Ephesians 1:1-2
Welcome to Ephesus
The letter to the Ephesians has been called, “the crown of Paul’s writings”. Because one of its themes is the Christian’s riches in Christ, it has also been called “the believer’s bank”, and, “the treasure-house of the Bible”. It is a letter that every Christian should study closely, and, if we were going to answer the question of why are we going to Ephesians? Then I would offer two simple reasons.
First, it offers such an exalted view of Jesus Christ that if you don’t see you will never know the riches of Christ. If the Church needs to see anything today it needs to see Jesus Christ. The key to studying Ephesians is not what God is doing with us, but, what God is doing with Christ. “And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ” (Eph. 1:9).
A second reason we are going to Ephesians is because it gives us the view of the Church. We learn about the Church from the whole NT. But what it is, why it is, who it is, how it is, is established by Paul in Ephesians in such a way that if we were to study the doctrine of the Church without this letter our understanding of the Church would be incredibly deficient.
That is why the getting a hold of the themes in this letter are so important. There are several. First is the mystery. The word mystery appears throughout the entire letter. A mystery in the Bible is not something that can never be known. When the Bible uses the word “mystery” it always means a truth that was once hidden but is now revealed. In other words, it is a truth that has always been a truth but has not always been known because it has not been revealed before.
The mystery that Paul is speaking of in Ephesians is the Church of Jesus Christ. “This mystery is that through the Gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 3:6). Now, believing Jews and believing Gentiles are one in Christ; they are fellow members of the same Body of Christ.
Mystery is found in all 6 chapters.
In chapter 1 we see the mystery of God’s will, where in the future all things in heaven and earth will be headed up by Christ, (v9-10).
In chapter 2 we see the process whereby Jews and Gentiles are saved by God’s grace and reconciled to God and to one another.
In chapter 3 there is the most complete description of the mystery. It is the mystery of Christ (v4). It is the mystery kept hidden from ages past (v5, 9). It is the mystery where by faith in Jesus Christ the Jew and Gentile alike are fellow heirs of the riches of Christ, fellow members, and fellow partakers of God’s promise.
In chapter 4 there is the emphasis on the unity of the Body of Christ and God’s plan for growth and maturity.
In chapter 5 the mystery is seen in marriage. Marriage between a man and woman is actually a picture of Jesus Christ and the Church.
Then in chapter 6 Paul speaks of the mystery of the Gospel for which he is an ambassador in chains.
From beginning to end Paul talks about this marvelous “mystery”.
Another theme is love. Paul begins with love (1:4) and ends his letter with love (6:24). He uses the noun and verb form of love more in Ephesians than in any other letter of that he wrote. The Bride of Christ is to be loving Christ and the members of the Body of Christ is to be loving one another. This is important to think about as a Church because about 30 years after receiving this letter Jesus spoke to the Ephesian Church about their love. In Revelation 2 Jesus rebuked them because they had “forsaken their first love” (2:4).
I might suggest that the reason their love waned was actually because of another outstanding feature of the Ephesian church. This letter is one of Paul’s greatest doctrinal discourses and it is not surprising that he wrote it to the Ephesians.
He wrote this letter around 62AD and it had been nearly 10 years since he last saw the Ephesians. His last meeting with the leaders of the Ephesian Church is described in Acts 20. It is obvious that Paul’s grave concern is that the Ephesians guard the doctrine of the Church. He said that he had proclaimed the whole counsel of God’s will to them (v27). They were not deficient in any way when it came to doctrine. They learned everything that Paul had to teach. He exorted them in v28 to keep watch. And then in verse 29 he says that after he leaves, savage wolves will come in and not spare the flock. What does he mean? Verse 30 he explains when he says that men from within the church are going to distort the truth and lead people astray. Paul was so concerned about this that he reminded them that this is what he had warned them about for 3 years and this is what made him cry (tears).
Why does this matter? Because the Ephesians did a great job guarding doctrine. Forty years later the Lord Jesus Christ confirmed this in Revelation 2 when He said to the Ephesian Church, “I know your deeds, your hard work, and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.” But I might suggest that in their constant battle against false teachings their hearts may have been hardened. Perhaps in their continuous contending for the faith they became contentious in their spirits. And while their doctrinal statement was a model for all churches their love was not.
It will do us well to match the Ephesians in doctrinal matters, but, we must do better than them in the matters of love. Doctrine is not loveless. Doctrine is actually the means for love. It would be a mistake to think that ignoring doctrine is the only way to have love in a community. Good doctrine creates good love and therefore the Ephesians were better positioned to love than any other church because of their doctrinal excellence. The fight for doctrine cannot create a fighting spirit in us.
Why do I say that love is related to doctrine? Because love is the highest virtue of Christian living and all Christian living is based on doctrine. The way the letter is formatted underscores this point. We can easily divide Ephesians into 2 sections by simply dividing it in half. The first section (or half) is chapters 1-3. The 2nd section is chapters 1-6. The first half of Ephesians is all doctrine; there are no commands given at all. The 2nd half of the letter has lots of commands and practical application for Christian living. Now, I will say 3 things about this. First, we cannot understand why we should do the commands in the last ½ of the book until we understand the teachings of the 1st half. Second, we will not be motivated to do the commands until we have understood the teachings. And third, we will not even be able to obey the commands until we understand those teachings.
Paul joyfully labors the first 3 chapters to teach truth. Now this is significant because guarding the purity of doctrine was one of the greatest commands Paul gave the Ephesian elders.
Before we actually get into the letter, let’s get into the city and the context of the letter. Ephesians is considered part of the “Prison Letters”, when Paul wrote a series of letters while he was imprisoned during his first Roman imprisonment. Because the best manuscripts don’t include the words, “in Ephesus” in the opening greeting, many believe the letter was written to be encyclical – it was to be circulated among the churches in the area – kind of like the book of Revelation was meant to be circular.
The city of Ephesus was located on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea, and is today part of the country of Turkey. In Paul’s day, Ephesus was a jewel for the Roman empire. It was the Roman capital of the province of Asia. The Roman governor resided there. During Paul’s day there would have been almost ½ a million people there. The economy prospered in Ephesus because it was the leading seaport in Asia. But what caused the citizens of Ephesus the most pride was that they had the great temple of Artemis/Diana. The great temple of Artemis/ Diana was one of the 7 Wonders of the ancient world. Ephesus was big, rich, and the most politically, economically and religiously powerful city in all Asia.
What a city then for Paul to come to at the end of his 2nd missionary journey around 48-49 AD. If ever there were people who had it all it would be the Ephesians. If ever there might be a place where the Gospel could not flourish because people had everything from the world it was Ephesus. Who needs this Jesus Paul? We have Artemis! Great is Artemis!
But the Gospel of Jesus Christ came in power to Ephesus. And I want to lay the back-story out from the book of Acts here but first keep this one thing in mind: Ephesus had it all but Ephesus needed the Gospel. People who have it all need the Gospel. People in Ephesus who had it all received the Gospel and the church in Ephesus blossomed in a rich, religious, and Roman culture. Our culture in many ways is rich, religious and Roman.
Ephesus is a city that is mentioned often in the Bible. It was the first of 7 churches listed by Jesus to whom John was to send the Revelation to.
The Church has had the best of the best when it comes to preaching, teaching and leadership. Starting with Paul, it doesn’t get any better than him, the Ephesian church was led by NT greats like Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila, Timothy, and even John the Apostle.
The primary context, the background, for the letter to the Ephesians is in Acts 18-20. And there were some incredible things that happened in the early days of the Ephesian church. (Demon-beating of the 7 sons of Sceva, Demetrius persecution, riot, miracles, healings, believers who were former sorcerers burned their scrolls, 138 years of pay for a rural worker).
Now let’s take a look at the opening words of Paul to the Ephesians and there are several notes for us.
First notice that Paul is the author. Paul is the author of 13 books in the NT. Paul was once Saul of Tarsus, a successful young Pharisee who was the number one enemy of the Church in the early days. He was highly educated, highly ambitious, and a formidable man when he came against you. But Acts 9 describes his conversion to Jesus Christ and the man who once was the greatest persecutor of the Church became its greatest preacher.
Paul was an apostle, which comes from the Greek word, “apostolos”, which means “sent one”. All Christians are apostles in a general sense simply because we are sent into the world to fulfill the great commission. But in the early Church “apostle” was also used as an official title, and was an official position within the Church.
This is a position and a title that no longer exists today. Here are several reasons why. First, Apostles were men who were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ. More and more people today claim to have seen Jesus Christ but that is not substantiated by Scripture. Even if it were true, they still don’t meet the qualifications because an Apostle had to see Jesus not only after His resurrection, but also before. In Acts 1 when the Apostles were choosing another man to replace Judas as an Apostle, they said in verse 21-22 , “it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” Furthermore, Apostles were specifically chosen by God to proclaim the Gospel. It is not an office or task that men can choose for themselves, that’s why Paul says in verse 1, “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God”. Because they were empowered by the Holy Spirit they could perform signs and wonders and miracles, which was to authenticate them as having come from God. This was primarily for the Jews as God was showing the Jews that now He was doing something new that included the Gentiles. Another part of being an Apostle is that they had authority over any church they stepped into. Finally, the office of Apostle no longer exists because their function was foundational. Paul is going to say that in Ephesians 2:20……….(read). There is only one cornerstone and there is only one foundation.
Next notice how Paul greets them. Just from this greeting lets notice 2 things.
First, that we are saints. Saints are not an elite, super-spiritual group of Christians. All true believers in Jesus Christ are saints. Saint is the Greek word that means “set apart”, and it is translated in other passages as holy. We are holy ones, set apart ones, we are saints. We become saints when we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is then that we are set apart, made holy, made saints. That is key: a saint is not someone who is recognized for the holiness of their life, a saint according to the Bible is someone who has been made holy by the holiness of Jesus Christ’s life.
Notice secondly that wonderful and familiar greeting in verse 2, “Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul starts all his letters this way. Grace is a word that means God’s favor and kindness to those who don’t deserve it but have placed their trust in His Son. They have been saved by grace (Eph. 2:4, 8). They have been adopted into that divine family to the praise of God’s glorious grace (1:6). They are also recipients of the incomparable riches of God’s grace (1:7; 2:7).
This is more than a wish for the Christians at Ephesus general well-being. This is Paul identifying them with God and with himself because he is acknowledging that they are recipients of God’s grace and are therefore members with him of the same Body of Christ and members of the same Divine household.
They are also recipients of God’s peace. They were also among those who have trusted in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of their sins and therefore the wrath of God is not on them. God no longer relates to them based on His wrath, but, he relates to them with His peace. This peace was accomplished by Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Conclusion
This building is going to become our house of Tyrannus. Let Paul’s letter be as if it is to us here at EFC. Let us do well where the Ephesians did well, and let us do better where they fell short. So for however long it takes us to study through Paul’s letter, let us be devoted to growing rich in all the wealth in Christ we have been given.
Welcome to Ephesus
The letter to the Ephesians has been called, “the crown of Paul’s writings”. Because one of its themes is the Christian’s riches in Christ, it has also been called “the believer’s bank”, and, “the treasure-house of the Bible”. It is a letter that every Christian should study closely, and, if we were going to answer the question of why are we going to Ephesians? Then I would offer two simple reasons.
First, it offers such an exalted view of Jesus Christ that if you don’t see you will never know the riches of Christ. If the Church needs to see anything today it needs to see Jesus Christ. The key to studying Ephesians is not what God is doing with us, but, what God is doing with Christ. “And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ” (Eph. 1:9).
A second reason we are going to Ephesians is because it gives us the view of the Church. We learn about the Church from the whole NT. But what it is, why it is, who it is, how it is, is established by Paul in Ephesians in such a way that if we were to study the doctrine of the Church without this letter our understanding of the Church would be incredibly deficient.
That is why the getting a hold of the themes in this letter are so important. There are several. First is the mystery. The word mystery appears throughout the entire letter. A mystery in the Bible is not something that can never be known. When the Bible uses the word “mystery” it always means a truth that was once hidden but is now revealed. In other words, it is a truth that has always been a truth but has not always been known because it has not been revealed before.
The mystery that Paul is speaking of in Ephesians is the Church of Jesus Christ. “This mystery is that through the Gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 3:6). Now, believing Jews and believing Gentiles are one in Christ; they are fellow members of the same Body of Christ.
Mystery is found in all 6 chapters.
In chapter 1 we see the mystery of God’s will, where in the future all things in heaven and earth will be headed up by Christ, (v9-10).
In chapter 2 we see the process whereby Jews and Gentiles are saved by God’s grace and reconciled to God and to one another.
In chapter 3 there is the most complete description of the mystery. It is the mystery of Christ (v4). It is the mystery kept hidden from ages past (v5, 9). It is the mystery where by faith in Jesus Christ the Jew and Gentile alike are fellow heirs of the riches of Christ, fellow members, and fellow partakers of God’s promise.
In chapter 4 there is the emphasis on the unity of the Body of Christ and God’s plan for growth and maturity.
In chapter 5 the mystery is seen in marriage. Marriage between a man and woman is actually a picture of Jesus Christ and the Church.
Then in chapter 6 Paul speaks of the mystery of the Gospel for which he is an ambassador in chains.
From beginning to end Paul talks about this marvelous “mystery”.
Another theme is love. Paul begins with love (1:4) and ends his letter with love (6:24). He uses the noun and verb form of love more in Ephesians than in any other letter of that he wrote. The Bride of Christ is to be loving Christ and the members of the Body of Christ is to be loving one another. This is important to think about as a Church because about 30 years after receiving this letter Jesus spoke to the Ephesian Church about their love. In Revelation 2 Jesus rebuked them because they had “forsaken their first love” (2:4).
I might suggest that the reason their love waned was actually because of another outstanding feature of the Ephesian church. This letter is one of Paul’s greatest doctrinal discourses and it is not surprising that he wrote it to the Ephesians.
He wrote this letter around 62AD and it had been nearly 10 years since he last saw the Ephesians. His last meeting with the leaders of the Ephesian Church is described in Acts 20. It is obvious that Paul’s grave concern is that the Ephesians guard the doctrine of the Church. He said that he had proclaimed the whole counsel of God’s will to them (v27). They were not deficient in any way when it came to doctrine. They learned everything that Paul had to teach. He exorted them in v28 to keep watch. And then in verse 29 he says that after he leaves, savage wolves will come in and not spare the flock. What does he mean? Verse 30 he explains when he says that men from within the church are going to distort the truth and lead people astray. Paul was so concerned about this that he reminded them that this is what he had warned them about for 3 years and this is what made him cry (tears).
Why does this matter? Because the Ephesians did a great job guarding doctrine. Forty years later the Lord Jesus Christ confirmed this in Revelation 2 when He said to the Ephesian Church, “I know your deeds, your hard work, and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.” But I might suggest that in their constant battle against false teachings their hearts may have been hardened. Perhaps in their continuous contending for the faith they became contentious in their spirits. And while their doctrinal statement was a model for all churches their love was not.
It will do us well to match the Ephesians in doctrinal matters, but, we must do better than them in the matters of love. Doctrine is not loveless. Doctrine is actually the means for love. It would be a mistake to think that ignoring doctrine is the only way to have love in a community. Good doctrine creates good love and therefore the Ephesians were better positioned to love than any other church because of their doctrinal excellence. The fight for doctrine cannot create a fighting spirit in us.
Why do I say that love is related to doctrine? Because love is the highest virtue of Christian living and all Christian living is based on doctrine. The way the letter is formatted underscores this point. We can easily divide Ephesians into 2 sections by simply dividing it in half. The first section (or half) is chapters 1-3. The 2nd section is chapters 1-6. The first half of Ephesians is all doctrine; there are no commands given at all. The 2nd half of the letter has lots of commands and practical application for Christian living. Now, I will say 3 things about this. First, we cannot understand why we should do the commands in the last ½ of the book until we understand the teachings of the 1st half. Second, we will not be motivated to do the commands until we have understood the teachings. And third, we will not even be able to obey the commands until we understand those teachings.
Paul joyfully labors the first 3 chapters to teach truth. Now this is significant because guarding the purity of doctrine was one of the greatest commands Paul gave the Ephesian elders.
Before we actually get into the letter, let’s get into the city and the context of the letter. Ephesians is considered part of the “Prison Letters”, when Paul wrote a series of letters while he was imprisoned during his first Roman imprisonment. Because the best manuscripts don’t include the words, “in Ephesus” in the opening greeting, many believe the letter was written to be encyclical – it was to be circulated among the churches in the area – kind of like the book of Revelation was meant to be circular.
The city of Ephesus was located on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea, and is today part of the country of Turkey. In Paul’s day, Ephesus was a jewel for the Roman empire. It was the Roman capital of the province of Asia. The Roman governor resided there. During Paul’s day there would have been almost ½ a million people there. The economy prospered in Ephesus because it was the leading seaport in Asia. But what caused the citizens of Ephesus the most pride was that they had the great temple of Artemis/Diana. The great temple of Artemis/ Diana was one of the 7 Wonders of the ancient world. Ephesus was big, rich, and the most politically, economically and religiously powerful city in all Asia.
What a city then for Paul to come to at the end of his 2nd missionary journey around 48-49 AD. If ever there were people who had it all it would be the Ephesians. If ever there might be a place where the Gospel could not flourish because people had everything from the world it was Ephesus. Who needs this Jesus Paul? We have Artemis! Great is Artemis!
But the Gospel of Jesus Christ came in power to Ephesus. And I want to lay the back-story out from the book of Acts here but first keep this one thing in mind: Ephesus had it all but Ephesus needed the Gospel. People who have it all need the Gospel. People in Ephesus who had it all received the Gospel and the church in Ephesus blossomed in a rich, religious, and Roman culture. Our culture in many ways is rich, religious and Roman.
Ephesus is a city that is mentioned often in the Bible. It was the first of 7 churches listed by Jesus to whom John was to send the Revelation to.
The Church has had the best of the best when it comes to preaching, teaching and leadership. Starting with Paul, it doesn’t get any better than him, the Ephesian church was led by NT greats like Apollos, Priscilla and Aquila, Timothy, and even John the Apostle.
The primary context, the background, for the letter to the Ephesians is in Acts 18-20. And there were some incredible things that happened in the early days of the Ephesian church. (Demon-beating of the 7 sons of Sceva, Demetrius persecution, riot, miracles, healings, believers who were former sorcerers burned their scrolls, 138 years of pay for a rural worker).
Now let’s take a look at the opening words of Paul to the Ephesians and there are several notes for us.
First notice that Paul is the author. Paul is the author of 13 books in the NT. Paul was once Saul of Tarsus, a successful young Pharisee who was the number one enemy of the Church in the early days. He was highly educated, highly ambitious, and a formidable man when he came against you. But Acts 9 describes his conversion to Jesus Christ and the man who once was the greatest persecutor of the Church became its greatest preacher.
Paul was an apostle, which comes from the Greek word, “apostolos”, which means “sent one”. All Christians are apostles in a general sense simply because we are sent into the world to fulfill the great commission. But in the early Church “apostle” was also used as an official title, and was an official position within the Church.
This is a position and a title that no longer exists today. Here are several reasons why. First, Apostles were men who were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ. More and more people today claim to have seen Jesus Christ but that is not substantiated by Scripture. Even if it were true, they still don’t meet the qualifications because an Apostle had to see Jesus not only after His resurrection, but also before. In Acts 1 when the Apostles were choosing another man to replace Judas as an Apostle, they said in verse 21-22 , “it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with John’s baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.” Furthermore, Apostles were specifically chosen by God to proclaim the Gospel. It is not an office or task that men can choose for themselves, that’s why Paul says in verse 1, “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God”. Because they were empowered by the Holy Spirit they could perform signs and wonders and miracles, which was to authenticate them as having come from God. This was primarily for the Jews as God was showing the Jews that now He was doing something new that included the Gentiles. Another part of being an Apostle is that they had authority over any church they stepped into. Finally, the office of Apostle no longer exists because their function was foundational. Paul is going to say that in Ephesians 2:20……….(read). There is only one cornerstone and there is only one foundation.
Next notice how Paul greets them. Just from this greeting lets notice 2 things.
First, that we are saints. Saints are not an elite, super-spiritual group of Christians. All true believers in Jesus Christ are saints. Saint is the Greek word that means “set apart”, and it is translated in other passages as holy. We are holy ones, set apart ones, we are saints. We become saints when we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is then that we are set apart, made holy, made saints. That is key: a saint is not someone who is recognized for the holiness of their life, a saint according to the Bible is someone who has been made holy by the holiness of Jesus Christ’s life.
Notice secondly that wonderful and familiar greeting in verse 2, “Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul starts all his letters this way. Grace is a word that means God’s favor and kindness to those who don’t deserve it but have placed their trust in His Son. They have been saved by grace (Eph. 2:4, 8). They have been adopted into that divine family to the praise of God’s glorious grace (1:6). They are also recipients of the incomparable riches of God’s grace (1:7; 2:7).
This is more than a wish for the Christians at Ephesus general well-being. This is Paul identifying them with God and with himself because he is acknowledging that they are recipients of God’s grace and are therefore members with him of the same Body of Christ and members of the same Divine household.
They are also recipients of God’s peace. They were also among those who have trusted in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of their sins and therefore the wrath of God is not on them. God no longer relates to them based on His wrath, but, he relates to them with His peace. This peace was accomplished by Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1 says, “Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Conclusion
This building is going to become our house of Tyrannus. Let Paul’s letter be as if it is to us here at EFC. Let us do well where the Ephesians did well, and let us do better where they fell short. So for however long it takes us to study through Paul’s letter, let us be devoted to growing rich in all the wealth in Christ we have been given.
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