Paul’s letters are well known for the ways in which he addressed issues or concerns within churches, but his letter to the Ephesian church is different. It’s much more personal as Paul seeks to encourage believers to grow in faith, through a developing awareness and understanding of God’s grace, God’s calling, God’s equipping, God’s empowering, God’s enabling, God’s strengthening. In short, Paul longs for those reading Ephesians to know more about how to live their life fully God’s way.
It’s easy to overlook these last few verses as being nothing more than Paul signing off at the end of his letter. But it’s here that he says “keep listening” (vs. 21), “keep growing” (vs. 22), and keep together (vs. 23-24). All of those things will happen when we are living our lives God’s way, […]
The application here is about being able to live God’s way in every situation we find ourselves in. Rather than burying our heads in the sand, Paul wants us to know that we can face our problems (vs. 10-12) assured that God gives all that we need to live confidentially and in his strength (vs. […]
The message in this section is very clear: “Be very careful how you live” (5:15)! The intention is that we will embrace all the teaching that’s gone before, in a way that we can easily and consistently apply to living God’s way in our relationships, and especially within the most significant namely our marriages, our […]
Paul frames his desire to see God’s people “becoming mature, reaching the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” with more teaching on unity that has us stand together rather than being against each other (vs. 1-6). He encourages participation from everyone rather than seeing some being idle (vs. 7-13). And he nurtures God’s people […]
With a clear focus on God as Father, and us living as his family (vs. 14-15), Paul is able to encourage us to “be filled with the full measure of all the fullness of God” (vs. 16-19). What does that “fullness” look like? What does it mean for our lives now? And what does it […]
Taking hold of everything Paul says in chapters 1 & 2, needs to move us into chapter 3 looking to see God’s purposes in our lives. That begins with Paul talking about our acceptance through God’s grace that gives us life (vs. 1-6), and moves on to show us how Paul understood his need to […]
Paul explains that we are made fully alive as followers of Christ, and so live now with a new identity in Jesus’ name (vs. 4-10). There is then a significant outworking of what that means to our lives: Paul helps us to understand the unity of life and love that our identity in Christ gives. […]
Paul begins his letter in a familiar way as he gives thanks to God for the way in which he has called and blessed His people. Paul goes into detail about the context and significance of that blessing (vs. 4-14), then moves on to encourage the Ephesians to keep living with the knowledge and confidence […]