Friday, July 24, 2009

Saints and Faithful

Ephesians 1:1 KJV
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

The Bible addresses two classes of people here
The saints
The faithful

Albert Barnes comments that the book of Ephesus was written both for the saints in Ephesus and for those other faithful believers in places besides Ephesus. The book, as with all of Scripture, is intended not merely for the original readers but truly for all who will believe hereafter.

As to the term saint John Clarke says,
"...saint appears to have been as ordinary a denomination of a believer in Christ in those primitive times, as the term Christian is now. Yet many had the name who had not the thing."

How sad it is that there are those who claim something with the Lord that they do not genuinely possess. May the Lord open the eyes of the blinded that they may see they are not whole. May God cause them to see that they need the Great Physician!

Of the faithful my New Pilgrim Study Bible says,
"...Faithful in Christ Jesus is another way of describing the Christians, for they were people who had trusted or had faith in the Lord."

To be faithful speaks more of who we have faith in than it does of our own character. I ought to be faithful as a believer. But it is much more important that my faith is in Christ than it is that Christ can have faith in me.

No comments:

Post a Comment