"1I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
Ephesians 4:1-3
We come with this chapter to the second main section of the Epistle, which is concerned with the walk of the Christian. The 'therefore' in 1 makes it clear that what Paul goes on to say follows from and depends upon what has already been said in chs 1-3, and constitutes an insistence to the Ephesians that their Christian walk might be consistent with the immense wealth that is theirs in Christ. The pattern that Paul follows here is a characteristic one, following doctrine with duty, and indicatives and affirmations with imperatives. The exhortations in the gospel are always based upon the great affirmations of the faith, on what God has done for us in Christ. It is this that lifts them from being a counsel of despair. For if God has made of us new men and women in Christ, He has created the possibility of our living as such. This is the point of the exhortation in 1: We are well able, because well equipped, for this, and so it is our bounden duty to walk worthily. Now, clearly, the quality of our Christian walk will depend on the grasp we have of the wealth that is ours in Christ - hence Paul's preoccupation, in 3:18, with the need to 'comprehend' (mental grasp and perception and knowing it in our experience). It is as we experience the fullness of God in the knowledge of the divine love - with love possessing us - that we will walk worthy of our calling. We could put it in this way, in summary form: The Apostle has spelled out what it means to be Christian believers. 'You are believers,' he says, to the Ephesians; 'now live as believers.' And, in turn, this is now spelled out to them.