids with their parents. Oh, my parents wronged me, blah, blah, blah. They just can't let it go. Everything is their parents. Yes, there you go. But but, you know, it basically says move on. And, you know, uh, God doesn't hold a grudge against us, so why should we hold a grudge against others? Don't be controlled by it, just basically move on. And this is so important in our speech. You know, we should speak to the benefit of the other person. Uh, we should really have compassion towards them, and we should not be harboring grudges or anger against other people.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Well said. Interesting, this word reason by basically is the verb form for grace. God's grace to us, it really means racifying. So about half the time, it's used often in universals, it means to forgive. About half the time means just to give, God giving something graciously. And maybe it's used a man-man as well. But I think in context to it, forgiveness is a uh good translation, and whenever it says that God has forgiven us, I think it reiterates your point about Christ's forgiveness once for all. This proper forgiven, Christ action, is in the book tilts the Arab. And that's unique to the Greek. Well, other languages do have it, but I guess even the Hebrew Slavic languages, not Western European languages, and where it's a one-time ulterior tense that indicates completed action. And we'll see this again in verse 2, chapter 5. And and this is controversial, not everybody agrees with this, but when we're when the Bible describes Christ's sacrifice in the epistles, it does so in Aerous tense, describing just what you said, that it was a one-time completed action for all our sins, which we access that forgiveness by our faith alone in that death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, will be still alive. So that it's a critical verb expression, tense expression, otherwise argument.

SPEAKER_03 12:14

So so Bill, are you saying that it's a one-time event, but it has ongoing effects? Is that how you would describe it?

SPEAKER_02 12:25

It does.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

You said punctilar action, so I want to make sure that everybody understands what that means.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

I I think what you just described is the perfect tense, a completed action with ongoing effect. But it's describing this completed one-time event. It's like if you want to pray, the prey goes by, the prey ends, and was afraid that could be an error's tense. I guess the prey also could be giving joy and happiness, which has an ongoing effect. But I think in the perfect tense, where it described as ongoing effect, the scripture specifically wanting to do that to indicate that ongoing effect. Whereas I think when the error's tense is used, it's the completed action that scripture is emphasizing uh why Christ forgiveness. Or it's just really also the error is already the jump back uh the all-inclusive past tense. So you'd have to really describe this by context. But here it's probably describing the importance of that sacrifice sacrifice by cause.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

So this is a one and done kind of verb.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

One and done, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

But there's ongoing effect, obviously on forgiveness, has action in the future. But in this case, I think it's emphasizing the action itself. I don't know if anybody's written that, but knowing knowing what scripture and your good but tough question, um, that's how I describe the difference in the perfect the all uh emphasizing the ongoing effect.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

So to summarize that, we would say God forgave us when we believed in Christ for the that he took the punishment for our sins. Uh that was the moment we uh became believers, we're regenerated people, and that forgiveness was applied, then it's done, it's over.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yeah, Christ did it once, and we're forgiven once. We don't go around seeking to be forgiven again.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

And so we should be with other people. We forgive them, it's over. Move on, it's done.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

Well said. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

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SPEAKER_03 15:19

And so, as we know, uh breaks in scripture chapters and verses are arbitrary, uh, supplied by the translators to help us organize. But um we are going to move to chapter five, verse one now. Bill, take us away.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Great. Uh nice verse. So become therefore um followers of God as dear children. Oh sorry, half my translation in the data. Sorry. So important here is therefore. So when you see therefore, and again these conjunctions are important because they give direction uh to the text because there's no fluctuation of Greek. So therefore is indicating based on what I just said, chapter four, and all these commands, do this. Okay, so because God wants us to live, like in the chapter four, uh, we uh have these next attitudes. So become it says followers of the King James, and King James is a key source and some I use and doesn't always translate well. But I'm going so slowly through the text, I guess it doesn't matter. So I'm not sure if the NSAB or ESV says this when it says follow. Now to me that's not a good translation. The word here in Greek is mini-ton, where we get the word mean or imitate. So uh in the old testament, uh, and particularly the gospels, and if I had to choose uh two words, two verbs in the gospels and characterize uh how people would respond to Jesus, it was believe and follow. He ensured your belief by following. That's the gospel. Um, I don't think following is really used in the Old Testament. I'm gonna have to study that more. I don't remember. So it's particular to the gospels. Now what also it's used in Howard and the Epistles, or Living Epistles, the Romans to Revelation 3, these are the commandments of the church, and something from Gospels to the Epistles, something big has really happened. Christ died for our sins, so we're forgiven. He rose and assembled and sent back the Holy Spirit to start the church. So then people after that resurrection, when we believe, we're identified that resurrection, the death and resurrection of Christ, and are a new person. So remember the last chapter we talked about, putting on that new man, uh, the regeneration is called, spiritual baptism, Romans 6, Colossians 2, Galatians 3, all discuss this regenerative process where we are a new man, as it's described in Romans 6:12 to 16. We are able to serve, and we have the Holy Spirit. This makes all the difference. So we just don't have to follow walking around after what Jesus said and did. We can mimic. As it says in 1 Peter 1:16, be holy as God is holy. Okay, so this is something we could do that earlier saints could not do because we had this regeneration and the Holy Spirit. So I think the translation is deceptive with the mimics of God as beloved children. And again, here has often described as born children uh of God, dependent on God, but also in family and the love, or take on in Greek. So, Jeanette, what are your comments on this?

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Oh, thank you for asking. I love this verse. Um, the idea of being a mimic or a mime. Uh, and I think what's really important, it says, as dear children, so think about this. Uh, when children are growing up, they learn behavioral patterns from their parents. And it's basically saying, you well, sorry, um, they learn from their parents. And so you can often identify a kid by maybe by their looks, they look like their parents, but sometimes by their mannerisms, right? We've I've met people that they'll do something. Sometimes, actually, myself, I'll do something like, oh, that's just like my mom or my dad would have had, you know. So the idea that you can recognize um by a child's behavior to whom they belong, uh, which I think is very true, is saying this here. People should be able to recognize us as children of God in his family, adopted, uh born by our behaviors. So we should live in a way that basically exemplifies our spiritual parentage. We should mimic God. I love this verse.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

That's uh uh I like it. It shows your feminine side. I'm all about the Greek and all that stuff, and we show your heart and heart and human um human side uh detail. So uh yeah, so I think this is again based on chapter four, all these commands today's are going to be able to summarize how really we should be limiting God. We're not depending on partial obedience, we're not thinking about you know, some people will talk about the gift to us, I have this gift, I don't have that, so I would do this, I won't do that. Our task is to be holy as God is limited to God and we can keep in our holiness, in our service, uh, whatever it takes, uh telling people about the gospel, teaching them, uh, helping the church on and on, and um and post doing what we do in faith, respond to the service aspects of it.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

No, I I agree. You know, our whole life should be devoted to um living in such a way that people can identify us as believers, as belonging to God. And so that is by the speech that we talked about in chapter four. Being and speech and behavior, I would say, that is outward looking. We're looking to benefit other people by our words, by our actions, and in such a way we represent the family of God. And that's what this is saying. It should be uh easy for people to identify us as belonging to God.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

That's a good point. And I think that uh as we look at assessment around the church, you know, sometimes they may not believe us. They can act and look like leaves at some level just by saying we know I thought you said it should be generally the little screen. Uh we're doing all right, we should start here. Um next verse is requires, and we'll call that to the next video. Thank you for joining us today.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

No, these are great verses, love them, and we are grateful that you have joined us. Can't wait till next week till we dig into the following verse.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

See you next time. Goodbye for now.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Mastery Podcast. Join us next week for another exciting episode.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

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