Introduction to Ephesians — Queen of the Epistles - Words Whispered

His intent was that now, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 3:10

Ephesians is the epistle that ranks high among devotional and theological Scripture. Some scholars even call her the “Queen of Epistles”. It holds a significant place in the Church’s history and clearly outlines God’s purpose for it.

The Church, universal, is invisible to the naked eye, however, the local church is not. It is a congregation of God’s people – faithful and loyal. The church actively preaches the pure Word of God, actively obeys the Great Commission, introduces the gospel to lost souls, and shows the manifold wisdom of God.

Paul reminds the reader that he is an apostle by the will of God. What a powerful statement. This is like saying, “Wake up! Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Church.”

Paul wrote this letter while he was in prison. He calls himself “a prisoner of the Lord” and an “ambassador in chains.” It was written near the end of his life. Although Paul wrote every letter with truth and fortitude, I wouldn’t consider Ephesians his last will and testament.

Circular Letter

Note that Paul addressed this letter to the Gentiles, who were grafted in and were strangers to the covenants of promise (2:11-12). The Lord works so well to keep us current, isn’t it interesting that the Church today is primarily Gentile, as though written today with the ink still wet.

Although Paul spent three years in Ephesus, there are no personal greetings or messages written in the confines of this letter. This not one affectionate passage as we would expect after reading Acts 20:17-35 on Paul’s intimate farewell to the elders of Ephesus. So what was the overall purpose of this letter?

Scholars have noted that the earlier transcripts did not address the Ephesian Church, but rather the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus. There are many speculations as to why this is true, but it’s not worth going down any rabbit trails and so missing the purpose of this letter.

It is clearly a “circular” letter with the express purpose of being passed on and on and on among the believers in the Church. Presenting to you today is a letter that has been transcribed, bound, preserved, and translated for our eye’s only.

In Ephesians 6:21 and Col 4:7, Paul mentions the one who delivered this letter to the church: Tychicus. We don’t know much about him, from Scripture, but learn he was sent to Ephesus (2 Tim 4:12) and possibly to Crete (Titus 3:12). Did he read this letter out-loud to the churches as he moved from one place to the other: Church of Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyratira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicia? I don’t know, but I’m sure that at every reading his few grew. Maybe this is why I believe he remained faithful to the end dying a martyr death.

They Lost Their First Love

By the time this letter reaches Ephesus, Paul has heard of the faithfulness of the Ephesian Church. However, by the time we them in Revelation, they have lost their first love.

How is that possible? What could they have done to keep themselves faithful. What can we do today to make sure we don’t lose our first love?

What they should have had was teaching and practices the exercise of Spiritual Discipline.

So, along with the study, we will learn the practices of the historic church: Spiritual Disciplines. Why even consider learning and practices Spiritual Disciplines? The benefits are immeasurable and profitable for life. They strengthen our faithfulness, cultivate our love relationship with God, and in the process we gain an intimate knowledge of the Holy.

They are biblical and key to the “with-God” life and not mere exercises in piety. Listed below is an introduction to biblical spiritual disciplines that we will learn and practice together:

• The With-God Life: When you read the Bible, you discover that it is all about our life “with God.” God made us for this relationship and He will bring it to pass. Remember, the name “Immanuel” means “God is with us”. It is the title given to the One and Only Redeemer because it refers to God’s everlasting intent: that we should be in every way a dwelling place of God.
• Celebration: Utter delight and joy in ourselves, our life, and our world as a result of our faith and confidence in God’s greatness, beauty, and goodness.
• Chastity: Purposefully turning away for a time from dwelling upon or engaging in the sexual dimensions of our relationship to others (even our husband or wife) and thus learning how not to be governed by this powerful aspect of our life.
• Confession: Sharing our deepest weaknesses and failures with God and trusted others so that we may enter into God’s grace and mercy and experience His lifelong forgiveness and healing.
• Fasting: The voluntary absence from an otherwise normal function — most often eating — for the sake of intense spiritual activity.
• Fellowship: Engaging with other disciples in common activities of worship, study, prayer, celebration, and service, which sustain our life together and enlarge our capacity to experience more of God in community.
• Guidance: Experiencing an interactive friendship with God that gives direction and purpose to daily life.
• Meditation: Prayerful, deep and considerate thoughts on God, His Word, and God’s world.
• Prayer: Interactive conversation with God about what we (you) and He are thinking and doing together.
• Sacrifice: Deliberately forsaking the security of satisfying our needs with our resources in the faith and hope that God will sustain us.
• Secrecy: Consciously refraining from having our good deeds and qualities generally known, which, in turn, rightly turns away our longing for recognition.
• Service: Loving, thoughtful, active promotion of the good of others and the causes of God in our world, through which we experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves.
• Silence: Closing off our souls from “sounds,” whether noise, music, or words, so that we may better still the inner chatter and clatter of our noisy hearts and be increasingly attentive to God.
• Simplicity/Frugality: the inward reality of single-hearted focus upon God and His kingdom, which results in an outward lifestyle of modesty, openness, and unpretentiousness and which turns us away from our hunger for status, glamour, and luxury.
• Solitude: The creation of an open, empty space in our lives by purposefully abstaining from interaction with other human beings, so that, freed from competing loyalties, we can be found by God.
• Study: The intentional process of engaging the mind with the written and spoken Word of God and the world God has created in such a way that the mind takes on an order conforming to the order upon which it concentrates.
• Submission: Subordination to the guidance of God; within the Christian fellowship, a constant mutual subordination, out of reverence for Christ, which opens the way for respectful subordination to those who are qualified to direct our efforts toward “life with God” and who then add the weight of their wise authority on the side of our willing spirit to help us do the things we would like to do and refrain from doing the things we would rather not do. This includes submission to pastors/teachers.
• Worship: Expressing in words, music, and silent adoration the greatness, beauty, and goodness of God, through which we enter the supernatural reality of the shekinah glory of God.

Don’t take my word for it, history has proven the invaluable for a “with-God” life.

Look at the lives of those men and the time they gave to Scripture reading and prayer and various other forms of self-examination and spiritual exercises. They believed in the culture and the discipline of the spiritual life, and it was because they did so that God rewarded them by giving them these gracious manifestations of Himself and these mighty experiences which warmed their hearts.

D. Martin Lloyd-Jones.

Christ is sufficient

The message that Christ is sufficient flows from Colossians to this letter. Without Christ, in our day-to-day life and in the Church, we are left with chaos, disunity, and disharmony. This means “just Christ” is not enough – you need the Church as God designed it. With Christ, there is order, unity, and harmony to His will for us and the Church.

Our first love is our love today, and our love into eternity. Christ is sufficient and Spiritual Disciplines draw us closer to a more intimate relationship with Him.

In prison, Paul had eyes to see what escaped him in the hustle and bustle of ministry: God has a plan for the church. Oh! What manifold wisdom? We meet in sacred assembly and unity as the body of Christ – true witnesses of God’s glory to the watching world.

We, as members of the Church and the body of Christ, are instruments of reconciliation. Furthermore, we show God’s love and forgiveness as the way of salvation. We break down the walls of separation and discord. The Lord has drawn no line between race, gender, or politics.

Christ is Lord of all in all.

In Conclusion

As we continue in the Book of Ephesians – the Queen of Epistles, let grown in the grace, peace and wisdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Justin Martyr’s distinctive contribution to Christian theology is his conception of a divine plan in history, a process of salvation structured by God. If only he had denied his faith and followed the pagan gods and the edicts of the emperor, his life could be spared. But Justin held fast in his faith – and for that he was scourged and put to death alongside six companions in the faith.

So, how did the early church members face beheading, crucifiction, beasts, fire and even chains? They established themselves in Spiritual Disciples and so never lost their first love.

No one makes us afraid or leads us into captivity as we have set our faith on Jesus. For though we are beheaded, and crucified, and exposed to beasts and chains and fire and all other forms of torture, it is plain that we do not forsake the confession of our faith, but the more things of this kind which happens to us the more are there others who become believers and truly religious through the name of Jesus.

Justin Martyr

So, what now?

Let us continue in Ephesians, learning together both the intent of the Church, universal and how we, members of the Church, can grow in the “with-God” life?

Join us weekly as we learn ever so faithfully in what the Lord has for us as sister disciples.

Yours in Christ