Your Privileges and Rights in Christ (Thursday, Week 28, Year 2, St Teresa of Avila)

We begin St Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus. As a good pastor and shepherd, St Paul took it upon himself to write to the individual churches which he established or visited in order to strengthen their faith, revive their hope and fire up their zeal and love for God and for the Church. It is like some of us who have spiritual directors: sometimes, we go to them or they come to us in order to make sure that we are in the right track. Again, one of the major reasons why St Paul wrote to churches is to correct some anomalies, false teachings and wrong practices within those churches. The church in Ephesus was planted in the Greek culture where too many people claimed to know. The Greeks were famous for their intellectual prowess. In fact, philosophy (love of wisdom) began in Greece. Many ancient philosophers (lovers of wisdom) came from Greece. Greece was a citadel of learning in the ancient world. 

The Church in Ephesus was badly influenced by the Greek culture of knowledge or intellectualism. Some persons claimed that they knew far better than others and they claimed that knowledge of certain aspects of the Christian faith is only the preserve of a special group. They went further to say that it is only those who can learn those esoteric spiritual truths that can be saved. And that, other persons shouldn’t bother themselves trying to know because they won’t know. And the implication of their belief is that if some persons do not acquire this knowledge, they won’t be saved. Those who had this view were called the Gnostics and the heresy they propagated was Gnosticism. There were many of them in the Christian community of Ephesus who were teaching and confusing others. One of the reasons why St Paul wrote to the Ephesians was to correct this impression.

In the beginning section of his letter to the Ephesians Cf. Eph. 1:1-10), amongst other things, St Paul tried to stimulate the consciousness of their (that is, the Ephesians’) “belongingness” or “chosen-ness” in Christ, to help them understand who they are: their rights and privileges in Christ so that they won’t be swayed by any wind of false teaching. Specially, he remarked: “God has made known to you in all wisdom and insight the mystery of His will”. This statement was to counter the impression created by the Gnostic heretics in their midst that it was only few people that had access to the knowledge of certain spiritual truths.

Something similar is going on in the gospel (cf. Luke 11:47-54). Jesus continued to blast the Pharisees and the scholars of the law for their hypocrisy. The Pharisees built fine tombs, pretending as if they were honoring the prophets who were killed by their fathers. Their hypocrisy was so glaring that they (Pharisees) persecuted the prophets in their midst and built tombs in honor of those who were killed by their fathers. Who were these prophets? Those who came to communicate the will of God, to help them grow in the knowledge of God’s will. These they persecuted because they claimed that they knew it all. The same applied to the scholars of the law: they took away the key of knowledge by making the law and the scriptures very difficult for people to understand. They did not obey the words of the scripture and refused to simplify it for people to understand and follow.

Maybe, this should serve as a reminder to those of us who claim that they know. Let us not think that those who do not know what we know are damned or doomed. God has a way of revealing great truths to infants and to those we consider as “ignoramuses”, and hiding them away from the so called “giants” in knowledge. Let us be humble in learning and teaching: humility to learn from others and then grace to teach those who do not know with humility and respect.