However, He has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. That is why the Scriptures say, “When He ascended to the heights, He led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to His people.” Notice that it says “He ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. And the same One who descended is the One who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that He might fill the entire universe with Himself. Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.
Ephesians 4:7-11
Now for a challenge. Are you up for a challenge? To make sense of this section. Why on earth are verses 8-10 sandwiched between verses 7 and 11? It would make more sense if 4:8-10 were not there and the passage read:
“However, He has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.”
But having these three verses in the middle is confusing. So unconfuse it! Don’t do what you usually do when you are faced with a challenge like this. “How do you know what I do, Ian?” Easy, you cave in and ignore that there is a challenge here to your understanding of Scripture. I know because most people are in that category.
When most come across a passage like this they ignore it and keep reading and pretend it is not there. Or worse yet, think, “I can’t read the Bible, it’s too hard” and give up.
Well this time, don’t do what you usually do. Take time to try to sort it out.
- Who me? Yes you.
- When? Now.
- Just do it. Use all I have demonstrated in Gems to solve the problem.
And don’t worry about the number the number of this Gem. It has no significance. Only that there are 665 gems before it.
If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got. Is that what you want?
Anon
You have to wait if you expect someone to change. But for you to change, you can start right now.
Jeffrey Rachmat
Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.
David Bly
Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.
Napoleon Hill