Bible Coolness: Ambiguity

Sometimes Bible verses can seem a little elusive in meaning, open to interpretation... and to me, that can be a cool thing.

Ephesians 4:12 is one such verse.

You read it one way, and it sounds like ministers have three jobs:

• the perfecting of the saints
• the work of the ministry
• the edifying of the body of Christ

But if you read it in another way, it sounds like:

• ministers perfect the saints, 
• the saints do the work, and
• the work edifies the body of Christ.

This used to bug me: I wanted to know who's supposed to do the work! Did God expect the pastor to do it, or did God expect the saints to do it?

So I asked God, "Who, exactly, is supposed to do the work?  The pastor or the people?"

He said, "Both."

Either way you interpret Eph 4:12, it's right -- both the ministers and the saints are supposed to do the work.  Isn't it cool when ambiguous verses end up richer and fuller in meaning than straight-forward ones! 

One of these days, I'll share the five different meanings I've encountered for the binding/loosing verse (Matt 18:18) -- five wildly-variant meanings, and I believe all of them!