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December 16th
The bible reading today is Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus.
For a brief time at the end of his second missionary journey and for over two years during his third missionary journey, Paul ministered the gospel in Ephesus.
Paul wrote this letter about the same time as the letters to Colossae, Philemon, and Philippians...60-61 AD...making them the 4 prison epistles in our New Testaments.
While Galatians and 2 Corinthians abound in personal bits of Paul’s life, the good and the stressful, Ephesians is on the opposite end of the spectrum. The letter to the Ephesian church is quite formal.
Paul addressed a particular problem in Galatians and how to deal with the trend toward legalism. In Ephesians, Paul addressed what it meant to be a Christian, regardless of what the problems were in and around the church. Paul dealt with core convictions and the practical living out of those basic beliefs no matter what.
So what was the big idea in Ephesians? God creating a holy community by his grace through the death burial and resurrection of His son, Jesus, and blessing them with that same grace to live well for God’s honor.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,"
Wow...a fact...one to base our life and faith upon...The Ephesian friends in Christ were blessed by God...
HOW?...with “every spiritual blessing” in heaven.
O come on....could that be true? Could that be true for us in Christ?...for us in the church today?
YES!
That means that we don't have to wait until we get to heaven to know and fellowship and work with the God of heaven. We don't have to wait till heaven to be benefited by heavenly dwellers...God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, angel beings, and angel armies at our prayer and call...And...saints already in heaven interceding for us (Revelation 6:10)... “
And Paul writing...“For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom “every family” in “heaven and “on earth” is named,
