The Vision (3.21.25): Ephesus: Yet Here God Has His Church

 

Image: The Library of Celsus, ruins of ancient Ephesus, Turkey.

Note: Devotion based on sermon on Ephesians 1:7-12.

The Puritan minister Paul Baynes (1573-1617) said this about the ancient city of Ephesus to which Paul addressed the epistle of Ephesians: “This was the mother city, famous for idolatry and conjuring, as the Acts of the Apostles testify… This people were so wicked, that heathens themselves did deem them from their mother worthy to be strangled; yet here God had his church.”

Indeed, no place in this sinful world deserves to have a church planted within its borders. Yet God would have his church in all such places, so that the gospel might be faithfully proclaimed.

The apostle Paul was used by God to plant this church (see Acts 19). He then wrote this letter to the church from prison to encourage them in the faith. He twice refers to himself as a prisoner (3:1; 4:1), and in 6:20 he calls himself “an ambassador in bonds.”

The genre of Ephesians is quite different from what we encountered in Genesis, the last book we were expositing.  Genesis Is a historical narrative. Ephesians, however, is propositional, didactic teaching. Our minds and our faith need both kinds of teaching. We need to learn holy history, and we need to learn holy truths.

The apostle continued to catechize the believers, and through the inspiration and preservation of this book, that mission persists. The apostle is teaching and catechizing all of us, and every believer who reads and listens to it.

There are at least four great truths placed before us in Ephesians 1:7-12:

·        In Christ “we have redemption through his blood” (v. 7).

·        In our salvation the Lord makes known to us “the mystery of God’s will” (v. 9).

·        God is working out “the dispensation of the fullness of times” to gather all things together in Christ (v. 10).

·        As believers “we have obtained an inheritance” (v. 11).

Finally, Paul says, “That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ” (v. 12). We have a reason for living. To give praise and glory to God.

Yes, the gospel continues to go out and in every dark place, the Lord continues to have and establish his church.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle