Christians, by God’s design, come out of many different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities. Christians also come from many different religious backgrounds, as Paul points out in chapter 2. In addition, even once they are in the body of Christ, Christians have many different gifts and abilities (4:7–13). But God gets glory by taking the wide array of different people he has created and bringing them all into “one body” with “one Lord” and “one faith.” That is the thrust of these first sixteen verses in chapter 4—“out of many, one.”

eager

■ adjective strongly wanting to do or have something.

▶ keenly expectant or interested.

—PHRASES

eager beaver informal an enthusiastic person who works very hard.

—DERIVATIVES eagerly adverb eagerness noun

68.63 σπουδάζωb; σπουδήb, ῆς f: to do something with intense effort and motivation—‘to work hard, to do one’s best, to endeavor.’

σπουδάζωb: σπουδάζοντες τηρεῖν τὴν ἑνότητα τοῦ πνεύματος ‘do your best to preserve the unity which the Spirit gives’ Eph 4:3.

σπουδήb: ὁ προϊστάμενος ἐν σπουδῇ ‘whoever has authority must work hard’ Ro 12:8.

25.171 ἀνέχομαιa; ἀνοχή, ῆς f: to be patient with, in the sense of enduring possible difficulty