Ephesians 4:1-13

International Standard Version

The Messiah’s Gifts to the Church

4 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to live in a way that is worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ² demonstrating all expressions of humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another in love. ³ Do your best to maintain the unity of the Spirit by means of the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit. Likewise, you were called to the one hope of your calling.

⁷ Now to each one of us grace has been given proportionate to the measure of the Messiah’s^[a] gift. ⁸ That is why God^[b] says,

⁹ Now what does this “he went up” mean except that he also had gone^[d] down into the lower parts of the earth?^{[e] 10} The one who went down is the same one who went up above all the heavens so that all things would be fulfilled. ¹¹ And it is he who gifted some to be apostles, others to be prophets, others to be evangelists, and still others to be pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip^[f] the saints, to do the work of ministry, and to build up the body of the Messiah^{[g] 13} until all of us are united in the faith and in the full knowledge of God’s Son, and until we attain mature adulthood and the full standard of development in the Messiah.^[h]