93 EPHESIANS 4,12. A REVISED READING Christ. “All the saints” and “the body of Christ” are related in Ephesians; they constitute the church as one body whose head is Christ 46. In Eph 4,16, building up the body comes from Christ and is the result of its own growth “according to the effective working by which every part does its share ” (KJV). So, a better interpretation of Eph 4,12b-c, in agreement with the literary context, seems to be: “the preparation of the saints for the work of service in order to build up the body of Christ”. What kind of relationship does the prepositional phrases in Eph 4,12 have to the main verb edwken ? Does Eph 4,12 express a purpose of ¶ Christ’s gift? Could a reader of Ephesians figure out a different relation? The phrase prov ton katartismon twn ag¥wn eıv ergon diakonıav ù ù ù ˜ Ωı ߶ ¥ cannot be the main verb’s direct object because of the preposition prov. ¥ Considering it as the verbal indirect complement, however, raises at least two possibilities: purpose or agreement. The most common interpretation of Eph 4,12a-b reads the prepositional phrases as purpose clauses. Never- theless, the reasoning in Eph 4,7-16 points in the other direction. Both the giving of God’s grace and the growth of the body of Christ entail the idea of agreement: “God’s grace given to each one of us according to the mea- sure of Christ’s gift” (Eph 4,7) and the body’s growth for building itself up in love according to the effective working of every part (Eph 4,16). The function of the three prepositional phrases becomes clearer when the reader considers the sequence within its larger context. The accumu- lation of the prepositional phrases, whose main feature in this case is the absence of conjunctions, extends the main thesis enunciated in Eph 4,7. The giving of God’s grace takes place according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Thus, the function of the accumulation consists in expanding upon the way in which Christ’s gift is given to humankind. Eph 4,16 resumes this function saying that the measure of Christ’s gift is growth in love. The above study puts forward the following interpretation of the pas- sage : He (Christ) gave some as apostles, others as prophets, other as evan- gelists, others as pastors and teachers, in accordance with the preparation of the saints for the work of service, in order to build up the body of Christ. The line of thought draws the reader’s attention to the single gift that Christ communicates to all the ministries of the Word, according to the training of the community members for this service (i.e. ministry of the Word), in order to build up his own body (i.e. the church). This reading does not separate ministries from saints but rather suggests a deep Eph 1,1 is considered a disputed verse. Even though the word is pre- 46 ceded by a definite article (toıv agıoiv), it should be interpreted as a predi- ˜ Ω¥ cate of the participle oysin. See T. B. SLATER, “Translating agiov in Col 1,2 ® ™ and Eph 1,1”, Bib 87 (2006) 52-54.