Tonight we will be reading through Ephesians 3:2-13. Here we see Paul’s excitement to be the proclaimer of the revelation of God’s great mystery and the church’s role in the proclamation.
Paul’s Humility / God’s Grace: (vv.7-8)
Paul attributes everything to God’s grace. It was God’s grace that gave Paul the insight to understand the great mystery of Christ and it was God’s grace that gave Paul the power to be an apostle or proclaimer of this mystery to the Gentiles. (v.7). Throughout his letters, however, Paul sees himself as the absolutely very least of all the saints. v.8. See, also, 1 Cor. 15:9, 1 Tim. 1:15. Paul’s profound sense of unworthiness arises because he was once a persecutor of the church, and he did so in God’s name. But instead of punishing Paul, God elevated him to be the minister of his gospel. vv.7-8.
Paul lacks the appropriate words to describe God’s grace. He simply calls this grace the “unsearchable riches of Christ.” v.8. The word for “unsearchable” Paul uses is anexichniaston which literally means “impossible to trace the steps of” and has the sense of being incomprehensible, inscrutable, or unfathomable. This is the grace that Paul encounters in Christ. This is the grace that Paul desires his audience to encounter and understand as well.
The Mystery and the Principalities: (vv.9-10)
The mystery of God revealed to Paul is that all people are one in Christ as demonstrated in the church composed of Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, men and women, etc. See, Gal. 3:28. Paul understands that the powers and principalities of this world and in the heavenly places rule through divisions and prejudices based on race, ethnicities, and nationalities, as well as traditions and rules that differentiate between the insiders and outsiders, and the clean and the unclean. Paul sees the overcoming of the barriers between Jews and Gentiles means that all such barriers are being overcome as well. Christ is reconciling all things to himself and to all creation. Eph. 2:16. The very existence of the church where all of these barriers are being overcome is the visible sign of Christ’s victory over and redemption from these powers and principalities that enslave humanity and all creation. Paul reminds his audience that God created all things (v.9), so that now God, through Christ, has re-created all things.
Grace for Us: (vv.11-13)
One of the benefits of God’s grace and Christ’s victory for us is that we now have free and confident access to God himself. God’s grace through Christ, as demonstrated in Paul, reveals not an angry capricious god or even a just karmic god, but that loving father who invites even his greatest persecutor to be his apostle. The eternal purpose for which Christ Jesus came was the reconciliation of all of us with our creator so that we have that blessed assurance that we have been redeemed, forgiven, and lavished with God’s grace. Eph. 1:7. Therefore, as Paul writes, we should never lose heart over what sufferings may come. v.13.
Dinner is at 6. The menu is halupki and kielbasa. Discussion about 6:45. Hope to see you here.
And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day—and there shall be no night there; they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. Revelation 21:23-26