Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Ephesians 4:14
That we [henceforth] be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, [and] cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
14. that we henceforth, &c.] This verse takes up the thought of Eph 4:12. The mutual activity and influence of Christians, guided aright, is to result in, at once, fixity of principle and richness of power; both characteristic of spiritual maturity.
children ] The same Gr. word as e.g. 1Co 3:1 (A.V., “babes”), 1Co 13:11; Heb 5:13 (A.V., “babe”). By usage, it denotes the young child in the aspect specially of ignorance or mental weakness, “childishness.” From another side the same word sometimes conveys ideas commended by the Gospel, the little child’s simplicity of purpose and willingness to be taught, “childlikeness” ( e.g. Mat 11:25; Mat 21:16; 1Co 14:20, where the kindred verb is used).
tossed to and fro ] Lit., “ billowed ”; carried up and down as on waves. Another explanation of the (rare) Gr. word is “worked into waves,” as the sea by the wind. But the next phrase is against this, and so is the analogy of a verb of similar form, Jas 1:6 (A.V., “driven with the wind”).
carried about ] Like St Paul’s own ship in Adria (Act 27:27, where the Gr. verb is closely akin to this).
of doctrine ] Lit., of the teaching, the teaching in question, that described just below.
by the sleight ] Lit., in the dicing. “ In: ” more than “ by.” The thought is of “the evil atmosphere, as it were, in which the varying currents of false doctrine exert their force” (Ellicott). “ Dicing ” : the word was familiar in later Greek, in the sense of deceit, sharp practice, in general. It was thence borrowed, and similarly used, by the Rabbis.
of men ] Not of Christ, nor for Christ. Cp. Gal 1:1.
and cunning craftiness, &c.] More lit., in cunning, with a view to the scheming of [their] deceit. R.V., “ after the wiles of error.” But the Gr. preposition far more often means “with a view to” than “according to.” The practical difference, however, is minute.
The Apostle here recognizes and exposes the sad fact of intentional misguidance on the part of these preachers of “another Gospel” (Gal 1:6-7). See the parallel cautions, Rom 16:17-18; Col 2:4.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
That we henceforth be no more children – In some respects Christians are to be like children. They are to be docile, gentle, mild, and free from ambition, pride, and haughtiness; see the notes on Mat 18:2-3. But children have other characteristics besides simplicity and docility. They are often changeable Mat 11:17; they are credulous, and are influenced easily by others, and led astray, In these respects, Paul exhorts the Ephesians to be no longer children but urges them to put on the characteristics Of manhood; and especially to put on the firmness in religious opinion which became maturity of life.
Tossed to and fro – kludonizomenoi. This word is taken from waves or billows that are constantly tossed about – in all ages art image of instability of character and purpose.
And carried about with every wind of doctrine – With no firmness; no settled course; no helm. The idea is that of a vessel on the restless ocean, that is tossed about with every varying wind, and that has no settled line of sailing. So many persons are in regard to religious doctrines. They have no fixed views and principles. They hold no doctrines that are settled in their minds by careful and patient examination, and the consequence is, that they yield to every new opinion, and submit to the guidance of every new teacher. The doctrine taught here is, that we should have settled religious opinions. We should carefully examine what is truth, and having found it, should adhere to it, and not yield on the coming of every new teacher. We should not, indeed, close our minds against conviction. We should be open to argument, and be willing to follow the truth wherever it will lead us. But this state of mind is not inconsistent with having settled opinions, and with being firm in holding them until we are convinced that we are wrong. No man can be useful who has not settled principles. No one who has not such principles can inspire confidence or be happy, and the first aim of every young convert should be to acquire settled views of the truth, and to become firmly grounded in the doctrines of the gospel.
By the sleight of men – The cunning skill trickery of people. The word used here – kubeia – is from a word ( kubos) meaning a cube or die, and properly means a game at dice. Hence, it means game, gambling; and then anything that turns out by mere chance or hap-hazard – as a game at dice does. It may possibly also denote the trick or fraud that is sometimes used in such games; but it seems rather to denote a mans forming his religious opinions by the throw of a die; or, in other words, it describes a man whose opinions seem to be the result of mere chance. Anything like casting a die, or like opening the Bible at random to determine a point of duty or doctrine, may come under the description of the apostle here, and would all be opposed to the true mode, that by calm examination of the Bible, and by prayer A man who forms his religious principles by chance, can un form them in the same way; and he who has determined his faith by one cast of the die, will be likely to throw them into another form by another. The phrase the sleight of men therefore I would render by the mere chance of people, or as you may happen to find people, one holding this opinion, and the next that, and allowing yourself to be influenced by them without any settled principles.
Cunning craftiness – Deceit, trick, art; see 2Co 12:16; Luk 20:23; 1Co 3:19; notes, 2Co 4:2; 2Co 11:3, note.
Whereby they lie in wait to deceive – Literally, Unto the method of deceit; that is, in the usual way of deceit. Doddridge, In every method of deceit. This is the true idea. The meaning is, that people would use plausible pretences, and would, if possible, deceive the professed friends of Christ. Against such we should be on our guard; and not by their arts should our opinion be formed, but by the word of God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Eph 4:14
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
The mature Christian
The apostle here describes the perfect man, or mature Christian, both negatively and positively.
I. The negative description.
1. Christians must not remain children. In understanding, constancy, and fortitude, they should be men.
2. Christians must not be tossed to and fro, like a ship rolling on the waves. He who embarks for the heavenly world must consider, that the ocean on which he sails is subject to changing winds and perilous storms. He must not promise himself smooth waters, soft gales, and clear skies; but go provided for all kinds of weather. The word of truth must be his compass, and faith his pilot; hope must be his anchor, and knowledge and good works his ballast; prudence must keep the watch, and sober reason hold the helm. Thus he may sail with safety in all seasons.
3. Christians must not be carried about with every wind of doctrine. False doctrines, like winds, are blustering and unsteady. They blow from no certain point, but in all directions; and they frequently, and sometimes suddenly, shift their course. They make great noise and bustle, disturb the atmosphere, and, by their violent motions, they spread confusion and ruin. Light bodies are easily taken up and driven about by every wind that blows. The gale which cleanses the wheat, disperses the chaff. The deep-rooted oak stands firm in its place, while the dry leaves beneath it are caught up, wafted around, and made the sport of every gust. So the sincere Christian, rooted and grounded in the truth, and grown up to maturity in faith and knowledge, is steadfast in his religion, whatever storms may assault him.
4. The apostle warns us that we are in danger from the sleight of men, and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
II. The positive description.
1. We must speak the truth in love; or be sincere in love.
(1) We should acquire a good doctrinal knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus.
(2) We should be well established in the truth.
(3) We should see that our hearts are conformed to the truth.
(4) We must walk in the truth.
2. As we must adhere to the truth, so we must grow up in all things into Christ, who is the Head.
(1) Christ is the Head of believers.
(2) They must grow up into Him.
(3) They must grow in all things. A partial religion is worthless. (J. Lathrop, D. D.)
Christian education
In Christian character, it may be, relatively speaking, that the moral functions–faith, hope, conscience, and love–stand higher on the scale than social affection, taste, and the lower forms of human reason; but if Christian character is to be complete, it must include them all. Suppose a painter, in painting a mans face, should omit the hair and the eyebrows, saying, A man can live without hair, and I paint only the important features, and should represent simply the mouth, the eyes, and the nose; what sort of a picture would he make? Absurd as such a thing would be in art, how much more glaring would be the absurdity, in drawing the portrait of the soul, of leaving out any part of it! Religious culture carries with it everything. All the parts are required to make the whole on this ideal–Christ Jesus. I have around my little cabin in the country a dozen or so of rhododendrons. Broad-leaved fellows they are. I love them in blossom, and I love them out of blossom. They make me think of many Christians. They are like some that are in this Church. Usually they come up in the spring and blossom the first thing, just as many persons come into Christian life. The whole growth of the plants is crowded into two or three weeks, and they develop with wonderful rapidity; but after that they will not grow another inch during the whole summer. What do they do? I do not know, exactly; they never told me; but I suspect that they are organizing inwardly, and rendering permanent that which they have gained. What they have added to growth in the spring they take the rest of the season to solidify, to consolidate, to perfect, by chemical evolutions; and when autumn comes, the years increase is so tough that, when the tender plants that laughed at these, and chided them, and accused them of being lazy, are laid low by the frost, there stand my rhododendrons, holding out their green leaves, and saying to November and December, I am here as well as you. And they are as green today as they were before the winter set in. Now, I like Christians that grow fast this spring, and hold on through the summer, and next spring grow again. I like Christians that, having grown for a time, stop and organize what they have gained, and then start again. I like periodicity in Christian growth. (H. W. Beecher.)
A young mans responsibility
Into the life of every youth there comes an hour when an irresistible instinct awakens in him the consciousness that he is no longer a child. When he realizes his own separate personality, when he begins to think, to judge, to act for himself, and when, because he has the ability, he has also the right to be self-controlled, in that hour he becomes a young man. In that hour you might liken him to that young prince of whom we read in English history, who was caught in the act of putting on his fathers crown: only with this difference, that the young man is lifting to his brow the crown that belongs to none other, but is the God-given crown of his own manhood.
I. The fact that you are no longer children involves your personal responsibility.
1. You are responsible for your body.
(1) To take such physical exercises and recreative amusements as will develop it and keep it in health and strength.
(2) Not to injure your body by carelessness or dissipation.
2. You are responsible for your mental and moral culture; for the development of your faculties; for the wise use and the strong growth of all your powers.
3. You are responsible for your influence.
4. You are responsible, in view of the future that is before you. As yet you are but spreading your canvas and sailing out of harbour. Out yonder is that great and wide sea of life that is full of perils for them that navigate therein. There are sunken rocks, there are shifting shoals, there are treacherous coasts, there are wreckers with false lights, there are sirens with deceptive songs, there are straits narrow and perilous with unimagined and tremendous difficulties; and you are responsible now as you begin the voyage of your life to prepare yourself for the difficulties that are ahead, to take chart and compass with you.
5. Remember, too, that you are responsible for your soul. You cannot ignore the fact that you come to a world where men have fallen, but where men have been redeemed.
II. The fact that you are no longer children demands a manly steadfastness of will. The inconsistency, the fickleness, the shiftiness, natural in a child, because a sign of immaturity, is out of place in those who are no longer children. The glory of young men is their strength–strength of will–the energy that turns itself to that which is good–the power to say No with decision, and Yes with concentration.
III. Because you are no longer children you are expected to be men. What is a man? What is manliness? Manliness is virtue–vir, a man; virtue, the quality of a man. Truthfulness is a virtue, therefore it is manly. Justice is a virtue; therefore it is manly. Good temper is a virtue; therefore it is manly. Whatever is virtuous is manly. Whatever is manly is virtuous; and, vice versa, whatever is not virtuous is unmanly. Talk that is not virtuous is unmanly talk; love that is not virtuous is unmanly love; life that is not virtuous is unmanly life. Be men. Be virtuous. What is manliness? It is godliness. God created man in His own image. In His own image created He him. God is true, God is just, God is pure, God is gracious, God is swift to forgive, God is tender to the fallen, God is the helper of the helpless. Be godly, and being godly you will be manly. But how to become manly? How to be like God? Young men, once in the history of the world God sent a man to teach us how to be men, and to be men indeed! Jesus of Nazareth was His name: Son of God and Son of man. If you would be manly, let Jesus teach you. (W. J. Woods, B. A.)
The case of deceivers and deceived considered
Here are two sorts of persons marked out by the apostle in the text, the deceivers and the deceived; the one, subtle and crafty, and full of intrigue; the other, easy and credulous, and unsuspecting; the one, supposed to have all the wiliness of the serpent, without the innocency of the dove; the other, all the tameness and simplicity of the dove, without the serpents wisdom. Both are blamable, though in different respects, and not in the same degree; one for abusing and misemploying their talents, and the other, for not employing them at all to discern between true and false, between good and evil. Both are accountable to God as delinquents; one for high contempt, and the other for great supineness and neglect.
I. I propose to consider the case of deceivers, or seducers, such as, by their flight and cunning craftiness lie in wait to deceive. And here it will be proper to inquire, upon what motives, or with what views, men are led thus to beguile and misguide others. The particular motives in such cases may be many; but they are all reducible to these three heads, pride, avarice, voluptuousness; that is to say, love of honour, or profit, or pleasure.
II. To consider the case of the deceived, who suffer themselves to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. They are supposed to be ignorantly, and in a manner blindly, led on by others; otherwise, they would be rather confederates and confidents in managing the deceit, and so would be more deceivers than deceived. There are, I think, three cases which will take in all sorts of men who suffer themselves to be deceived in things of this kind.
1. Those who have no opportunity, no moral possibility of informing themselves better.
2. Those who might inform themselves better, but do not.
3. Those who might also be better informed, but will not.
III. To subjoin some advices proper to prevent our falling in with either. The best preservative, in this case, is an honest and good heart, well disposed towards truth and godliness, having no by-ends to serve, no favourite lust or passion to indulge. The evidences of the true religion, and of its main doctrines, are so bright and strong, when carefully attended to, that common sense and reason are sufficient to lead us, when there is no bias to mislead us. (D. Waterland, D. D.)
Doctrinal preaching
But there were some rising up who objected to doctrinal preaching. It was not necessary, they said, in these days; practice, and perhaps a little experience, but no doctrine. But really if you take away the doctrine you have taken away the backbone of the manhood of Christianity–its sinew, muscle, strength, and glory. Those men reminded him of Philip when he wished to enslave the men of Athens, and would have them to give up their orators. Demosthenes replied, So said the wolves–they desired to have peace with the shepherds, but the dogs must be first given up–those pugnacious dogs that provoked quarrels. The wolves would lie down peaceably with the lambs, and delight themselves with the sheep, if only those bad-tempered dogs were hanged. So perfect peace was promised among the sects if doctrine were given up; but depend upon it, these were, after all, the preservation of the Church, which without them, would soon cease to be Burn the charts; what is the use of charts? What we want is a powerful engine, a good A-1 copper-bottomed ship, an experienced captain, and strong, able-bodied mariners. Charts! ridiculous nonsense–antiquated things–we want no charts, destroy every one of them. Our fathers used to navigate the sea by them, but we are wiser than they were. We have pilots who know every sand and sunken rock, who can smell them beneath the water–or by some means find them out. Men know whats oclock now-a-days, we dont want chronometers. So they put out to sea without charts; and, looking across the waters, we may expect to witness the shipwreck of those who thought themselves so wise, and fear sometimes lest we should hear their last gasp as they sink and perish. Professing themselves to be wise, they become fools. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Shallow Christians
I was informed by the engineer who had charge of the survey of that great treasure which Mr. Seward secured for us in Alaska, the eternal ice house of the globe, that even where summer brings vegetation, if you take a staff and drive it down in many parts two or three feet, you strike solid ice, because summer never goes lower than that. And as it is there, so it is in men–only different men are very different in this respect. In some men, if you go down six inches you strike ice; in some men you strike ice if you go down a foot; and in some men you do not strike ice until you go down two feet; but somewhere or other, in everyman, if you go down far enough you will come to a solid foundation, where summer does not reach. What we want, therefore, is tropical heat, that pierces to the very centre; and there are many in whom only heat of a very searching nature is sufficient. (H. W. Beecher.)
Growth in knowledge
As when men stand and look into the heavens with the naked eye they see some three thousand stars; as with a glass of a certain power they may see some ten or twenty thousand, and as with a larger glass they may see still more, penetrating to the infinite depths of space, so the human mind has been such that at first it could see a little of the nature of God, then a little more, then a little more, and so on, with a power of vision that has increased clear down to the present time. (H. W. Beecher.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 14. Be no more children] Children, here, are opposed to the perfect man in the preceding verse; and the state of both is well explained by the apostle’s allusions. The man is grown up strong and healthy, and has attained such a measure or height as qualifies him for the most respectable place in the ranks of his country.
The child is ignorant, weak, and unsteady, tossed about in the nurse’s arms, or whirled round in the giddy sports or mazes of youth; this seems to be the apostle’s allusion. Being tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, refers to some kind of ancient play, but what I cannot absolutely determine; probably to something similar to a top, or to our paper kite.
By the sleight of men] The words refer to the arts used by gamesters, who employ false dice that will always throw up one kind of number, which is that by which those who play with them cannot win.
Cunning craftiness] It is difficult to give a literal translation of the original words: . “By cunning, for the purpose of using the various means of deception.” signifies craft and subtlety in general, cheating and imposition: , from which we have our term method, signifies a wile, a particular sleight, mode of tricking and deceiving; it is applied to the arts which the devil uses to deceive and destroy souls; see Eph 6:11, called there the WILES of the devil. From this it seems that various arts were used, both by the Greek sophists and the Judaizing teachers, to render the Gospel of none effect, or to adulterate and corrupt it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
That we henceforth be no more children; i.e. weak in the faith, unstable in judgment, children in understanding, 1Co 14:20; such as need teaching, and strengthening: see Rom 2:20; 1Co 3:1; Heb 5:13.
Tossed to and fro; light and unconstant, like ships without ballast, tossed with every wave.
And carried about with every wind of doctrine; not only shaken and staggering as to our faith, (as in the former clause), but carried about to errors for want of judgment, by false doctrines, here compared to violent winds.
By the sleight of men; their sophistry, whereby they easily seduce those that are unskilful, as men easily cheat children in playing at dice, from whence this metaphor is taken.
Cunning craftiness; their skilfulness in finding out ways of deceiving, whereby they can make any thing of any thing.
Whereby they lie in wait to deceive, viz. as in ambush; the word here used, is translated wiles, Eph 6:11, against which the apostle would have them fenced with the whole armour of God, and seems to signify a laying in ambush, or assaulting a man behind his back; a secret and unseen way of circumventing, a laying wait to draw them that are weak from the truth.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
14. Translate, “To the endthat”; the aim of the bestowal of gifts stated negatively, as inEph 4:13 it is statedpositively.
tossed to and froinwardly,even without wind; like billows of the sea. So the Greek.Compare Jas 1:6.
carried aboutwithevery wind from without.
doctrine“teaching.”The various teachings are the “winds” which keepthem tossed on a sea of doubts (Heb13:9; compare Mt 11:7).
byGreek, “in”;expressing “the evil atmosphere in which the varyingcurrents of doctrine exert their force” [ELLICOTT].
sleightliterally,”dice playing.” The player frames his throws of the dice sothat the numbers may turn up which best suit his purpose.
of mencontrasted withChrist (Eph 4:13).
andGreek, “in.”
cunning craftiness, wherebythey lie in wait to deceiveTranslate as Greek,“craftiness tending to the methodized system of deceit”(“the schemes of error”) [ALFORD].BENGEL takes “deceit,”or “error,” to stand for “the parent of error,”Satan (compare Eph 6:11);referring to his concealed mode of acting.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
That we henceforth be no more children,…. Meaning not children of men, for grace does not destroy natural relations; nor children of God, which is a privilege, and always continues; nor indeed children of disobedience, though the saints cease to be such upon conversion; but in such sense children, as they were when first converted, newborn babes, little children: there are some things in which they should be children still, namely, with respect to an ardent and flaming love to God and Christ, and to the saints; and with regard to their eager desire after the sincere milk of the word; and as to pride, malice, envy, evil speakings, guile and hypocrisy; in these things it becomes them to be children: but not in understanding; they should not always remain ignorant, imprudent, or be always fed with milk, and not able to digest meat; nor be unable to go unless led, and be tender and incapable of bearing hardships for Christ and his Gospel, and of defending it, and his cause and interest; but should play the man, and quit themselves as such and be strong, which the Gospel ministry is a means of, and encourages to:
tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine; false doctrine, which may be compared to wind for its lightness and emptiness, and for its swelling and puffing nature, and for the noise and bluster it makes, and for its rapidity and force, with which it sometimes comes and bears all before it, and for its infectiousness, which is the nature of some winds; and to be tossed to and fro, and carried about with it, is expressive of much ignorance and want of a discerning spirit, and implies hesitation, and doubts and scruples, and shows credulity, fickleness, and inconstancy: and which is brought on
by the sleight of men; either through the uncertain and changeable state of things in life; the mind of man is fickle, the life of man is uncertain, and all the affairs of human nature are subject to change, by reason of which men are easily imposed upon; or rather through the tricking arts of false teachers; the word here used is adopted by the Jews into their language, and with them signifies the game at dice a; and , is a gamester at that play, and is interpreted by them, one that steals souls b, and deceives and corrupts them; and may be filly applied to false teachers, who make use of such like artifices and juggling tricks, to deceive the hearts of the simple, as the others do to cheat men of their money: hence it follows,
and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; or “unto the deceitful methods or wiles of the devil”, as the Alexandrian copy reads; which not only suggests that their principal end in view is to deceive, but their insidious, private, and secret way of deceiving, and their expertness in it, which they have from the devil; and now the ministration of the Gospel is the best and surest guard and antidote against such fluctuations and deceptions.
a T. Bab. Erubin, fol. 82. 1. Misna Roshhashana, c. 1. sect. 8. & Sanhedrin, c. 3. sect 3. b T. Bab. Cholin, fol. 91. 2. & Jarchi & Tosephot in ib. & Juchasin, fol. 88. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
That we may be no longer children ( ). Negative final clause with present subjunctive. Some Christians are quite content to remain “babes” in Christ and never cut their eye-teeth (Heb 5:11-14), the victims of every charlatan who comes along.
Tossed to and fro (). Present passive participle of , late verb from (wave, Jas 1:6), to be agitated by the waves, in LXX, only here in N.T. One example in Vettius Valens.
Carried about (). Present passive participle of , old verb, to carry round, whirled round “by every wind (, instrumental case) of teaching.” In some it is all wind, even like a hurricane or a tornado. If not anchored by full knowledge of Christ, folks are at the mercy of these squalls.
By the sleight ( ). “In the deceit,” “in the throw of the dice” (, from , cube), sometimes cheating.
In craftiness ( ). Old word from (, , any deed, every deed), cleverness, trickiness.
After the wiles of error ( ). is from (, ) to follow after or up, to practise deceit, and occurs nowhere else (Eph 4:13; Eph 6:11) save in late papyri in the sense of method. The word (wandering like our “planet”) adds to the evil idea in the word. Paul has covered the whole ground in this picture of Gnostic error.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Children [] . See on 1Co 2:6; 1Co 3:1. As to the connection, ver. 13 states the ultimate goal of christian training; ver. 14 that which is pursued with a view to the attainment of that goal. Ver. 14 is subordinate to ver. 13, as is shown by the retention of the same figure, and is remotely dependent on vers 11, 12. The remote end, ver. 13, is placed before the more immediate one, as in ver. 12. See note.
Tossed to and fro [] . Only here in the New Testament. See on wave, Jas 1:6. For Paul ‘s use of nautical metaphors, see on Phi 1:23. Compare Plato : “Socrates. In a ship, if a man having the power to do what he likes, has no intelligence or skill in navigation, do you see what will happen to him and to his fellow – sailors ? Alcibiades. Yes, I see that they will all perish” (” Alcibiades, ” 1, 135).
Wind of doctrine. Or of the teaching. The different teachings of philosophers or of religious quacks are represented as winds, blowing the unstable soul in every direction.
Sleight [] . Only here in the New Testament. From kubov a cube or die. Lit., dice – playing.
Cunning craftiness [] . See on Luk 20:23. The craft which gamblers use.
Whereby they lie in wait to deceive [ ] . Lit., tending to the system of error. Rev., after the wiles of error. Meqodeia means a deliberate planning or system. Of error includes the idea of deceit or delusion. See Mt 27:64; Rom 1:27; 2Pe 2:18; 2Pe 3:17; Jas 5:20. Error organizes. It has its systems and its logic. Ellicott remarks that here it is almost personified.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “That we henceforth be no more children” (hina meketi omen nepioi) ” In order that we may be no more mental infants or infantile.” This is a statement of aim, purpose, or goal for which spiritual gifts were given, for a limited time and purpose.
2) “Tossed to and fro” (kludonizomenoi) “Being blown or tossed like a seaball.” Gifts such as wisdom, knowledge and prophecy, were to help members of the church overcome immaturity of Christian conduct and withstand assaults of false teachers, 1Co 14:3; 1Co 14:5-6.
3) “And carried about with every wind of doctrine” (kai peripheromenoi panti anemo tes didaskalias) “And being carried around by every (kind of) wind of teaching,” like a tumbleweed — unstable — against such Paul had expressed concern, Act 20:29-30; Mat 11:7.
4) “By the sleight of men” (en te kuneia ton anthropon) In the sleight of men,” or under the deceitful control of men, manipulation of truth for personal end; who with lavish treachery, covert deception, and fraud of carnal dice-playing-like men, deceive, 2Pe 2:1-22; Jud 1:1.
5) “And cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (en panourgia pros ten methodeian tes planes) “In cleverness with relationship to the craftiness of error,” by scheming and deceitful ways (false prophets, ignoring or perverting the Word of Christ), may no longer deceive. These deceivers and apostates may now be recognized and exposed by the use of the Word of God, completed, perfectly equipping to every good work, 2Ti 3:16-17; Jas 1:25; 1Jn 4:1.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
14. That we may be no more children. Having spoken of that perfect manhood, towards which we are proceeding throughout the whole course of our life, he reminds us that, during such a progress, we ought not to resemble children. An intervening period is thus pointed out between childhood and man’s estate. Those are “children” who have not yet advanced a step in the way of the Lord, but who still hesitate, — who have not yet determined what road they ought to choose, but move sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another, always doubtful, always wavering. Those, again, who are thoroughly founded in the doctrine of Christ, though not yet perfect, have so much wisdom and vigor as to choose properly, and proceed steadily, in the right course. Thus we find that the life of believers, marked by a constant desire and progress towards those attainments which they shall ultimately reach, bears a resemblance to youth. At no period of this life are we men. But let not such a statement be carried to the other extreme, as if there were no progress beyond childhood. After being born to Christ, we ought to grow, so as “not to be children in understanding.” (1Co 14:20.) Hence it appears what kind of Christianity the Popish system must be, when the pastors labor, to the utmost of their power, to keep the people in absolute infancy.
Tossed to and fro, and carried about. The distressing hesitation of those who do not place absolute reliance on the word of the Lord, is illustrated by two striking metaphors. The first is taken from small ships, exposed to the fury of the billows in the open sea, holding no fixed course, guided neither by skill nor design, but hurried along by the violence of the tempest. The next is taken from straws, or other light substances, which are carried hither and thither as the wind drives them, and often in opposite directions. Such must be the changeable and unsteady character of all who do not rest on the foundation of God’s eternal truth. It is their just punishment for looking, not to God, but to men. Paul declares, on the other hand, that faith, which rests on the word of God, stands unshaken against all the attacks of Satan.
By every wind of doctrine. By a beautiful metaphor, all the doctrines of men, by which we are drawn away from the simplicity of the gospel, are called winds God gave us his word, by which we might have placed ourselves beyond the possibility of being moved; but, giving way to the contrivances of men, we are carried about in all directions.
By the cunning of men. There will always be impostors, who make insidious attacks upon our faith; but, if we are fortified by the truth of God, their efforts will be unavailing. Both parts of this statement deserve our careful attention. When new sects, or wicked tenets, spring up, many persons become alarmed. But the attempts of Satan to darken, by his falsehoods, the pure doctrine of Christ, are at no time interrupted; and it is the will of God that these struggles should be the trial of our faith. When we are informed, on the other hand, that the best and readiest defense against every kind of error is to bring forward that doctrine which we have learned from Christ and his apostles, this surely is no ordinary consolation.
With what awful wickedness, then, are Papists chargeable, who take away from the word of God everything like certainty, and maintain that there is no steadiness of faith, but what depends on the authority of men! If a man entertain any doubt, it is in vain to bid him consult the word of God: he must abide by their decrees. But we have embraced the law, the prophets, and the gospel. Let us therefore confidently expect that we shall reap the advantage which is here promised, — that all the impostures of men will do us no harm. They will attack us, indeed, but they will not prevail. We are entitled, I acknowledge, to look for the dispensation of sound doctrine from the church, for God has committed it to her charge; but when Papists avail themselves of the disguise of the church for burying doctrine, they give sufficient proof that they have a diabolical synagogue.
The Greek word κυβεία, which I have translated cunning, is taken from players at dice, who are accustomed to practice many arts of deception. The words, ἐν πανουργίᾳ, by craftiness, intimate that the ministers of Satan are deeply skilled in imposture; and it is added, that they keep watch, in order to insnare, ( πρὸς τὴν μεθοδείαν τὢς πλάνης.) All this should rouse and sharpen our minds to profit by the word of God. If we neglect to do so, we may fall into the snares of our enemies, and endure the severe punishment of our sloth.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(14) That we be no more children.Here the process of growth is described negatively; in the next verse positively. We are to be no more children. The word used here and in 1Co. 3:1; 1Co. 13:11; Gal. 4:1; Gal. 4:3; Heb. 5:13 (often rendered babes), is a word almost always applied in a bad sense, like our word childishnot to the guilelessness, the trustfulness, or the humility of children, which our Lord emphatically blessed (Mat. 18:2-4), but to their unforeseeing and unthinking impulsiveness. The distinction is marked in 1Co. 14:20, Be not children in understanding: howbeit, in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. Thus, in 1Co. 3:1; 1Co. 13:11, Heb. 5:13, it describes crudeness and shallowness of conception; in Gal. 4:1; Gal. 4:3, incapability of free self-direction; here, liability to disturbance and change by every external impression from without, so as to be everything by turns and nothing long.
Tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.The metaphor is of a ship drifting at the mercy of a storm, tossed by the waves, and carried round from time to time by every blast. The word tossed is more properly used of the waves (compare Jas. 1:6) themselves, but the following words seem to show that here it is applied to the ship rising and falling with them. The word doctrine, as usual, is a general word for all deliberate teaching, whether acting on the understanding or the heart. It includes, in fact, all influence consciously exercised to a definite end.
The metaphor is then dropped, and the evil influences to which childish instability is a prey are describedfirst, as the sleight, i.e., the sleight of hand of the dice-thrower, describing quick, sudden deceit of detail; next (to substitute an accurate translation for the unusually paraphrastic rendering of our version), as a craftiness devoted to the systematic plan of deceit, thus referring to deeper and subtler forms of delusion. This reference is so definite in the original, that we are tempted to believe St. Paul to have had in view some particular scheme of erroneous teaching, which had already struck root in the soil of Asia Minor. The Epistle to the Colossians shows that such false teaching had appeared itself at Coloss; it was, perhaps, the germ of the more full-grown Gnosticism noted in the Pastoral Epistles.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
14. Tossed to and fro A metaphor from waves tossed about by the winds; billowed to and fro.
Every wind of doctrine When we have, by a perfect knowing of Christ, attained the firmness of spiritual manhood instead of the fickleness of childhood, we possess an assurance in our position not to be disturbed by the gusts of popular scepticism or novel dogmas. Sleight, means dice; of men, who are playing a game; spiritual gamblers. Whereby they lie in wait to deceive is a very diffuse rendering. We translate the whole clause, cunning craftiness, exerted in the systemization of deception. All these full formed isms are deceptions fabricated by the craftiness of deep doctrinal gamblers, whom, if we are men (see Eph 4:13) and not children, we will promptly reject. For in deep religious experience, in a thorough experimental knowledge of Christ, do we attain that full assurance of faith which is proof against all scepticism.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘That we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men in craftiness after the wiles of error.’
The result of being full grown in this way will be freedom from being led astray by false teaching because we are no longer children. The picture of children in understanding as being like leaves blown around by different winds of doctrine is vivid. Is this wind ‘the power of the air’? It is tempting to think so. Certainly it is the work of the Prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2). And he is working through clever men who like conjurors deceive the mind and lead into error. Behind the words is a warning against such people. And a warning not to be too easily swayed by clever preachers. Those who seek every new thing will soon be caught up in the wiles of error.
‘Carried about.’ Peripheromai – ‘to carry about, carry here and there.’
‘By the sleight of men.’ Kubeia – ‘dice playing’, therefore by the clever movements of men’s hands.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Eph 4:14. By the sleight of men, &c. The word , rendered sleight, properly signifies the artifice of those infamous gamesters, who know how to cog the dice. The next clause may be rendered, and subtlety in every method of deceit. Some render it, and cunning craftiness, as to the art, or method of deceit. The word rendered cunning craftiness, implies all the various degrees of subtlety, dissimulation, and insidiousness, by which men endeavour to deceive. It is to be hoped that no reader, and particularly none of the sacred order, will fail to observe what the Apostle so plainly asserts in the beginning of the next verse; namely, that it was the design of the ministry to preserve peace and charity, as well as orthodoxy, regularity, and discipline in the church;to maintain the truth in love.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Eph 4:14 . ] cannot, at all events, introduce the design of the attained goal in Eph 4:13 , in opposition to which , Eph 4:15 , clearly testifies; since, in the case of him who has already become the , the no longer has place. But it is also arbitrary to refer the affirmation of aim to Eph 4:11-12 (Koppe, Flatt; comp. Michaelis and Zanchius), as Harless would do (comp. Bleek), who holds Eph 4:13 and Eph 4:14 ff. as co-ordinate , so that Eph 4:13 describes the final goal up to which the arrangement endures, and Eph 4:14 ff. the design of this same. That Eph 4:14 stands in a subordinate relation to Eph 4:13 , is shown by the retaining of the same figure, as by itself, which is not preceded by another , or something similar, to which it would be parallel. If Paul had referred to Eph 4:11-12 , it would have been logically the most natural course to arrange the verses thus: Eph 4:11-12 ; Eph 4:14-15 ; Eph 4:13 ; Eph 4:16 . The relation of our sentence expressive of aim to the preceding is rather as follows: while in Eph 4:13 there was expressed the terminus ad quem , which is appointed to the labour-task, contained in Eph 4:12 , of the teachers given according to Eph 4:11 by Christ, there is now adduced that which is aimed at in the case with a view to the ultimate attainment of that terminus ad quem , namely, the change , which meanwhile, in accordance with that final aim, is to take place in the till then still current condition of the church. This change, divinely aimed at, is characterized Eph 4:14 in its negative nature ( . . .), and Eph 4:15 in its positive nature ( . . .).
] no longer , as this is still at present the case. It points to the influence, which had at that time not yet ceased, of false teachers in the Christian church at large (see Eph 4:13 ). Of false teachers in Ephesus itself there is in our Epistle still no trace, although in Act 20:29 f. Paul had already expressed their future emergence.
] for, in order to attain to full maturity, one must first emerge out of the state of childhood. What Paul here represents as , namely, the dependence on false teachers, in connection with which the described in Eph 4:13 cannot set in, he himself expresses by , becoming tossed by waves (Isa 57:20 ) and driven to and fro (as a ship abandoned to the breakers), on which figurative representation of restless passive subjection to influences, comp. Heb 13:9 ; Jas 1:6 ; Jud 1:12 f.; Josephus, Antt. ix. 11. 3; Aristaenet. i. 27; Dio Chrys. Orat . 32.
.] , Theophylact. Comp. Plut. de aud. poet . p. 28 D: , , . The use of the article with . denotes the doctrine in abstracto. In the fact that now this, now that, is taught according to varying tendencies, there blows now this, now that, wind of doctrine . That Paul false teachers before his mind, is evident from the context.
.] instrumental : becoming tossed and driven to and fro by every wind of doctrine in virtue of the deceit of men . After . no comma is to be placed (comp. Lachmann and Tischendorf). , from ( cubus ), a die , means properly dice-play (Plato, Phaedr . p. 274 D; Xen. Mem. i. 3. 2; Athen. x. p. 445 A); then in a derived signification fraudulentia (Arrian. Epict . ii. 19, iii. 21, and see Oecumenius). Comp. the German Spiel . In this signification the word has also passed over to the language of the Rabbins . See Schoettgen, Horae, p. 775; Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. p. 1984. Others have explained it as: levitas, temeritas (Beza, Salmasius, Morus, Flatt, and others), which notion (like the German auf’s Spiel setzen: to put at stake) really expresses in Plat. Prot. p. 314 A; Meleag. 73 (see Jacobs, ad Anthol. VI. p. 89), but this is opposed to the context, which represents the false teachers as deceivers.
] Instead of being under the gracious influence of Christ (Eph 4:13 ), and thereby becoming strong and firm (comp. Eph 3:16 ff.), one is given up to the deceptive play of men!
] more precisely defining parallel to the preceding: by means of cunning, which is effectual for the machination of error. On , comp. 1Co 3:19 ; 2Co 4:2 ; 2Co 11:3 ; Plat. Menex. p. 247 A. is preserved only here and Eph 6:11 , but from the use of ( 2Ma 13:18 ; Esth. 16:13; Plut. Mor. p. 176 A; Artem. iii. 25; Aristaen. i. 17) and (2Sa 19:27 ; Aquila, Exo 21:13 ; Diod. Sic. vii. 16; Charit. vii. 6) is not doubtful as to its signification. means error, also at Mat 27:64 ; Rom 1:27 ; 2Pe 3:17 ; 2Pe 2:18 ; Jas 5:20 . Whether this has been brought about through the fault of lying and immorality (Harless) must be decided by the context, as this must in reality be assumed to be the thought of the apostle in the present case, both from the connection and from the view which Paul had formed on the basis of experience (not, as Rckert pronounces, from a certain dogmatical defiance, which had remained with him as his weak side; comp. on the other hand, on 2Co 11:12 ) with regard to the false teachers of his time ( 2Co 2:17 ; 2Co 11:13 f.; Gal 2:4 ; Gal 6:12 ; Phi 2:21 ), although it is not involved in the word in itself. To take as seduction (Luther, Beza, and others, including Rckert, Matthies, Baumgarten-Crusius, de Wette) is not to be justified by linguistic usage, since it always (also 2Th 2:11 ) means error, delusion, going astray; as with the Greek writers also it never has that active meaning.
is genitivus subjecti; the , which , is personified, in which, case, however, it would be quite arbitrary to say, with Bengel: erroris, i.e. Satanae. Compare rather the frequent personifications of , , (Rom 6:16 ff., al.), and the like. The article is not necessary before . . (in opposition to Rckert), since . has no article; hence no reason whatever exists for attaching . . . . ., with Rckert, to the participle (“driven about according to the several arts of seduction”), by which . is singularly isolated.
We may add that, when it is said that the fluctuation between different doctrinal opinions, here presupposed as a matter of fact, is not suitable to the apostolic age (Baur, p. 448), too much is asserted. Paul had experienced enough of this sort of wavering: all his Epistles testify of it.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
(14) That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; (15) But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (16) 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.
By the similitude of children, whose teachable minds are easily led, the Apostle meant to show, that God’s people are exempt from deception, when established in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. It is a blessed thing when taught of God. Divine teachings differ wholly from human. What we learn from men may be forgotten, may be contradicted, overruled, denied; so, that like children who are pleased with what they hear today, and may be displeased tomorrow; so, what is taken up upon trust, may be put down with the same. But when God is the Teacher, he teacheth powerfully, infallibly, savingly, and abidingly. Hence, one of old said, I shall never forget thy word, for by it thou hast quickened me. Psa 119:93 . And when from the true saving grace, which is imparted by God the Holy Ghost at regeneration, the child of God is brought into a life communion, as a member of Christ’s mystical body, he groweth up into him in all things, and deriving strength from Him which is the head, the whole, and every member become knit together as one complete whole, unto the general edifying of the body in love.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Ver. 14. Be no more children ] But young men,1Jn 2:141Jn 2:14 , strong men. Many men’s heads today are so big (like children that have the rickets) that all the body fareth the worse for it.
Tossed to and fro ] As a feather or froth upon the waves, whirred about with every wind of doctrine; unstable souls, as St Peter calls them; simple, that believe everything, as Solomon hath it; giddy hearers, that have no mould but what the next teacher casteth them into, being blown like glasses into this or that shape at the pleasure of his breath.
By the sleight of men ] Gr. , by men’s cogging of a die, the usual trade of cheaters and false gamesters.
Whereby they lie in wait to deceive ] Gr. Unto a method of deceiving. The devil and his disciples are notable method mongers, so as to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect; but that they cannot do fundamentally, finally, Mat 24:24 . See Trapp on “ Mat 24:24 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Eph 4:14 . : that we may be no longer children . Statement of aim following on the previous statement of goal or limit . The verse is regarded by some (Harl., etc.) as connected immediately with Eph 4:11-12 , and coordinate with Eph 4:13 . Others understand it as an explanation of what the attainment of the goal spoken of in Eph 4:13 means. But it is best to take it as subordinate to the immediately preceding statement. That is to say, as Eph 4:13 has set forth the goal to be reached and the limit put upon the bestowal of the gifts referred to as given by Christ, this verse now gives the purpose which was in view in setting such a goal before us and in giving the gifts of Apostles, prophets, etc. (Mey., Ell., etc.). That purpose looks to a change which has to take place in us from the condition of and to that of , , etc. The implies something different from the existing condition, and that existing condition, we see, is one of immaturity, assailed, wavering faith, and subjection to the distracting influence of false teachers. In his address to the elders at Miletus (Act 20:29 ) Paul had spoken of “grievous wolves” that would enter the Ephesian Church after his departure. But the statement here is wide enough to apply to the Church generally and not merely to the Ephesians. , literally infants (Mat 21:16 ; 1Co 13:11 ), and then minors (Gal 4:1 ), the immature or untaught (Mat 11:25 ; Rom 2:20 ; Heb 5:13 , etc.). : tossed to and fro. means a dashing or surging wave (Luk 8:24 ; Jas 1:6 ; cf. Thayer-Grimm’s Lex., sub voce ); and means tossed about by waves ( cf. LXX of Isa 57:20 ). In the changefulness and agitation which were the results of their unthinking submission to false teaching their or lack of Christian manhood was seen. : and carried about by every wind of doctrine . The is the instrum. dat.; the article denotes that doctrine in the abstract is meant “every kind and degree of it” (Ell.). means teaching , either in the sense of instructing (Rom 12:7 ; Rom 15:4 ; 1Ti 4:13 ; 1Ti 4:16 ; 1Ti 5:17 ; 2Ti 3:10 ; 2Ti 3:16 ; Tit 2:7 ), or in that of doctrine , the thing taught ( 1Ti 1:10 ; 1Ti 4:6 ; 1Ti 6:1 ; 1Ti 6:3 ; 2Ti 4:3 ; Tit 1:9 ; Tit 2:1 ; Tit 2:10 ). Here AV, RV, Ell., etc., take the second sense. “In the fact that now this, now that, is taught according to varying tendencies, there blows, now this, now that, wind of doctrine ” (Mey.). : in the sleight of men . For TWH give the form . The prep. may be the instrumental (so Mey., Haupt, etc.). But the contrast with the following (Eph 4:15 ) points rather to the usual force of as = in (so Vulg., Copt., etc.), the being the “ element , the evil atmosphere , as it were, in which the varying currents of doctrine exist and exert their force” (Ell.). means dice-playing ( e.g. , in Plato, Phaedr. , p. 274 D), and then deception, fraud . Some ( e.g. , Beza, Von Soden, etc.) give it the sense of levity , or putting at stake a shade of meaning occasionally expressed by the verb ( e.g. , Plato, Prot. , p. 314 A). The idea expressed here by the itself might be simply that of hazard, unsettlement , with reference to the uncertainties into which the were cast by the diverse forms of false teaching under which they fell ( cf. Haupt). But it is in the character, not of gamesters , but deceivers that the false teachers are immediately presented ( cf. Mey.). This “sleight of men” is in contrast with “the faith and the knowledge of Christ ,” or it may be with the pure, sure word of God by which the faith and knowledge of the Son of God came. : in craftiness with a view to the machination of error . The renderings of the great Versions show how difficult it is to do justice to this sentence in English. The AV takes refuge in a paraphrase, “and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive”. Wicl. gives “to the deceiving of error”; Cov., “to the deceitfulness of error”; Bish., “in craftiness to the laying in wait of error”; Rhem., “to the circumvention of error”; RV, “in craftiness, after the wiles of error”. The Vulg. has in astutia ad circumventionem erroris . , used in 1Co 3:19 , of a false wisdom , means here, as in classical and also in later Greek, cunning, knavishness, treacherous deceitfulness . The is taken by some as a definition of the , adding to the idea of hazard and destruction contained in the latter, the idea of fraud . But it is rather a distinct clause, emphasising the dishonesty and trickery of the false teaching. Its authors used all the arts of deception to persuade the that their self-made doctrine was the Divine truth. The prep. is not to be identified with (= after, according to ), but has its sense of with a view to, furthering, tending to . The noun (or according to TWH) is nowhere found in the NT except here and once again in this same Epistle (Eph 6:11 ), and seems not to occur in non-Biblical Greek, whether that of the LXX or that of the Classics. Its meaning here, however, may be safely taken to be trickery, cunning arts, treacherous wiles ; as its verb , which means primarily to pursue a plan , whether honest (Diod. Sic., i., 81), or dishonest (Polyb., xxxiv., 4, 10), came to have the sense of following craftily , practising deceitful devices (Diod., vii., 16; 2Sa 19:27 ). The gen. is usually taken as the gen. subj. , = the which practises craft. But it may rather be the gen. obj. , expressing the object or result of the , = “the cunning art that works to error”. The article gives the noun the abstract sense or the force of a personification, = Error. Here, as elsewhere, has the passive sense of error , not the active sense of seduction , or misleading (Luth., de Wette, etc.). But the question remains as to the precise idea here. The term means properly speaking error in the sense of straying from the way, wandering hither and thither . That sense is frequent in classical Greek Aeschyl., Eurip., Plato, etc. In the NT the word is usually said to be used of mental error, wrong opinion, as e.g. , in 1Th 2:3 ; 2Th 2:11 ; 2Pe 2:18 ; 2Pe 3:17 ; Jud 1:11 ; 1Jn 4:6 . But it is doubtful whether that sense fully meets the case in some of the passages thus cited, e.g. , 1Jn 4:6 . In such passages as Rom 1:27 ; Jas 1:20 , it denotes error in practice, a wrong way of life or action. This seems to be its force here. Consequently the idea of the clause is more definite than “in craftiness tending to the settled system of error” (Ell.). It means “in craftiness, furthering the scheming, deceitful art which has for its result the false way of life that strays fatally from truth.”
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
be = maybe.
no more = no longer. Greek. meketi.
children. App-108.
tossed to and fro. Literally “surging about (as waves)”. Only here.
carried about = borne hither and thither. See 2Co 4:10.
wind. Greek. anemos.
doctrine = the teaching. Greek. didaskalia. The evil teaching of the ruler of the power of the air and of demons. Compare 1Ti 4:1.
by = (or) by. Greek. en. App-104.
sleight. Greek. kiibeia; hence our “cube”. Only here.
and cunning craftiness = with (Greek. en) subtilty. Greek. panourgia. Compare 2Co 11:3.
whereby . . . deceive = with a view to (Greek. pros. App-104.) the wile, or stratagem (Greek. methodeia : only here and Eph 6:11), of the error (Greek. plane). The association of methodeia with Satan (in Eph 6:11) shows that, here, plane = planos; i.e. the method or scheme is that of the devil himself, and not merely error.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Eph 4:14. ) that we may be not, as formerly and as yet.-, children) , children, are opposed to a man in the second degree, and to a young man in the first: perfect man, who can no longer increase in stature, but yet in other respects becomes more perfect; a child, who scarcely begins to grow.-, tossing to and fro [as billows]) inwardly, upward and downward, even without wind.- , carried about with every wind) outwardly [with every wind that comes from without], hither and thither, others assaulting us.-, by the sleight) A metaphor taken from the player at dice, who frames his cast of the dice, so that the numbers may always turn up which may suit his purpose.-) The Methodists of the Church of Rome are much disposed to use this word: see ch. Eph 6:11 [where is expressly joined to ], note. Add D. Michaelis Inaugural Dissertation on the exertions and methods (tricks) of the Church of Rome.- ,[60] of error) i.e. of Satan. The Metonymy of the abstract [for the concrete: error, for the Parent of error, Satan] expresses the concealed mode of acting which the enemy uses.
[60] , by craftiness, with a view to a methodized plan of deception. Beng., however, because of the antithesis takes = Satan, and perhaps takes the sense thus By the methodized craftiness of the (parent of) error.-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Eph 4:14
Eph 4:14
that we may be no longer children,-The end of the full knowledge of the will of God being made known would be that the servants of God might be no more children. [The word used here and in 1Co 3:1; 1Co 13:11; Heb 5:13 is a word almost always applied in a bad sense, like our word childish-not to the guilelessness, the trustfulness, or the humility of children, which the Savior emphatically blessed (Mat 18:2-4), but to their unforeseeing and unthinking impulsiveness. The distinction is marked in these words: Brethren, be not children in mind: yet in malice be ye babes, but in mind be men. (1Co 14:20). Thus it describes shallowness and crudeness; liability to disturbance and by every external impression from without, so as to be everything by turns and nothing very long.]
tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine,-This sets forth the infinite variety of such influences. The varying wind carries about the waves, or the ship deserted is at the mercy of the waves and wind. Those immature and unstable run after every new teacher; having little knowledge or stability, excitable, dependent on their surroundings, they fall a ready prey to the various teachers of error. The readiness of professed Christians now to follow every new idea or visionary dream that some plausible and pretentious adventurer may bring is discouraging. Yet this evil must have been greater in the days of spiritual gifts, when new revelations were being made, than they are now. Wordy and plausible men would come claiming to be spiritually endowed with new revelations, and the ill-taught and unstable converts were ready to run after anything that might be presented.
by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;-[This emphasizes the dishonesty and trickery of false teaching. Its authors use all the arts of deception to persuade the unstable that their self-made doctrine was the divine truth. It denotes error in practice, a wrong way of life or action. It means a craftiness, furthering the scheming, deceitful art which has for its results the false way of life that strays fatally from the truth.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Manifesting the Truth in Love (Eph 4:14-16)
I never knew until I became the father of children how much is involved in the words that occur in a well-known hymn, No infants changing pleasure / Is like my wandering mind. How childrens minds jump from one thing to another! How hard it is for them to concentrate! And many of Gods children are just the same. Often when one is trying to explain a truth to believers, he is embarrassed by the questions that are asked showing that his students have not been concentrating and therefore have not grasped the truth. As a result people are never truly established in the faith. It is in order to save us from this thing that God has set in His church those who are responsible to instruct and build up His saints, that they should not be like little children tossed back and forth, like leaves carried about by the wind or, using the figure the apostle had in mind, like little sailboats on the water, blown from their course and tossed by every changing wind.
Christians who are grounded in the truth of God are a blessing. But so many people always seem to be running after some new teaching, never seeming to have any discrimination. Let me give you an absurd case. Years ago as I sat in my office in Oakland there came in through the bookroom a man whose very appearance betokened a heretic. He was tall and gaunt, had long flowing hair coming down over his shoulders, and a long unkempt beard. He came up to where I sat writing. I did not want to be interrupted, for I felt that he was going to waste my time with some useless religious argument. He said, I gather, sir, from the books I have seen in the window that you are a truth-seeker, and I thought I would come in and have a chat with you.
You are mistaken, I said; I am not a truth-seeker at all.
Oh, you arent? May I ask why you are not?
Why, because, sir, I have found Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and therefore my seeking is at an end. Once I was a truth-seeker, but now I am a truth-finder, for I know Christ.
Well, but are there not many things that you still need to know?
Oh, yes; there are a great many things that I need to know, but I have found the great Teacher, and I am not going around seeking truth any longer. He instructs me through His Word.
Well, as for me, I am always seeking; I go anywhere and everywhere that I think I can learn more.
Yes, I said, I was reading of you in my Bible the other day.
Of me?
Yes.
What did it say about me?
It said, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth (2Ti 3:7).
Why, that has no reference to me, he said.
Pardon me, but you said that you are always seeking and if a man is always seeking, he is never finding. But, you see, those of us who know Christ have found the Truth.
Then he began to tell me some of his weird gospel.
What a lot of folks there are like him in some degree, just running from one thing to another and never getting anywhere. The apostle said, Hold fast the form of sound words (2Ti 1:13), and you get sound words in the Book of God and nowhere else.
In our text we read, That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Eph 4:14). This verse speaks of men who have selfish purposes to serve, and want to make disciples in order to profit from them. When men come to you with strange and new ideas, ask for a Thus saith the Lord. Ask them to give chapter and verse in the Bible for the strange doctrines they bring you. If Christians would only do this, they would not be running after these modern religious fads. Gods own Word has stood the test of nineteen hundred years, and you can depend on it. You can live on it and as you feed on the precious truth revealed in its pages you will grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
But now, although we want to insist on a good confession, we need to also insist on a godly, Spirit-filled life. So in verse Eph 4:15 we read, But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. It is an important thing to stand for the fundamentals, but as we seek to bear witness to the great fundamental truths, let us never forget that the greatest fundamental of all is love.
Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing (1Co 13:2-3).
It is a very interesting fact that in the original text there is only one Greek word for the three English words, speaking the truth. In the original it is a present participle formed from the word truth, and if we turn it into literal English we would have to translate it in a rather awkward way-truthing-But truthing in love. Perhaps a better rendering than speaking the truth in love, and more suited to our ears, would be manifesting the truth in love. In other words, it is not just the testimony of the lips, declaring that certain things are divine truth, but it is the life displaying the truth. I have heard people say of certain ones, Yes, yes; he seems to say all the right things, but I dont see much evidence of divine love in his life. And then I have heard people sometimes bear witness of others in this way: I believe what Mr. so-and-so says because he lives it out from day to day.
A young man was asked the question, What have you found to be the best translation of the New Testament? Without a moments hesitation he answered, My mothers. His friends said, Your mothers? I didnt know she was a scholar. Did she translate the New Testament? The young man quickly replied, My mother was not a scholar, she could not read a word of Greek, but she translated the New Testament into her beautiful life, and that made more of an impression on me than anything else I have ever known. That is what you and I are called to do, to manifest the truth in our lives.
We are ever to be truthing in love. The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit and we are to reveal this love in all our dealings with others. Even, When truth compels us to contend, / What love with all our strife should blend. The Christian is never entitled to act in an un-Christlike way, no matter what the provocation. As we thus live in the power of the truth of God and are dominated by the love of Christ, we are growing up into Him, daily becoming more like Himself. Are people seeing more of Christ in you from day to day?
I remember years ago a young preacher came to the city of Toronto, where I was born and where I lived until I was ten years old. Though I was only about eight years old at the time, I recall being taken by my mother to hear this preacher, for she insisted that I must go and hear the gospel every Sunday night. She used to say, It is far more important that my children hear the gospel than that they have sleep, or anything else. They must know Christ from childhood up. Of course in Canada our gospel meeting used to begin at 6:30 in the evening, and children could attend and still be home and in bed in good time. Before I was ten years old I got to be quite a sermon taster, as the Scots used to say. I loved to come home and get on a chair and imitate the preachers, trying to give the intonations of their deep Scottish voices or those from Northern Ireland, for all the preachers I heard in those days had the old country brogue.
This one particular evening I listened to a young Irish preacher-a fine, tall, handsome young man. A little group came home with us after the meeting to spend an hour or so in singing around the old-fashioned cabinet organ. Someone asked the question, How did you like the young preacher from Ireland? One replied, It did me good to hear the old tongue again. It was just grand. Another said, I thought he had a wonderful delivery; you could hear him so plainly. Another, He seemed to me to be most eloquent. Another, How well he knew his Bible. He opened up the truth in a beautiful way. A lady sitting quietly was asked, And what did you think of him? Well, you know, she replied, there was something about his behavior that appealed to me. He seemed the most like Jesus of any preacher I have ever listened to. How we all might wish to have that kind of recognition-to be like Jesus. Some of us, as we try to preach His Word, are made very conscious of the fact that we are so unlike Him. There is so much about us that would never have been seen in Him. Never a night goes by but that we have to bow our knees before God and acknowledge our shortcomings. But as we walk with Him, as we seek to truth in love, we grow up into Him, and so we become more like Him as the days go by.
It is a beautiful thing to grow old gracefully, to exhibit more of Jesus from day to day. Our blessed Head is the One from whom we draw all our supplies for spiritual upbuilding. We read, 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 (Eph 4:16). Paul used the figure of the human body, and every part, every separate organ, every joint and sinew, every gland, working together for the growth of the whole body. That is the ideal picture of the Christian church and of Christian fellowship.
Have you ever read Hebichs Tub? It tells the story of a quaint Dutch preacher in the East Indies. Many years ago he was conducting religious services for a group of British army officers. He was characterized by a shrewd, keen humor and taught the truth by using the most amazing illustrations. He happened to know that there were certain little dissensions among the group, and so on one occasion he took for his text, That which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part. He looked at his audience, and then with his eyes half-shut, using the illustration of a barrel, he said, Did you effer see a tob? What iss it that makes a good tob? If you haff a good bottom to it, iss that a tob? No. If you haff a good side, iss that a tob? No. If you haff good hoops around it, iss that a good tob? No. But if you haff good boards for the bottom and fitly choined together, and then the good boards for the sides all fitly choined together, and then the good hoops and all of these things fitly choined together, you haff a tob. And it is the same with the Christian church. You haff got to haff every believer in his place, and all fitly choined together by the power of the Holy Spirit. You may haff choined the boards together, but if there iss a little pebble in between two of the staves, you do not haff a tob that will hold water. If the staves haff shrunk and drawn apart, it is useless. And if I am a Christian and haff some selfishness in me, if through selfishness or envy I do not haff real Christian fellowship, or if little things come in, I am useless. If the Colonels lady has some unkind feeling toward the Majors lady and they come to church and join in prayer and in singing hymns and listen to the sermon, yet they are not fitly choined together, you dont have real Christian fellowship. How many little things there are that come in to hinder and keep believers from functioning as they ought!
Fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth. You have to contribute your share and I have to contribute mine, all for the good of the whole. And then what is the result? According to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. May God give every one of us a deeper sense of our individual responsibility to live the truth in love for the blessing of all.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
no more: Isa 28:9, Mat 18:3, Mat 18:4, 1Co 3:1, 1Co 3:2, 1Co 14:20, Heb 5:12-14
tossed: Act 20:30, Act 20:31, Rom 16:17, Rom 16:18, 2Co 11:3, 2Co 11:4, Gal 1:6, Gal 1:7, Gal 3:1, Col 2:4-8, 2Th 2:2-5, 1Ti 3:6, 1Ti 4:6, 1Ti 4:7, 2Ti 1:15, 2Ti 2:17, 2Ti 2:18, 2Ti 3:6-9, 2Ti 3:13, 2Ti 4:3, Heb 13:9, 2Pe 2:1-3, 1Jo 2:19, 1Jo 2:26, 1Jo 4:1
carried: Mat 11:7, 1Co 12:2, Jam 1:6, Jam 3:4
by the: Mat 24:11, Mat 24:24, 2Co 2:17, 2Co 4:2, 2Co 11:13-15, 2Th 2:9, 2Th 2:10, 2Pe 2:18, Rev 13:11-14, Rev 19:20
lie: Psa 10:9, Psa 59:3, Mic 7:2, Act 23:21
Reciprocal: Exo 7:11 – they also Lev 11:29 – creeping things that creep Deu 13:3 – hearken Deu 13:6 – entice Job 6:26 – as wind Pro 11:9 – through Pro 14:15 – simple Pro 19:27 – General Jer 29:8 – Let Eze 13:4 – like Eze 13:18 – hunt souls Mat 7:15 – which Mat 24:4 – Take Luk 7:24 – A reed Luk 11:36 – the whole Joh 21:15 – lambs Act 8:10 – they 1Co 2:15 – judgeth Gal 2:13 – carried Eph 6:11 – the wiles 1Th 3:5 – lest 1Ti 1:3 – charge 1Ti 4:2 – lies 1Ti 4:16 – unto the 2Ti 3:5 – from 2Ti 3:7 – learning 2Ti 3:8 – resist 2Ti 3:10 – my Tit 1:10 – there Heb 5:13 – he 2Pe 1:16 – we have 2Pe 2:14 – beguiling 2Pe 2:17 – clouds 2Pe 3:17 – from Rev 2:2 – how Rev 9:19 – in their tails Rev 12:9 – deceiveth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
(Eph 4:14.) -In order that we may be no longer children. This and the following verse are illustrative of the preceding one, and show the peculiar weakness and dangers to which believers in an imperfect state are exposed. points to a negative and intermediate purpose resulting from that of the preceding verses, but not as if that were taken as realized, for he immediately adds -implying that has not been attained. The period of maturity is, indeed, future; but meantime, in the hope of it, and with the assistance of the Christian ministry, believers are to be no longer children; ceasing to be children is meanwhile our duty. The ministry is instituted, and this glorious destiny is portrayed, in order that in the meantime we may be no longer children. is opposed to . Polybius, Hist. 5.29, 2. is employed after . Gayler, Part. Graec. Neg., cap. vii. A, 1-, p. 168. We have been children long enough-let us put away childish things.
The apostle now refers to two characteristics of childhood-its fickleness, and its liability to be imposed upon. Childhood has a peculiar facility of impression-
-tossed and driven about with every wind of teaching. -tossed about as a surge; is passive; instances may be found in Krebs and Wetstein. Heb 13:9; Jam 1:6. The billow does not swell and fall on the same spot, but it is carried about by the wind, driven hither and thither before it-the sport of the tempest. The term , dative of cause (Krger, 48, 15), is applied to -not to show its emptiness, as Matthies explains it by windig-leere Einflle, but to describe its impulsive power. The article before gives definitive prominence to the teaching, which, as a high function respected and implicitly obeyed, was very capable of seducing, since whatever false phases it assumed, it might find and secure followers. Such wind, not from this or that direction only, but blowing from any or every quarter, causes the imperfect and inexperienced to surge about in fruitless commotion. The moral phenomenon is common. Some men have just enough of Christian intelligence to unsettle them, and make them the prey of every idle suggestion, the sport of every religious novelty. How many go the round of all sects, parties, and creeds, and never receive satisfaction! If in the pride of reason they fall into rationalism, then if they recover they rebound into mysticism. From the one extreme of legalism they recoil to the farthest verge of antinomianism, having travelled at easy stages all the intermediate distances. Men like Priestley and Channing have gradually descended from Calvinism to Unitarianism; others, like Schlegel and the Countess Ida Hahn-Hahn, make a swift transition from Protestant nihilism to Popish pietism and superstition. Decision and firmness are indispensable to spir itual improvement. Only one form of teaching is beneficial, and all deviations are pernicious. More pointedly-
-in the sleight of men. from -a cube, or one of the dice-signifies gambling, and then by an easy and well-known process, the common accompaniment and result of gambling-fraud and imposition. Suicer, sub voce. The rabbins have the word also in the form of . Schoettgen, Horae Heb. p. 775; Buxtorf, Lex. Tal. p. 1984. Salmasius renders the term actio temeraria; Beza, variae et ineptae subtilitates; and Matthies, gewinnschtiges Spiel-play for the greed of winning. These meanings are inferior to the ordinary translation of fallacia by Jerome, the nequitia of the Vulgate, and sleight of the English version. Theodoret renders the noun by . The opinion of Meyer and de Wette, that denotes the instrumental cause, is scarce to be preferred to that of Harless, Matthies, Olshausen, and Ellicott, who suppose that the preposition signifies the element in which the false doctrine works. The apostle shows how the false teaching wields its peculiar power-acting like a wary and dexterous gambler, and winning by dishonesty without being suspected of it. are men, in contrast not with Christ’s office-bearers, but with the Son of God. The next clause is parallel and explanative-
-in craft with a view to a system of error. Codex A adds . Craft is the meaning which is uniformly attached to the first noun in the New Testament. 1Co 3:19; 2Co 4:2; 2Co 11:3. indicates the purpose of the which is not followed by any article. The craft is exercised in order to carry out the tricks of error; being genitive of subject and defined by the article. is rendered by Hesychius , and by Theodoret , plan or settled system. Aquila renders , to lie in wait (Exo 21:13), by . The Greek verb originally had a good meaning, to pursue a settled plan, but the bad meaning soon came-its history and use, as in the case of such English words as prevent and resent, showing man’s evil nature. This false teaching, , has a systematic process of deception peculiar to itself- ; and that this mechanism may not fail or scare away its victims by unguarded revelations of its nature and purpose, it is wrought with special manoeuvre-. There is, however, no distinct declaration that such seduction and mischievous errors were actually in the church at Ephesus, though the language before us seems to imply it, and the apostle’s valedictory address plainly anticipated it. Act 20:29. We may allude, in fine, to the strange remark of Rckert, that this severe language of Paul against false teachers, sprang from a dogmatical defiance, and was the weak side in him as in many other great characters. But the apostle’s attachment to the truth originated in his experience of its saving power, and he knew that its adulteration often robbed it of its healing virtue. Lov e to men, fidelity to Christ, and zeal for the purity and glory of the church, demanded of him this severe condemnation of errorists and heresiarchs. The spiritual vehemence and truth-love of such a heart are not to be estimated by a common criterion, and when such puerile estimates of Paul’s profound nature are formed, we are inclined to ascribe it to moral incompetence of judgment, and to say to Herr Rckert-Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Eph 4:14. The preceding two verses and several following the present one, show what is to be accomplished affirmatively by the complete New Testament. The present one states some of the things to be avoided by the complete volume. The original word for children is defined “untaught, unskilled,” in Thayer’s lexicon, and it is used to illustrate the unreliable standing of disciples who have no complete volume to guide them. Tossed to and fro is another figure for the same purpose, representing the untaught disciples as a frail raft tossed about by the waves. Waves are usually caused by winds, and the ones Paul has in mind are the false doctrines of men. Without the help of special guidance, the disciples would not be able to detect the false doctrines. Sleight and cunning craftiness refers to the trickery and deceptive language that false teachers use to mislead the untaught.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Eph 4:14. In order that. While this verse is grammatically dependent on Eph 4:13, it points to a purpose to be fulfilled during the attainment of the goal set up in that verse, in other words, as in Eph 4:12, the most remote end is placed before the more immediate one.
We be no longer children; immature, small, feeble, imperfect
Tossed as waves; like the waves, fluctuating (Vulgate); others prefer tossed to and fro, as a deserted ship. Excitable and unsteady, as children are.
Carried about with every wind of teaching, not, doctrine, since active agency is suggested. The figure must be understood in accordance with what precedes. The varying wind carries about the waves, or the ship deserted is at the mercy of the waves and wind. Those immature run after every new teacher; having little knowledge or stability, excitable, dependent on their surroundings, they fall a ready prey to the various teachers of error. It is as true today as when Paul wrote, perhaps is even more obvious, since the range of erroneous opinions through which such successively pass is now so much wider.
In the sleight of men. In denotes the evil atmosphere, as it were, in which the varying currents of doctrine exist and exert their force (Ellicott). The word sleight is significantly taken from dice-playing. Men, with their variety of teaching and trickery, are substituted for Christ the true guide.
In craftiness tending to the system of error, or, deceit This paraphrase is necessary to bring out the meaning. In craftiness answers to in the sleight, but implies more of conscious malice. This craftiness has as its goal, a systematic method, in the bad sense, a machination, stratagem. Error is that which plans or machinates; the idea of deceit is included, but the term is here used abstractly, and error is perhaps preferable. Back of all this system is Satan himself. In every age the scheme best adapted to lure away immature Christians comes into the foreground. Those most accurately described in this verse too often deem themselves far in advance in faith and knowledge. When the pastors and teachers are themselves children, the Church has most to fear.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
St. Paul, in these words, declares one special end for which the ministry of the word was instituted and appointed, namely, to preserve from error and seduction, to prevent instability of mind, and unsettledness of judgment, and to confirm persons in fundamental truths, that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, & c.
Observe here, 1. The name which St. Paul gives to unstable persons and unsettled professors: he calls them children, not in regard of age, but in respect of knowledge and understanding: children, is a word that denotes imperfection and weakness, instability and ungroundedness in knowledge.
Observe, 2. How the unsteadiness of these professors is expressed by a double metaphor; the former is drawn from a wave of the sea, they are tossed to and fro; the latter is drawn from a light cloud hovering in the air, carried about from place to place: neither wave nor cloud have any constancy, but are both moving if the least wind be stirring.
Observe, 3. The cause of this instability; every wind of doctrine; professors that have no solid principles every wind of doctrine has power over them to drive them to and fro, every teacher can cast them into what mould he pleases, and blow them, like glasses, into this or that shape, at the pleasure of his breath. But why wind of doctrine? Because there is no solidity in it, but being wind in the preacher, it breeds but wind in the hearer, because of its variety and novelty, and because of its prevalency over unstaid men. How suddenly sometimes is a family, a town, yea, a whole country, leavened with a particular error!
Observe, 4. The characters of those imposters and seducers that do thus unsettle and unhinge men, they use sleight; a metaphor taken from gamesters, who with art and sleight of hand can cog the dice, and win the game. Seducers cheat with false doctrines, as gamesters do with false dice. Cunning craftiness; the word signifies the subtility and deep policy of the old serpent; implying that seducers are old and cunning gamesters, skillful to deceive: they lie in wait to deceive; the word signifies an ambushment, or stratagem of war, implying that all seducers’ sleight and craftiness is to this very end and purpose, that they may entrap and catch men within the ambush of their impostures.
From the whole learn, That seducers and false teachers are craftsmasters of sleight and subtilty, and stratagems of deceit; they have artifices, ways and methods, to take men unawares, and to make merchandise of the people: they wrest and rack the scriptures to make them speak what they please, not what the Holy Ghost intended.
If all this art fails, their last advice is, to recommend their doctrines upon some private pretended revelation and uncommon impulse of the Holy Spirit: by all which methods they lie in wait to deceive.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Growing In Love
Again, to be perfect, we have to quit being childish ( 1Co 14:20 ). Children are gullible and will often believe whatever was last told them. Like a cork on the waves, such would be unstable, drifting wherever the wind is blowing at the time. Unfortunately, there are those false teachers who will take advantage of every possible means to mislead such childish ones. They use such to ambush the young or weak in God’s flock (4:14; Act 20:28-31 ; 2Ti 4:15 ; 2Pe 2:9-22 ).
Paul wanted the Ephesian brethren to be closely joined like a body and united, or knitted together, like the rejoining of a broken bone ( 1Co 12:13 ; 1Co 12:20 ). Each member has a work to do, thus supplying the body with some essential ( 1Co 12:21-26 ; Rom 12:5-8 ).
Effective working only takes place when each member gives all he is capable of giving. All of this will promote the growth of the whole body which will be strengthened by love. The Ephesian church evidently failed to heed Paul’s instructions here because Christ was prepared, in Revelation 2:45 , to remove their candlestick for leaving their first love. The church can only grow unto perfection if it grows in love (4:15-16).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Eph 4:14. That we henceforth be no more children Mere babes in Christian knowledge, experience, and practice; weak and unstable; tossed , fluctuating from within, through various restless lusts and passions working in our hearts, even when there is nothing external to agitate or excite them; and carried about with every wind of doctrine And temptation from without, when we are assaulted by others who are themselves unstable as the wind; by the sleight, or subtlety, of men Greek, , which words Chandler proposes rendering, by the dicing of men; the expression referring to the artifice of those infamous gamesters, who know how to cog the dice. So that the deceitful arts of false teachers and others, who endeavour to draw men from the belief and practice of the truth as it is in Jesus, by their insinuations and wiles, are here compared to the tricks of gamesters, who, by using false dice, and by various arts, cheat those with whom they play. And cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive Greek, , a clause which Beza renders, veteratoria ad insidiose fallendum versutia, by the tricking of those long exercised in craftily deceiving others; Doddridges translation is, by their subtlety in every method of deceit; and Macknights, by craftiness formed into a subtle scheme of deceit. The former noun, , signifies the doing of things by trick and sleight of hand, and the latter, , (which, Eph 6:11, is applied to the wiles and subtle contrivances of the devil, in order to deceive and ruin men,) properly signifies a regular plan of proceeding in any affair, and is here used for a regular plan of deceit, formed either for upholding people in their ignorance of, and opposition to the gospel, or for drawing them from their faith in, or obedience to, some article of it. The men, Macknight thinks, whose base arts the apostle describes in this passage, were the unbelieving Jews and the heathen philosophers, who opposed the gospel by sophistry and calumny; also such false teachers as arose in the church itself, and corrupted the doctrines of the gospel for worldly purposes, while at the same time they assumed the appearance of great disinterestedness and piety.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
ARGUMENT 18
NEEPIOS AND TELEIOS
14. In order that we may be no longer infants, tossed by the waves and carried away by every wind of teaching in the stratagem of men, in their craft for the purpose of delusion;
15. But speaking the truth in Divine love, let us grow up into him in all things who is the head, Christ. Neepios means an infant; Teleios means perfect. These two words, correlatively and contrastively, represent the two great works of grace in the plan of salvation. We have in this wonderful exegesis of Paul no allusion whatever to any other classes. Regeneration makes you a babe in Christ, and sanctification, winding up your minority, brings in your spiritual majority, constituting you an adult. Of course, following the analogy of the natural kingdom, we recognize a progressive development before the birth, and afterward culminating in full-grown manhood. He gives a reason here why we should get out of babyhood, because during our spiritual infancy, as in natural childhood, we need nurses and guardians; meanwhile, we are perilously subordinated to our environments, and liable to influence and capture by all sorts of intrigue, human and diabolical, ultimating in ruin, temporal and eternal. The only remedy for the spiritual feebleness, foibles, and caprices peculiar to the spiritual infancy following regeneration, is entire sanctification, which makes you a perfect man. Perfect is from facio, to make, and per, complete. Hence, it simply means made complete. Man was complete, man was perfect, when he emanated from the Creative fiat. Satan destroyed his equilibrium, put him out of kilter, thus rendering him imperfect. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. (1Jn 3:8.)
Nothing is the work of the devil but sin. When Christ destroys sin in you, he makes you complete in him, and what the Bible calls a perfect Christian. It is not maturity, but purity, as you will grow on through this life, and doubtless through all eternity. Carnal preachers in all ages, the pope at their head, have violently opposed entire sanctification, from the simple fact that it takes the people out of their hands, and puts them where none but God can rule them. A Roman Catholic commentator, Liguori, thus delivers on that subject: That abominable doctrine of purity has given the Catholic Church more trouble than anything else. Ahab said to Elijah, Thou art he that troubleth Israel. O how the holiness people are now troubling the carnal preachers and fallen Churches, because they recognize no authority hut God, revealed in his Word, Spirit, and providence! Spiritual babes are tossed about by every wind of teaching at the caprice of ecclesiastical demagogues.
15. Speaking the truth in Divine love….
Sanctified people are no longer tossed about by human creeds and cunningly manipulated by priestcraft; but, free as angels, they take the Bible for their only authority, and Jesus for their only companion, and, O how they grow up in him, their living Head!
16. We see from this verse the glorious unity of Gods people, regardless of sect, race, or color; the whole body joined and knitted together, and united to Christ by the Holy Spirit; the life-blood Circulating into every part, and vitalizing every fiber and tissue throughout the entire body. When the blood no longer circulates into any part of the body, it becomes paralyzed and dead. So with the Church of God and the Churches forsaken by the Holy Ghost, and now ghastly spiritual corpses.
17-19. These three verses give us an appalling description of the debauched heathen world, sunk deep, not only into brutality, but into diabolism.
20. But you have not so learned Christ, if, indeed, you have heard him and been taught in him, as is true in Jesus;
22. That you are to lay aside as to your former life the old man, who is corrupt as to the lusts of delusion. You see from these verses
the positive and unequivocal fact that every regenerated person is taught by the Holy Ghost the reality and their need of entire sanctification, so that all of the true children of God actually hunger and thirst after it. This Scripture positively unchristianizes all anti-holiness people. If a man is a Christian, his soul longs to be perfectly whole.
23. And to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and
24. To put on the new man, who is created in harmony with God, in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Here we have an exegesis of our creation in the image and likeness of God.
What is that image and likeness? Here Paul answers the question. The image of God is righteousness in harmony with Gods revealed truth. Hence, it is not human righteousness arising from our good works, as a corrupt clergy would vainly tell you, but the righteousness of God in Christ imputed unto the truly penitent sinner, who, in utter desperation and profound realization of his utter meekness for hellfire, casts himself on the mercy of God in Christ. Then God freely forgives him for Christs sake alone, imputing to him his own righteousness, procured by the perfect obedience of Christ, both active (ever keeping the law), and passive (paying its penalty for us). This is the image of God; i.e., harmonization with the Divine character. Our conformity to the Divine law does not suffice; we must be in harmony with the character of God; i.e., like God, if we spend eternity with him in heaven. It takes entire sanctification, not imputing, as in case of righteousness, but imparting the Divine nature to our hearts, thus investing us with the likeness of God. The true reading is, righteousness and holiness of truth; i.e., as expounded by the truth in contradistinction to all sorts of clerical and diabolical counterfeits, by which millions are deluded and cast into hell. The Bible is the only expositor of the righteousness and holiness pertinent to the restoration of the Divine image and likeness which we lost in the fall. The inspired Book is full of warnings against the counterfeits of men and devils, flooding us with the testimony of the Holy Ghost, assuring us that we must have the righteousness wrought in the expiation of Christ and the holiness of the cleansing blood applied by the Holy Spirit through faith alone.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 14
The sleight; the skilfulness.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
That we [henceforth] be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, [and] cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
The verse is fairly clear. I have seen a number of churches and heard of others that have had a pastor come in and take the church off into some other organization or denomination. This text tells us why the pastor was able to succeed in such activity. The people were not trained properly and they were tossed to and fro.
If you see or hear of a church being taken into some other theological position you can be sure they were not properly trained and prepared to stand on their own. One of the community churches in our area called a new pastor and within six months he had convinced most of the people that they should change from dispensational theology to covenant theology. Fortunately the property was in the name of one of the deacons and he would not be swayed. When the dust settled all but a small handful of well taught people had left the church with the pastor to set up a new church.
I suspect we can be fairly sure what was not done by former pastors in that church. There is also that possibility that they were being taught but the people were not listening as they ought to have been.
“Tossed to and fro” is descriptive of the waves of the sea. When in the Navy I was stationed on a troop transport. We were in Japan when a typhoon decided to raise cane in the Pacific (A typhoon is a hurricane, but it is located in the Pacific Ocean).
For some reason, unknown to the crew or his higher commanders, our captain ordered the ship to sea. We were anchored in the best typhoon harbor in the Far East. The harbor was surrounded by large hills and was quite protected from the winds.
As we set out to sea, the weather reports showed the storm headed away from us so we started heading the other direction. Through the night the storm shifted course and was catching us very quickly. The decision was made to turn the ship into the storm for safety. As the storm overtook us the entire crew knew full well what being tossed to and fro meant. As we were entering the eye of the storm the next night I was standing with my legs as far apart as possible and hanging onto a piece of radar equipment with both hands and the rolls of the ship knocked me off balance several times.
If we do not teach our congregations the doctrines of the Word they are going to be tossed from one good sounding doctrine to another by anyone that comes on the scene with a convincing line. It is not that the people are ignorant or dumb; it is because they have never learned what the Word contains.
Notice “by the sleight of men, [and] cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;” There are men, false teachers to be more specific, that deceive anyone they can by their cunning and their craftiness. They are like the medicine men of the old west. They went from town to town fooling the people into buying their super healing powered elixirs that would heal all maladies of man and beast.
“Sleight” according to one old commentator was like the tossing of dice, the thrower tosses the dice for his own benefit, not the benefit of those around him. Nothing helpful for the listener, this is not the picture of the purpose of the gifts.
So, the false teacher goes from place to place tricking and fooling those that are untaught by their craftiness and trickery.
Pastor – teacher – leader – this is your wake up call. These men are all over the place, in fact there are women doing the same thing. Get to the work of training your people and teaching them the basics then build upon that base and ground them well in the Word before someone comes along and tricks them right out of your church and influence.
I might add, you had better be sure your teaching is Biblical before you go too far, so that you don’t become that which we speak of in this text.
And the ultimate negative of this verse, if we are tossed to and fro, then we are as children fooled by almost anyone. Trust may well enter into the acceptingness of those fooled and tricked. A child trusts almost anyone and almost anything. Maturity of the saints is that which Paul wants to occur, not fuzzy wuzzy messages and lessons that make the kids feel good, but some solid meat to help the believers grow in the Lord.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
4:14 {9} That we [henceforth] be no more children, {10} tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the {s} sleight of men, [and] {t} cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
(9) Between our childhood (that is to say, a very weak state, when we are still wavering) and our perfect age, which we will have at length in another world, there is a mean, that is, our youth, and steady going forward to perfection.
(10) He compares those who do not rest themselves upon the word of God, to little boats which are tossed here and there with the doctrines of men as it were with contrary winds, and in addition forewarns them that it comes to pass not only by the unsteadiness of man’s brain, but also by the craftiness of certain ones, who make as it were an art of it.
(s) With those uncertain events which toss men to and fro.
(t) By the deceit of those men who are very well practised in deceiving others.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
One result of gifted people equipping the saints to serve the Lord and others is that believers may be stable in their faith. Infants are easily swayed and confused, as waves blown by the wind. False teachers create such winds, sometimes with hurricane or tornado force, by their teaching and seek to trick people into following them.