10. So Christ came down, and he is the same one who went up. He went up above the highest heaven in order to fill everything with himself.
11. And that same Christ gave these gifts to people: He made some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to go and tell the Good News, and some to care for and teach God’s people.
12. Christ gave these gifts to prepare God’s holy people for the work of serving, to make the body of Christ stronger.
13. This work must continue until we are all joined together in what we believe and in what we know about the Son of God. Our goal is to become like a full-grown man—to look just like Christ and have all his perfection.
14. Then we will no longer be like babies. We will not be people who are always changing like a ship that the waves carry one way and then another. We will not be influenced by every new teaching we hear from people who are trying to deceive us—those who make clever plans and use every kind of trick to fool others into following the wrong way.
15. No, we will speak the truth with love. We will grow to be like Christ in every way. He is the head,
16. and the whole body depends on him. All the parts of the body are joined and held together, with each part doing its own work. This causes the whole body to grow and to be stronger in love.
17. I have something from the Lord to tell you. I warn you: Don’t continue living like those who don’t believe. Their thoughts are worth nothing.
18. They have no understanding, and they know nothing because they refuse to listen. So they cannot have the life that God gives.
19. They have lost their feeling of shame and use their lives to do what is morally wrong. More and more they want to do all kinds of evil.
20. But that way of life is nothing like what you learned when you came to know Christ.
21. I know that you heard about him, and in him you were taught the truth. Yes, the truth is in Jesus.
22. You were taught to leave your old self. This means that you must stop living the evil way you lived before. That old self gets worse and worse, because people are fooled by the evil they want to do.
23. You must be made new in your hearts and in your thinking.
24. Be that new person who was made to be like God, truly good and pleasing to him.
25. So you must stop telling lies. “You must always speak the truth to each other,” because we all belong to each other in the same body.
26. “When you are angry, don’t let that anger make you sin,” and don’t stay angry all day.
27. Don’t give the devil a way to defeat you.