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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Ephesians 4:1 - 4:1
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As if he had said, "Seeing the riches of God's grace in Christ have so abounded towards you, who were once Ephesian idolaters, but now converted Gentiles, I Paul, who am a prisoner for preaching the gospel, and for declaring this grace to you, do most affectionately exhort you, that ye live answerably to your profession, and according to the great obligation of your high and holy vocation from heathenism to Christianity."
Here note, 1. The person exhorting and beseeching, I Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you; I that am in bonds for Christ, I that am imprisoned for preaching the gospel to you, and for proselyting you by it to Christianity. Nothing can more oblige a people to hearken to the exhortations of the ministers of Christ, than this consideration, that the truths which they deliver to them, they stand ready both to suffer for and to seal with their precious blood: I, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you.
Note, 2. The comprehensive duty exhorted to, That ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called; worthy, that is, beseeming and becoming your holy profession, answerable to the dignity and obligation of your Christian name; or, as he exhorteth the Philippians, Php_1:20, "walk as becometh the gospel of Jesus Christ."
But when may we be said so to do:
Ans. When we walk according to the precepts and commands of the gospel; answerable to the privileges and prerogatives of the gospel; answerable to that grand pattern of holiness which the gospel sets before us, the example of Jesus Christ; answerable to the helps and supplies of grace which the gospel affords.
Finally, to walk worthy or our vocation, is to walk answerable to those high and glorious hopes which the gospel raises the Christian up to the expectation of.