Markus Barth on Ephesians and the Problem of Christian Arrogance in Knowledge

From The Broken Wall: A Study of the Epistle to the Ephesians, 1959: pg. 18-19.

Ephesians shares, along with documents of an ancient widely spread non-Christian religious movement (the so-called Gnosis or Gnosticism, cf. 1 Tim. 6:20), the strong emphasis which is put upon “revelation,” “mystery,” “knowledge,” “wisdom,” “understanding,” and the like. Its author prays that God will give “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowledge of him, enlightened eyes of hearts to know what is….” 1:17 f.). He is convinced that he, together with other apostles and prophets, was “made to know, by revelation, the mystery,” and that he understands it (1:9; 3:3-5). And he is convinced that these elect not only have heard the “word of truth” (1:13) and can grow in understanding (1:7 f; 3:19; 4:13), but also that they have something that can and must be made known to the universe (2:7; 3:10). Is this not a very narrow concept of Christian existence? How arrogant to claim that one knows “the mystery of God’s will” (1:9) and “the word of truth” (1: 13)! What nerve, boldly to ascribe such knowledge to “revelation” (3:3, 5). What conceit is displayed by Christians who presume that they can teach the powers that be, or (even worse!) that they must expose the evil of the world (3:10; 5:11)! What silly imaginations to assume that the members of the church are saints and spotless (1:4; 5:27) merely because they know something extraordinary! Could the author of Ephesians have fallen victim to the assumption that mere knowledge of the good naturally implies the doing of the good, the being good, and the well-being of man? As if at all times and places Christians have not discredited, by their blindness, hardness, and ignorance, whatever they have pretended to “know”! And as if they have not had to suffer from persecution, slander, and malice whenever they have tried to be true to their calling! So the emphasis put by the Ephesian epistle upon knowledge looks hardly convincing.

Today, a man or document that sells mankind no better means of salvation than a kind of super-enlightenment should not expect to be welcomed as friend and helper in a world whose very existence is at stake and in a church that pays with the suffering of persecution when it is a true witness to Christ. Few, if anybody, would want to be evangelists, “shod with the gospel of peace” (6:15), if that ministry should really produce or imply a haughty, magisterial attitude toward those who are strangers to, or are estranged from, the church. For it simply is not true that Christians are brighter or better than “worldly” people, or that they alone posses all truth, and that all will be well if only they are listened to…[A] more detailed exegesis of the role of “knowledge” in Ephesians will have to show whether or not this epistle actually fosters intellectual pride and vanity.