Kicking off Ephesians

 This summer, I am working on a series of messages on Paul's letter to the Ephesians. For this post, I want to focus on a few interesting items from the letter overall. Future posts will look a little more deeply at different parts of this letter, in an effort to help us grasp the different things that Paul was trying to communicate to the Ephesians about their faith in God and in the grace of God demonstrated in Jesus.

A common theme throughout this letter is how God brings all people who put their faith in Jesus into one body, with Jesus as the Head and the Church (the whole community of those who come to believe in Jesus and His sacrifice and resurrection for them) as Jesus' body. There is a significant unity and togetherness that he makes a big deal out of throughout this letter, and we would be wise to consider what that means for our lives together as Christians. If God is so concerned about our lives together in unity in Jesus, then perhaps that means we should open up our ears to hear what He has to say on it.

One interesting thing about the Ephesian Christians is that they seem to have been Gentiles, or non-Jewish people, primarily. The astonishing thing that Paul writes about is that the promise of God to them is just the same as it is to the Jewish people. At that time, that was an astounding thing to consider. But the grace of God in Jesus meant that God was making all people into one in Christ Jesus, with Jesus at the heart of that unity.

Since that is what God has done for all people, then that means that we have to consider the conduct of our lives. What we do, what we say, how we interact with others, all of these are impacted when we realize that we are included in Jesus' body along with all these other people. There is no place for some of our sinful tendencies, and even when we find ourselves engaging in those tendencies, we respond with grace and kindness and forgiveness, even as we are corrected.

Life together in the body means that we look to place the good of others in just as significant of a place as we do our own. Paul uses a word that we tend not to like a lot, the word submit. As Christians, our whole life is one of submitting to the good of others. Yes, we are still called to be responsible with our own lives, but we are to expand our outlook beyond our own selves, and see what we can do in grace for others.

Because that is such a challenge for us, God gives us significant defenses to equip us for living this kind of life. We are clothed in armor to protect us, and this armor is given by God. 

Since we will be looking over this all summer, we will be diving much deeper into these sections in future weeks. Hopefully this brief summary helps prepare the way for our journey together.