Ephesians 4.16d-Each Member's Service is Proportionate to Their Spiritual Growth
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday April 17, 2025
Ephesians Series: Ephesians 4:16d-Each Member’s Service is Proportionate to Their Spiritual Growth
Lesson # 249
Ephesians 4:16 From whom, each and every member of the body does get fitted together, yes does get united together through the function of each and every ligament, which provide support for the purpose of working. Simultaneously, in proportion to each individual part belonging to the body does cause itself to grow for the purpose of building one another up by means of the practice of divine-love. (Lecturer’s translation)
Ephesians 4:16 is composed of two assertions:
(1) ex hou pan to sōma synarmologoumenon kai symbibazomenon dia pasēs haphēs tēs epichorēgias kat energeian (ἐξ οὗ πᾶν τὸ σῶμα συναρμολογούμενον καὶ συμβιβαζόμενον διὰ πάσης ἁφῆς τῆς ἐπιχορηγίας κατ ἐνέργειαν), “From whom, each and every member of the body does get fitted together, yes does get united together through each and every ligament, which provide support for the purpose of working.”
(2) en metrō henos hekastou merous tēn auxēsin tou sōmatos poieitai eis oikodomēn heautou en agapē (ἐν μέτρῳ ἑνὸς ἑκάστου μέρους τὴν αὔξησιν τοῦ σώματος ποιεῖται εἰς οἰκοδομὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἐν ἀγάπῃ), “Simultaneously, in proportion to each individual part belonging to the body does cause itself to grow for the purpose of building one another up by means of the practice of divine-love.”
Now, the second assertion in Ephesians 4:16 is composed of the declarative statement (ἑνὸς ἑκάστου μέρους τὴν αὔξησιν τοῦ σώματος ποιεῖται), “each individual part belonging to the body does cause itself to grow” and it is modified by three prepositional phrases:
(1) en metrō (ἐν μέτρῳ), “Simultaneously, in proportion to”
(2) eis oikodomēn heautou (εἰς οἰκοδομὴν ἑαυτοῦ), “for the purpose of building one another up”
(3) en agapē (ἐν ἀγάπῃ), “by means of the practice of divine-love.”
Therefore, the second assertion occurs simultaneously with the first and thus corresponds to it and states that each individual part of the body of Christ does cause itself to grow for the purpose of building one another up by means of the practice of divine-love.
Thus, it teaches that the members of the body of Christ receive the capacity to serve one another and the Lord because of the function of the communication gifts while simultaneously in direct proportion to each individual member of the body of Christ does cause itself to grow for the purpose of building one another up by means of the practice of divine-love.
The prepositional phrase en metrō (ἐν μέτρῳ), “while in proportion to” indicates that the proportion in which each member of the body of Christ serves one another through the function of their spiritual gift “occurs simultaneously with” each member causing themselves to grow up spiritually for the purpose of building one another up spiritually by means of the practice of divine-love.
As was the case in Ephesians 4:7, the noun metron (μέτρον) in Ephesians 4:16 as meaning “proportion, proportional” since the word in this context pertains to making the parts of something harmonious or symmetrical.
As was the case in Ephesians 4:7, it is used in Ephesians 4:16 in relation to spiritual gifts, which were given to each church age believer at the moment of the justification through the work of the Holy Spirit as authorized by the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Ephesians 4:16, the word is describing each member of the body of Christ working or functioning their spiritual gifts “in proportion to” or “proportional” to each member causing itself to grow spiritually.
In other words, each member of the body of Christ working in the sense of functioning their spiritual gifts is marked by due proportion, that is, they are marked by harmonious relation to each member of the body of Christ causing themselves to grow up spiritually.
Therefore, this noun metron (μέτρον) emphasizes that the function of the various gifts in the body of Christ resulting in serving the body of Christ as marked by harmonious or symmetrical to each member of the body of Christ causing themselves to grow up spiritually.
The noun metron (μέτρον) is the object of the preposition en (ἐν), which functions as a marker of a point of time which is simultaneous to or overlaps with another point of time.
This would indicate that the proportion in which each member of the body of Christ serves each other through the function of their spiritual gift “occurs simultaneously with” each member causing themselves to grow up spiritually for the purpose of building one another up spiritually by means of the practice of divine-love.
As was the case in Ephesians 4:7, the adjective hekastos (ἕκαστος) here in Ephesians 4:16 means “each” since the word denotes each one of a totality in a distributive sense and the word emphasizes the idea of a single member of the body of Christ without emphasizing them as individuals or being a part of whole.
As was the case in Ephesians 4:7, it is modified here in Ephesians 4:16 by the adjective heis (εἷς), which emphasizes the body of Christ as a corporate unit in contrast to them being individuals.
The noun meros (μέρος) pertains to a part of something in contrast to the whole and so therefore, in Ephesians 4:16, the emphasis with this word is that the individual members of the body of Christ are “part” of a whole.
Therefore, the referent of the entire expression henos hekastou merous (ἑνὸς ἑκάστου μέρους) is the individual believers who are inextricably tied to each other through faith in Jesus Christ at justification and the baptism of the Spirit.
The verb poieō (ποιέω) pertains to causing a particular state to take place, which in our particular context, is the spiritual growth of the Christian and the referent of the third person singular form of this verb is each individual member of the body of Christ.
The present tense of the verb poieō (ποιέω) is a gnomic present which indicates that the function of the communication gifts does “as an eternal spiritual truth” or “spiritual axiom” cause each member of the body of Christ to grow spiritually.
The emphasis of the present tense here is not how often this takes place such as a customary present tense which signals a regularly occurring action or ongoing state or an iterative present used to describe a repeated activity or event.
The middle voice of this verb poieō (ποιέω) is causative which would indicate that each individual part or member of the body of Christ does cause themselves to grow spiritually and thus causes the spiritual growth of the body of Christ in a corporate sense as well.
It emphasizes the volitional responsibility of each member of the body of Christ for its own spiritual growth as an individual and by doing so, this will benefit the body of Christ in a corporate sense as well.
However, Paul asserts with the prepositional phrase ex hou (ἐξ οὗ), “from whom” at the beginning of Ephesians 4:16 that Jesus Christ Himself is the source of this growth.
Of course, the Holy Spirit is also involved in the growth of the individual and the body as whole because the Lord Jesus Christ employs the Spirit to effect this growth when the believer obeys the Spirit inspired Scriptures.
The Spirit causes spiritual growth in the believer by means of the Word of God, which those with the gifts of apostleship, prophecy and teaching communicate to the believer.
Thus, the middle voice of the verb poieō (ποιέω) emphasizes that each individual believer is volitionally responsible to respond by faith to the teaching of the Word of God by those with the communication gifts of apostleship, prophecy and teaching.
Those who do respond in faith, which produces obedience to the various Spirit command, prohibitions and requests in Scripture, will grow spiritually and consequently, the body of Christ as a corporate unit will grow as well.
Just as each individual member of the human body must function properly in order for the body to function properly as a whole, so each individual member of the body of Christ must function in their spiritual gift through the practice of God’s love when interacting with each other for the proper functioning of the human body in order for the body of Christ as a whole to function properly.
So therefore, Paul is not only speaking of the corporate growth of the body of Christ in Ephesians 4:16 but also the spiritual growth of its individual members since corporate growth is based upon individual growth.
In fact, Paul makes clear that when he speaks of growth in Ephesians 4:11-16, he is speaking not only of corporate growth of the church but also the growth of each individual believer because he explicitly mentions in Ephesians 4:13 his desire for each of them to grow up to become like Christ in with regards to their character.
The implication is clear when members of the body of Christ do not function in their spiritual gift because they reject the Spirit inspired teaching of the Word of God by their teacher and thus do not practice the command to love one another and thus do not function in their spiritual gift and do not grow up spiritually, the body of Christ in a corporate sense suffers as well.
This corresponds to Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 12:26 in which he teaches that when one member of the body of Christ suffers the whole body suffers.
He also taught in 1 Corinthians 12:12-21 that each member of the body of Christ is dependent on their fellow members just like the members of the human body are dependent upon each other.
Thus, for a believer not to grow spiritually and not function in their spiritual gift because they are not practicing the love of God when interacting with their fellow-believer causes the other members of the body of Christ to suffer as well and this is what is hurting the church in America in the twenty-first century.
The lack of accountability on the part of individual members of the body of Christ for not learning and applying God’s Word as communicated by their Spirit gifted teachers and thus not functioning in their spiritual gifts because of not practicing the Lord’s command to love one another as He has loved them has damaged and is damaging the church’s individual and corporate growth and impact in America and in their communities.
Also, those men in the body of Christ who have been given the gift of teaching and are not employing this gift by communicating the Word of God on a habitual basis are damaging the church’s individual and corporate growth and impact in America.
Many are leaving the ministry for unjustifiable reasons.
