The Quiet Virtues

Ordinary Means · An Ephesians Study · No. 7

Last time I told you to watch for one word at the start of chapter four. Here it is: Therefore.

In Paul's hands that word is a hinge. Behind it lie three chapters of pure glory — chosen before the foundation of the world, raised from death, seated with Christ, filled with all the fullness of God. Therefore — because of all that — Paul turns to how the Christian actually lives. I… urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

Notice the order, because everything depends on it. Paul does not say walk worthy so that you may be called. He says walk worthy because you have been called. The doctrine comes first; the life follows from it. Reverse those two and you get moralism — a person trying to earn a standing he does not have. Keep them in Paul's order and you get something else entirely: a redeemed people living out, in their daily walking, a salvation already freely given. The walking never earns the calling. It answers it.

And what a calling to answer. "Worthy" translates axios — of equal weight. The walking is meant to balance the calling. But the calling, as we have seen for three chapters, is enormous — cosmic, eternal, glorious. What could possibly have equal weight to that?

Here is the surprise. You might expect Paul to call for spiritual heroics — visions, feats, grand gestures. Instead he reaches for the quietest words in the language:

Humility — a sober, lowly estimate of yourself, which the ancient world despised and the Gospel made central. Gentleness — strength that holds back the harm it could do. Patience — makrothymia, a long temper, slow to flash, slow to take offense. And then the most ordinary phrase of all: bearing with one another — putting up with each other's quirks and failings and slownesses — in love. Not grudgingly. In love. This is the fabric of worthy walking. Not the spectacular gifts. The unspectacular ones, exercised on a Tuesday, toward people who are also bearing with you.

And notice what these virtues are for: to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Maintain — not create. The unity is not something the Ephesians have to build from scratch by clever organization or careful negotiation. It has already been given by the Spirit. Their job is simply not to let it slip. Paul piles up seven ones to press the point: one body, one Spirit… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. The Church is already one. The quiet virtues are how we keep what we have been given.

That keeping is everyone's work. From His ascended height — the Christ who first descended to a manger and a cross, then ascended that he might fill all things — Christ hands out gifts: apostles and prophets to lay the foundation, and evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to keep building. But notice the purpose. The pastor is given to equip the saints for the work of ministry — not to be the only minister while everyone else watches. The shepherd's job is to ready the flock for their ministry, so that, as Paul ends the passage, when each part is working properly, the whole body grows and builds itself up in love. Every part. The widow at her prayers, the father in his vocation, the teenager learning the catechism. The body grows when each member does its quiet work.

And it grows toward maturity — so that we will no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine. The antidote to drift is not less conviction; it is the apostolic faith held more firmly. But never as a club. Paul names the only posture that works: speaking the truth in love. Truth without love grows hard, and people are wounded who should have been healed. Love without truth grows soft, and people drift who should have been steadied. The mature Church holds both in a single act — and grows up, every part of it, into Christ its Head.

Next time Paul gets specific about the daily difference this makes: the old self put off, the new self put on — and a remarkably down-to-earth list (tell the truth, do not let the sun go down on your anger, work honestly, speak words that build up, forgive as you have been forgiven). Read Ephesians 4:17–32 before then.

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