While reading Chapell’s exposition of the importance of each member of the Body of Christ, I was so blessed to read him tell about the role his third grade Sunday school teacher played in his life.

Gene Mintz was my third grade Sunday school teacher in a large church in Tennessee.  Not many men volunteered to be third grade Sunday school teachers when I was growing up.  And I confess that I remember very little of Mr. Mintz’s classroom teaching.  What I remember is that when my parents were struggling in their marriage, making our lives awkward in the church, Mr. Mintz always greeted me—a little third grader from a troubled family—in the church hallways.  Even when I went on to fourth grade, and fifth, and sixth, Mr. Mintz never forgot me.  And when my family moved away when I was in seventh grade, Mr. Mintz sometimes still would write and ask how I was doing.  I even got a letter or two when I was in college.  And when I became president of Covenant Seminary, I got a letter from Gene Mintz that I will always cherish.  “Bryan,” he wrote, “I have prayed for you all of these years.”

I believe that I am a living testimony of the truth of Paul’s words: “From him [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”  Because Gene Mintz did his part faithfully, I have been able to serve God and teach others to do the same.  I believe that.  I hope that others will, so that we will make every effort to keep the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace, and we will use whatever gifts God has given to us to further equip the people for the work of the ministry.  Bryan Chappell, Commentary on Ephesians, 199-200.

Our response should be to strive to unify in a way that is worthy of our call.  Here is a careful statement by Bryan Chappell.  Notice that he not only emphasizes unity, but also stresses that we are not permitted to unite with those who abandon the truth.

We are called out of our separateness not to do as we please, but to direct our faith and practice toward the truths given to us by the testimony of Scripture. This calling also causes us to honor brothers and sisters of other churches and denominations who unite their thoughts and actions to Scripture. In doing so we must affirm that there are differences that are honorable but not vital; there are believers with whom we differ on matters important, but not essential; and even as were are correcting ourselves by Scripture, we are called to seek ways to come together with those who are with us in their testimony of one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. What we are not permitted to do is unite ourselves with those who have abandoned these truths affirmed in Scripture.[1]

[1] Bryan Chapell, Ephesians, 184-85.

Agreeing with Adrian, we must value experience.  I grew up in circles where we were suspicious of any sort of experience.  We stressed the objective aspects of the faith but not subjective experience.  (Note the D.A. Carson quote below).  If someone had done something radical like raise their hands, they would have been shot.  Don’t get me wrong, the people were sweet.  They would have smiled while pulling the trigger – - but they would have pulled it none the less.

In Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul prayed that based on the objective argument of the first 3 chapters of Ephesians (and what argument it is), that the Ephesians will have a subjective experience of the faith – - something that transcends knowledge, indeed that they will be filled to the brim with an experience of the love of Christ.

In reference to this passage, Carson summarized:

“Because some wings of the church have appealed to experience over against revelation, or have talked glibly about ill-defined ‘spirituality’ that is fundamentally divorced from the gospel, some of us have overreacted and begin to view all mention of experience as suspicious at best, perverse at worst.  This overreaction must cease.  The Scriptures themselves demand that we allow more place for experience than that. . .”  D.A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities From Paul and His Prayers, Grand Rapids (Baker, 1992), 191.

 Relative to Romans 5:5, Moo writes:

“The confidence we have for the day of judgment is not based only on our intellectual recognition of the fact of God’s love, or even only on the demonstration of God’s love on the cross . . . but on the inner, subjective certainty that God does love us . . . and it is this internal, subjective, yes, even emotional, sensation within the believer that God does indeed love us – - love expressed and made vital in real, concrete actions on our behalf – - that gives to us the assurance that ‘hope will no disappoint us.’” Douglas Moo, Commentary on Romans, pages 312-313.