Ephesians 4:1-7 and 14-16 (New Living Translation)
Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. 

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6 one God and Father of all,

who is over all, in all, and living through all.

7 However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ.

14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

Reflection:
Sometimes when I am thinking about the age that my birth certificate says that I am, I find myself being a bit surprised and unbelieving for several reasons. One of which is that I think I should be far wiser; then I convince myself that I will not have total wisdom on this side of the grave, and that is okay because I am still seeking. I also realize that wisdom isn’t necessarily related to age. This last month of reading reflections of many of the writers very, very much younger, I marvel at the wisdom and the lessons I am learning. I have had many mentors and teachers in my life; our writers are only the latest and, thankfully, are grounded in the faith. On the other hand, I have had lessons learned the hard way from those whose motives only God can judge. 

In preparing for this writing, I was drawn back to the Bibles of my most constant mentor, Bibles frayed and marked from 80+ years of her nightly reading. In my home with three siblings and two working parents, we did not read the Bible together. My parents were very much faithful “doers of the Word,” but my mentor, who had no children and a husband who disappeared for weeks at a time and left her frightened of the nights, arranged with my parents to have me there. Our evenings were spent reading the Bible with her explaining its truths and how the wisdom in those pages would be my guide for living. What a blessing that TV was not marketed yet, although I doubt it ever replaced her Bible study. She, too, was a “doer of the Word.” This entire chapter of Ephesians is one of her greatest lessons, but of the scriptures above, she most wanted me to live knowing Ephesians 5-7 and 15-16.

Closing Prayer:
Father, God! I am grateful that you have spoken to people throughout the ages who were wise enough to pass your truths to us through the written Word. I am grateful that Christ has given us different gifts to share to transform the world, one body called to the same glorious future. Amen.