Programming Notes

Voiceover. I suppose you have noticed that I have started recording voiceovers for these Substack essays. I’ve been doing it for a while now—months. You can find the voiceover at the top of the page. It’s not AI voice reading to you; it’s my own voice. I’m doing it myself.

Podcast. The voiceovers for these Substacks essays are now also hosted on their own podcast, called Scripture-ish. You can find the Scripture-ish podcast at Apple or Spotify or maybe a few other places. This is probably the way I would consume this content if I were you. It may also be the case that I record episodes for the podcast that don’t overlap with material here at the Substack page—but I might not, and I haven’t ever done it yet.

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Berean Series. For about a decade now, Heritage Christian University Press has published an annual Bible study curriculum called the Berean Study Series. It’s designed to provide Bible class material for one quarter (i.e., 13 chapters), and it comes out usually in the late spring or early summer. It’s always written by several people affiliated with HCU. This year, the topic is the seven Ones of Ephesians 4. I previously posted my two chapters on the Holy Spirit for this edition (here and here). Look for the book to be published in a couple months.

I won’t publish here any more of the chapters from this year’s Berean, because I didn’t write any of the others. But I did write the introduction, and that is what I reproduce below.

Church

The New Testament is about the church. Now, don’t get me wrong: it’s about some other things, too. If you said that the New Testament is about Christ, I wouldn’t argue with you. The Apostle Paul once said, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). And if you said that God is the main theme of the New Testament, I could defend the point. Or maybe you think it would be best to identify the main topic of the New Testament as not God or Christ exactly but something about them—perhaps the Atonement or the grace of God. All of this makes sense to me. But I still say the New Testament is about the church.

Christ died to form the church. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). So said our Lord, and the Evangelist offers this interpretation: “This he said, signifying what death he should die” (12:33). The death of Jesus drew people to him, and these people are the church, the community who enjoys the blessings of Atonement, upon whom God pours out his grace. Saying that the New Testament is about Christ’s crucifixion or about God’s grace does not mean that it’s not about the church; it’s a matter of emphasis. But certainly the New Testament emphasizes the church. Think about this: every single one of the writings of the New Testament were written for the church, the people of God, to edify Christians in their faith. Many of the New Testament writings were originally directed to specific churches (mostly Paul’s letters, also Revelation). Moreover, the message of Jesus, in summary, was this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Who are those people who have repented and believed the gospel? What is the group of people called over whom Christ reigns as king, who are, therefore, a part of the kingdom of God? The New Testament applies to these people the Greek term ekklesia, often translated “church.” Jesus himself—at least in Greek translation (assuming Jesus actually taught in Aramaic)—applied this very term to the community of his followers (Matthew 16:18; 18:17). I say it again: the New Testament is about the church.

And what does the New Testament say to the church? Yes, it has much to say about the grace of God, and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the good news that Christ now sits at the right hand of God, interceding on behalf of his people. “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” exclaims Jesus following his Passion (Matthew 28:18). The church needs to know all of this; these are things the church should believe, teachings that should shape Christian identity. But what is it that the church should do? What are the responsibilities of the church?

Here, again, there could be several answers. Some people will want to emphasize evangelism, perhaps in reliance on the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19). Others will nominate worship as a primary task of God’s people, citing it as our destiny in the hereafter, as the book of Revelation suggests (Revelation 4–5). Some will want to talk about the church as the “hands and feet” of Jesus, in reliance on Paul’s image of the church as the body of Christ (especially in 1 Corinthians 12), and so the church should do good in the world (cf. Matthew 25:31–46) as Jesus did (Acts 10:38). Yes, yes yes! But, in the New Testament, even greater stress—greater than any of these aforementioned points—is laid on another aspect of church responsibility.

Unity.

Church Unity

What is the church supposed to do? It’s supposed to be united. Christians are supposed to love one another. I think it would be fair to say that this is the main theme of all of Paul’s letters. I mean, he definitely wants to talk about Christ crucified, because the crucifixion is important to us individually, and we rejoice that God was willing to send his son for that purpose, because he loved us, and we marvel that Jesus was willing to endure that suffering on our behalf. And yet, why did Paul want to emphasize Christ crucified to the Corinthians? It’s because the Corinthian church was divided into different factions (1 Corinthians 1:11), and Paul thought that people who acclaim as Lord one who suffered death for others could not possibly get into arguments with each other about who’s faction is better or who best represents Jesus, as the Twelve had earlier (Luke 22:24). If you’re willing to exalt yourself over your brother, then you clearly haven’t reflected enough on the crucifixion of Jesus. That’s why Paul determined to know nothing but Christ crucified. It was for the purpose of church unity.

Or think about that famous Christ Hymn passage in Philippians 2, the one that shows Jesus emptying himself as he dispensed with his divine prerogatives and submitted to a slave’s death (Phil 2:6–11). Why did Paul bring up this account of Jesus? Why mention it here to the Philippians? Paul tells us: he wants the Philippian Christians to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” He wants the Philippian church to imitate Jesus in self-emptying. Why? Church unity. “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind” (Philippians 2:1–2). The Philippian church, like the church in Corinth, was experiencing some strife, associated with two leading women (4:2), and it was of the utmost importance that the situation not split the church. It was imperative that the body of Christ remain one.

Ephesians 4

Paul addresses the same subject in Ephesians. The point of the church is to represent Christ in the world, which means that the church needs to grow into the image of Christ. Lord knows—and Paul knows—that this will take growth, because we ain’t there yet. But he lays out the goal this way.

But speaking the truth in love, [we] may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15–16)

We, the church, are the body of Christ, and we are growing into our role as the body of Christ. This image of the church as Christ’s body is itself an illustration of the unity that needs to pertain within the church, as Paul expounds in 1 Corinthians 12, leading to the programmatic declaration, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27). What Paul means in 1 Corinthians is that our role as the body of Christ has very definite implications about how we treat one another, how we love one another, how we rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Again, church unity.

And he means the same thing in Ephesians 4 by the image of God’s people as the body of Christ. It is for the purpose of church unity that God distributed different gifts to different people (Ephesians 4:7–12), “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (4:13). Paul starts this passage by highlighting the humility that Christians should display toward one another, so that they may “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3). In Ephesians 4, Paul is on his constant theme, the topic he never leaves, the unity of the church.

The hope for the world is a church united, loving one another, representing Christ.

The greatest threat to the world is a divided church.

Paul is on his constant theme in Ephesians 4, but that’s not to say that he doesn’t have new ways of addressing the familiar topic. In this passage, the apostle mentions seven aspects of Christian faith and practice that bind believers together (Ephesians 4:4–6).

There is one body.

There is one Spirit.

There is one hope.

There is one faith.

There is one Lord.

There is one baptism.

There is one God.

In Ephesians, Paul lists these seven Ones so quickly that he spends no time exploring them. Perhaps he had preached on these topics many times before in the hearing of the recipients of this letter. But those expositions are not preserved for us. And yet these seven Ones that are supposed to ground the church’s unity deserve our thoughtful attention.

We try to supply some thoughtful attention to these topics in the 2026 edition of the Berean Study Series. Let me explain the structure of the book, which is similar to previous installments of the Berean Series but with a little tweak. We asked each author to write a pair of chapters on the assigned topic, the first chapter addressing the topic in general (whether body or Spirit or hope, etc.) and the second chapter addressing how “oneness” relates to the subject. Why does Paul say that there is “one” body? Or “one” Spirit? What is he denying? What is he affirming? How does—or ought—the “oneness” of the body or the Spirit or the faith (etc.) contribute to Christian unity? We hope this approach to the seven Ones of Ephesians 4 proves stimulating and helpful to you in your personal Bible study and for the people to whom you minister.

And we hope that this series of studies contributes to the building up of the body of Christ so that it may keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

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