That we henceforth be no more children Mere babes in Christian knowledge, experience, and practice; weak and unstable; tossed Κλυδωνιζομενοι, fluctuating from within, through various restless lusts and passions working in our hearts, even when there is nothing external to agitate or excite them; and carried about with every wind of doctrine And temptation from without, when we are assaulted by others who are themselves unstable as the wind; by the sleight, or subtlety, of men Greek, εν τη κυβεια των ανθρωπων, which words Chandler proposes rendering, by the dicing of men; the expression referring to the artifice of those infamous gamesters, who know how to cog the dice. So that the deceitful arts of false teachers and others, who endeavour to draw men from the belief and practice of the truth as it is in Jesus, by their insinuations and wiles, are here compared to the tricks of gamesters, who, by using false dice, and by various arts, cheat those with whom they play. And cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive Greek, εν πανουργια προς την μεθοδειαν της πλανης, a clause which Beza renders, “veteratoria ad insidiose fallendum versutia,” by the tricking of those long exercised in craftily deceiving others; Doddridge's translation is, by their subtlety in every method of deceit; and Macknight's, by craftiness formed into a subtle scheme of deceit. The former noun, πανουργια, signifies the doing of things by trick and sleight of hand, and the latter, μεθοδεια, (which, Ephesians 6:11, is applied to the wiles and subtle contrivances of the devil, in order to deceive and ruin men,) properly signifies a regular plan of proceeding in any affair, and is here used for a regular plan of deceit, formed either for upholding people in their ignorance of, and opposition to the gospel, or for drawing them from their faith in, or obedience to, some article of it. “The men,” Macknight thinks, “whose base arts the apostle describes in this passage, were the unbelieving Jews and the heathen philosophers, who opposed the gospel by sophistry and calumny; also such false teachers as arose in the church itself, and corrupted the doctrines of the gospel for worldly purposes, while at the same time they assumed the appearance of great disinterestedness and piety.”
Related Commentaries of Ephesians 4:14
Ephesians 4:14
14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;