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On translating "perfecting the saints"
Ephesians
4:12 "Their purpose is to perfect the saints, to do the work of the
ministry, and to build up..." The placement of the comma is critical to the
meaning of this verse.
No it isn't. The meaning
of the verse hangs on the nature of the main verb edoken in verse 11.
The prepositional phrases that occur in the next few verses modify the main
verb edoken (which the ISV translates as "It is he who gifted
some...").
I
understand this verse to say that one of the functions of the leadership is
to prepare the saints so that "they" (the saints - the congregation) can be
about the business of ministry - being the body of Christ.
This understanding is not
supported by the grammar of the passage. The action-prepositions of verses
12 and following amplify the meaning of the gifting that Christ did in verse
11. The verse says that Christ gave the gifted people listed in verse 11:
for perfecting the saints (1st prepositional phrase), for doing eis
the work of ministry (2nd phrase), and for building up eis the body
of Christ (3rd phrase). The ISV puts the commas in the passage to bring out
the Apostle Paul's 3 prepositional phrases as modifying the verb "he who
gifted". The phrases explain how the gifting works.
By placing
the comma where you did, it changes the meaning to be that the leadership
does everything.
Not so. The ISV brings out
Paul's meaning that the gifting by Christ does the perfecting. It
corrects the false view that gifted people do the perfecting. No,
Christ's gift does the perfecting, not the people, says the grammar of the
passage. Your accusation that the ISV "changes the meaning" is vacuous. It
is not the ISV Foundation's fault that previous translations were not as
accurate as the ISV.
I checked
the NKJV, NASB, NIV, and NLT and all have it the way I understood it to be.
Are they all wrong?.
Frankly, yes. Might I
suggest you do a grammatical and syntactical analysis of the Greek? You'll
find that each prepositional phrase modifies the main verb of the sentence.
In the Greek NT, the sentence begins at verse 11 and continues as one
complete sentence through the end of verse 16. This 124-word sentence has
only one main verb: "gifted" edoken. All of the prepositional phrases
modify this verb.
We offer the following
observations in the text to assist you in understanding:
1. Please observe that in the original Greek the main force of the verb in
the sentence is the stress on the gifting process by the gift giver ("It is
he who gifted") and not on the function of the gifted persons. This is why
the ISV translates the verse as "It is he who gifted" rather than rendering
the verse like some other translations do ("And he gave").
2. The phrases "to
perfect", "to do the work", and "to build up" modify the verb "gifted" in
the term "it is he who gifted". The Greek grammar of the passage requires
that the tasks of "perfecting, doing, and building" do not describe the work
of the gifted men identified in the sentence (i.e., the apostles, prophets,
evangelists, and teacher/pastors) but rather describe the motives or
purposes behind the gifting by the giver, who is Christ.
3. Nor does the passage
teach that the teacher/pastors do the perfecting of the saints so that those
saints then are equipped to do the work of doing and building. (This
erroneous view is taught very commonly in Christian circles today. One of
the more well known proponents of this erroneous view is Dr. John MacArthur,
Jr.)
4. Frankly, the grammar of
the passage suggests that "It is he" (i.e., Christ Himself) who gave gifted
men to His own Church so that He (i.e., Christ Himself) would be able "to
perfect", "to do the work", and "to build up".
To sum up, the Greek text
of these verses has only one main verb, and that verb emphasizes that it is
Christ who gave gifted men so that he -- Christ, not the gifted men! --
could do the things set forth in verse 12. The passage is teaching that
Christ does the tasks described in verse 12 using the gifted men described
in verse 11 to do so.
We are aware that the
ISV's rendering in v1.1.9 cuts across the grain of many teachings in the
Church today. That's unfortunate -- for those other translations, which have
mislead non-Greek readers for decades. We hope that God's pastor/teachers
will learn from the ISV's rendering that it is their Lord, and not they
themselves, who is running the ministry of the local church, equipping the
saints for ministry, doing the work of ministry, and building up the Body of
Christ. It's just that He is using those gifted men -- whom He appointed --
as tools in the larger work.
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