This Tuesday 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.
Paul’s Excitement:
As you read through these verses for Tuesday, feel Paul’s excitement. Paul begins Ephesians with a panegyric or encomium which are fancy rhetorical words meaning elaborate or enthusiastic praise. What Paul begins with, reaches its crescendo here. Paul writes of God, Christ, and the Spirit in the same manner that someone would write of their spouse on their wedding day or maybe as a child would after seeing his favorite movie. Paul is effusive about the mystery that God has revealed to him about the Gentiles and what this means on a cosmic and eschatological level.
Mystery and Revelation:
The source of Paul’s excitement is the revelation of God’s mystery that has been hidden for the ages. The hidden mystery of God is the inclusion of the Gentiles (99% of the world) with the Jews into a new people of God. The promise of the blessing for the entire world in and through Abraham (Gen. 12:1-3) has come to fruition in Christ Jesus. See, Acts 3:25, Rom. 4, Gal. 3. More concretely and specifically, the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham is the church itself where Jews and Gentiles throughout the known world have and are coming together. v.10.
Paul’s great excitement also comes from the fact that it is Paul to whom God has made this revelation. Paul, the great Pharisee and persecutor of the church (Phil. 3:4-6), was chosen by God to have this mystery revealed to him. This is why Paul cannot wholly understand or articulate the boundlessness of God’s grace. The chief sinner has become the chief messenger to the Gentiles. 1Tim. 1:15, v.8. (Paul, of course, is not the only messenger of this mystery to the Gentiles. There are still Apollos, Peter, and others who proclaim this message to all. 1 Cor. 3:22, Rom. 16.)
Together:
The mystery of God revealed to Paul is that all people are one in Christ. See, Gal. 3:28. Paul emphasizes this oneness together in Christ in verse 6. There, Paul writes that the revealed mystery is “how the Gentiles are joint-heirs (Gk: syn-kleronomos), of a joint-body (Gk: syn-somos), and joint-partakers (Gk: syn-metochos) of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” The Gentiles are together as one with the Jews as the object and inheritors of God’s promises which is the church. The Church of Christ Jesus is the physical manifestation of the fulfillment of the great mystery of God.
Dinner is at 6. The menu is halupki and kielbasa. Discussion about 6:45. Hope to see you here!
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. Galatians 3:28-29