I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, (2) with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, (3) endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (4) There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; (5) one Lord, one faith, one baptism; (6) one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

The letter to the Ephesians was written by the apostle Paul while a prisoner in Rome. He has laid a solid doctrinal foundation in the first three chapters of Ephesians and now moves to application in our daily lives. The emphasis in our verses today is Christian unity and Paul uses relational words in his call to live in loving harmony with each other. Everywhere the indwelling Spirit is the principle of unity in the body of Christ and peace is the condition of unity. Unity already exists in faith but here the emphasis is on God who is not just over us but through us. In the faithful this is not just unity of opinion, of interest, of feeling, but something supernatural arising from common principle.

Unity is founded on biblical basis. Paul is not referring to the visible church but rather the unseen spiritual body of Christ composed of all genuine believers. It is the unity of the Spirit, not organizational or external. The Spirit of God dwells in all believers and demands the faithful behave as they believe. This one faith is not the faith by which we are saved but the faith of the Christian church. There are major issues in the church where there should be division – issues contrary to doctrinal/biblical principles. And there are divisions where unity should have been preserved – minor matters not doctrinal or where Scripture is not clear. The church is a habitation of God through the Spirit; not just that God operates through all but that He pervades all the faithful and abides in all.

I love to close with c.s.Lewis – “The word religion is extremely rare in the New Testament or the writing of mystics. The reason is simple. Those attitudes and practices to which we give the collective name of religion are themselves concerned with religion hardly at all. To be religious is to have one’s attention fixed on God and on one’s neighbor in relation to God. Therefore, almost by definition, a religious man, or a man when he is being religious, is not thinking about religion; he hasn’t the time. “