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NASB | Ephesians 4:8 Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Ephesians 4:8 Therefore it says, "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE, AND HE BESTOWED GIFTS ON MEN." [Ps 68:18] |
Bible Question:
EPHESIANS 4:8 What does MEN in this verse mean? Because, then we can know whether women can be Pastors v.11. Then we can ask what a Pastor is and then look at what Paul was talking about to Timothy. EPH. 4:12-13 God bless. |
Bible Answer: Tuli, The following is an edited commentary on the opening of Ephesians in a broader context. It doesn't address the women in leadership issue as such. There are many kinds of leadership. "All fatherhood in heaven and on earth derives from our heavenly Father. Eph 3:14 Because God the Father is a loving Father he enables us to share his life... That is why Paul writes as he does under the inspiration of Christ's Spirit in 1 Cor 4:15 to all those who are his spiritual sons and daughters: ... So Paul's role as an apostle must be understood as a participation in the fatherhood of God through the grace of Jesus Christ.... In verse 8, Paul gives a free quotation from Ps 68:18. In context, this verse comes from a psalm of David sung to the God of Israel, praising him for his guidance from slavery in Egypt all the way to the establishment of the Davidic monarchy. The opening of the psalm celebrates the Exodus, then the God who led Israel through the wilderness of Sinai, the conquest of Canaan, and finally (in v. 15 and following) it celebrates the God who led them in triumph into Jerusalem and up Mount Zion where the Temple would be built. In the original Ps, the passage reads, "With mighty chariotry, twice ten thousand,/thousands upon thousands,/the Lord came from Sinai into the holy place./Thou didst ascend the high mount,/leading captives in thy train,/and receiving gifts among men,/even among the rebellious, that the LORD God may dwell there." Many scholars argue that the reason Paul cites this passage from the psalms is because he means to point out that Jesus does in heaven what David did on earth. Ps 68 celebrates the earthly works of God: the earthly exodus out of earthly bondage, the earthly wanderings in the earthly wilderness, the earthly conquest of the earthly promised land, and the establishment of an earthly Davidic kingdom in an earthly Jerusalem. And all of this foreshadows the heavenly Exodus Jesus accomplished by bringing us out of the spiritual bondage of sin (1 Cor 10:1-2). Likewise, the wandering in the wilderness corresponds to this present life after baptism and the struggles we face in learning to trust God as Israel did (1 Cor 10:6-11). The entry into the Promised Land corresponds to our entry into Heaven, the Heavenly Jerusalem. For just as David led "thousands upon thousands" up to the worship of God on the earthly Mount Zion (where the earthly Temple would eventually be built), so the messianic "son of David" leads "a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues" (Rev 7:9) up to the Heavenly Jerusalem. So everything celebrated by David in Ps 68 foreshadows what Jesus, the true Son of David, accomplishes in the new covenant. This is perfectly in keeping with all Paul's linkages between the Temple, the body of Christ, and the Church earlier in Ephesians... Paul speaks (verse 9) of Christ descending "into the lower parts of the earth." This refers not only to Christ's descent from heaven into earth in the Incarnation, it also refers to his descent into Hades after his death. According to tradition, the souls of the saints who had been awaiting the Messiah, who had worshiped in the earthly Jerusalem, and had died before his Advent, had gone down to Sheol or the underworld of the dead (Hebrew "Sheol" is translated "Hades" in Greek). Paul alludes to this here and speaks of Jesus plundering the realm of the devil and leading a host of captives to live by delivering the dead saints of the old covenant from Hades or Sheol into the heavenly Jerusalem that their earthly city and Temple had only dimly foreshadowed. Paul emphasizes the surpassing greatness of Christ's triumph by using a curious rendering of Ps 68 that varies from the original Hebrew text. In the earthly conquest of Jerusalem, God is spoken of in the original psalm as "leading captives in thy train,/and receiving gifts among men." But in the heavenly triumph of Christ, the picture is transfigured in Paul's quotation of the verse: "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men." The picture is no longer focusing on an Oriental king with rebellious prisoners being dragged behind his triumphal chariot receiving tribute from subdued rebels. Rather, it is of the conquering and triumphant Liberator leading freed prisoners from subjection to the devil and from death to the glory of heaven, showering bounteous gifts upon his Church. Interestingly, David both received tribute (when he captured the Jebusites who held Jerusalem and claimed the city for his own) and gave the conquered Jebusites gifts of bread and wine (recorded in 2 Sam 6:19 in an obscure Hebrew text that is probably mistranslated in the RSV). Christ, who conquers sin, and liberates sinners through the Eucharist, is the reality of which David was only a prefigurement." Catholic Scripture Study, Scott Hahn, Jeff Cavins Emmaus |