Ephesians 3:1-6

Here's another Ephesians entry for you all to chew on.

INTO
Paul is writing the final chapter on theology to the Ephesians.

THROUGH
This selection also happens to be one long sentence, and doesn't even end at chapter six. He begins by introducing himself as a prisoner, and introducing a reason for why he is that way (v.1). Explaining that God "dispensed" His good grace on Paul for the sake of the Gentiles (v.2) in the form of the revelation of the mystery of God's truth - which he mentioned earlier in the letter (v.3) so they could understand his own knowledge of the mysteries of God (v.4). He continues by clarifying that this truth he reveals can be considered a mystery because it was not previously revealed to the "sons of men (v.5)." The final verse in this section finally gives the reason for the "dispensation of grace" mentioned in verse one, and that is so that the Gentiles could also be included in Christianity and the promise of glory and a relationship with God (v.6).

BEYOND
There are a few interesting things about this passage, the first one being that Paul names himself a prisoner of Christ. I would venture to say that this is a hardcore viewpoint, but true nonetheless. The attitude of Scripture seems to be that we are either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ. Our master is one or the other, not both, and not neither. This passage is just one example of that attitude. James also introduces himself in the same type of way - as a bondservant of Christ. We should submit ourselves to Christ to the point where we are as a slave. It's not as if this is going to be a terribly difficult task. Jesus promised that His yoke is easy and His burden light (Matt. 11:30); I just think that people, because they dont like the words slave, submit, or servant, make it harder than it has to be. Christ also promised that He will be helping us along the way the whole time, and we have access to His strength if we need help (Deut. 31:6, Heb 13:4, Phil 4:13).

The second part of the passage that stuck out to me was the fact that Paul calls God's truth a mystery and a revelation. We've been talking about truth in class, and this is one example of a truth that man could not have "figured out." This troubles me sometimes as there is generally no way to test this type of truth. I suppose what we can do is test it against the other Scripture we have, and that seems to be a more valid way even than using logic or experience (1 Cor 2:14). Sometimes we misinterpret experience, and then theres always the possibility of committing a logical fallacy if the logical path is chosen. In any case, it's comforting to know that God did reveal this truth to us through Paul, and I'm sure there are still other truths to be revealed to us later.

The last aspect of the passage that seemed prominent was the truth itself. It is that Gentiles also have a place in Christianity (i.e. if you're not a Jew, that is a direct descendant of one the twelve sons of Jacob, which I am not, this is for you). We get to have access to the Lord, which is a great truth, and probably the greatest comfort we can have. Frankly I like the idea of saving my life, and if I have to lose my life for Christ's sake to do that, so be it (Matt. 10:39, 16:25).

Ephesians 2:19-22

Here’s another section of Ephesians for you all. And I know there is a “you all!” Hope you find this encouraging.

INTO
Paul is writing to the Ephesian church in the first half of his letter about theology.

THROUGH
Paul continues in verse 19 by reiterating that no believer can be a stranger to God or the rest of the saints; Christ has closed that gap. We are all now resting on the same foundation, that is the Word of God (the things communicated to us by the apostles and prophets) and the Word made flesh (i.e. Jesus Christ) (v.20). He then goes to explain how, because of Christ, we can grow into a holy union of believers, creating a pure dwelling place for God (vv.21-22).

BEYOND
I’ve recently felt this really strange desire to treat all believers like family. Actually, while I was on a missions trip to Orange County just this last summer a man asked me at the park if I was a Christian. There was some small talk before that, of course, to introduce the conversation, but naturally I said yes. He then introduced himself as my brother, and pointed to his friend who was with him and introduced him as my brother too. It was a little weird, but kind of cool at the same time to be able to have that bond in Christ. We proceeded to play football, which I’m not exactly proficient at (it was 2 on 1 no sneak), so basically I made an excuse to get out of that as soon as possible. The point is this: all believers are in the fight against evil together, so we don’t have to be strangers to each other, just like verse 19 says.

Verses 20 through 22 talk about the construction of a dwelling place for God out of the body of believers, which is based on the foundation of the Word and Jesus, with Christ as the cornerstone. Often times we think of the church as a building, but if it is a building, that building isn’t physical (v.22 says it is “in the Spirit”). We as a church are growing, it says, into a holy temple, so that we can be proper dwelling places for God Almighty, who lives in our hearts. This can be not only encouraging, but especially convicting if I have sin in my life. How can I be righteous and ungodly at the same time, or holy and impure? I can’t, these terms are mutually exclusive. Knowing this, I am encouraged to continually repent of sin that pops up in my life, so I can participate in this growth that God is working in the church.

Putting Principle Into Practice

6 days? Far too long. It's time to start putting principle into practice. What I mean by that is this: I have this idea that I am obligated to not only pray and read for the Scripture but also to ponder and meditate on it. Furthermore, this new found and renewed knowledge is to be shared with others. That is my opinion. That is what I believe. And that is what I'll do.

I was talking to my mom the other day about what makes me unique, distinct from my peers. I honestly have a ton of trouble with this. I consider myself a logical person. I come to logical conclusions about things, and then assume there must be a multitude of people out there that think like me (what with more than 6 billion people out there) that come to logical conclusions, making me the antithesis of unique. Well, she alerted me to the reality that my thinking was somewhat incorrect, and there really aren't that many people out there that think like me, based on a certain concept I apparently have grasped.

You see, many people complain that there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything they want to do. This is true. I experience this dilemma often. I would love to be able to have tons of free time to just eat, watch TV, chat, improve my singing, play with K'Nex, write songs on the guitar, blog, meditate on the Lord, learn whatever I can about whatever I want via the internet or school, among other things. Obviously, I cannot do all these things every day to the extent I would like to. I cannot even do a few of these things every day to the extent I would like to. There is reality that gets in the way. The reality is that God gives us a certain amount of time each day to do the things we choose to do. The reality is that we are not able to do everything we would like. The reality is that some things need to be sacrificed. Ouch. Perhaps a sensitive subject for some, sacrifice, but that is the reality God calls us to. His Word says:

"Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.' " (Mark 8:34).

Christ tells us to sacrifice our lives to Him in order to truly be His disciples (Matthew 16:25). What we sacrifice and what we hang on to shows what is truly important to us. This is similar to the concept that “the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart…” (Matthew 15:18). James 2 talks about actions directly relating to belief and faith. We will act on what we put our faith in. It’s pretty simple, yet very difficult for many to accept. If we are hanging on to the idea that “I just don’t have time in my day to read the Bible, I’m way too busy.” What? Are you joking me? You have plenty of time in your day to obey God. You have 24 hours, repeated and renewed again and again with brand new days all the time. It all depends where your priorities are. This is an extremely difficult thing for many to live out, myself included. Frankly, it makes me angry when people use this excuse, because they are always doing one of two things. Either they are 1) lying, or 2) admitting that God holds a position below other “obligations.” God is never to hold this position. He should always be number one, just like commandment number one says: “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). Nothing is more important than Him.

If you are not acting it out, you aren't really believing it.

Ephesians 2:14-18

Heh… I wrote the body of this blog and I must laugh. It’s amusing to me how much I can come up with on a few short verses when I “let the Spirit loose” (This could also be interpreted as ranting). Here’s Ephesians 2:14-18.

INTO
Paul is writing a (circular) letter to the Ephesians. The first half of the letter focuses on Christian theology.

THROUGH
In this excerpt, Paul makes it explicitly clear that all people are treated the same (Jews no longer get special treatment). The Gentiles and Jews are reconciled through Christ (v.14). He physically came to earth and demolished the divide, which is the law (v.15). All this is done through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross (v.16). He explains that Christ was not biased – He spread His word to those close and those far away (v.17). Now, because of Christ, all peoples can have a relationship with God.

BEYOND
I can’t even count the number of times I have heard that Christianity is so narrow and we should be more accepting of other people. That ridiculous. Christianity is open to everyone! It doesn’t matter where you live or what you’ve done or how smart you are. Forgiveness and contact with God is offered to all people. What people want Christians to be is more accepting of different beliefs and lifestyles; they’re not talking about people. Christianity is narrow in this sense: that truth is truth, and there are consequences to ignoring it. But how is it that people see this as unfair. There’s only one answer to a problem on a math test, but no one berates the teacher for being narrow minded when he tells them the right answer, and it isn’t the answer they got. Never will anyone argue that both answers are right. Either the professor is right, or the student is right, or they’re both wrong, but they cannot both be right. This isn’t narrow mindedness, this is reality – and people are people; we don’t like the reality of things.

Everyone has access to the Father: Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, blacks and whites, and everything in between. God limits no one from coming to Him; He has no bias. We do that to ourselves; we have the bias; we aren’t willing to come to Christ and sacrifice all the wrongness in our life for the rightness of God. If you say that two plus two absolutely makes four, you must give up all other answers: you can’t get away with five, three, 3.99 or 4.01. It’s four. End of story. In the same way, God is Righteous. We are wicked. If we want God’s righteousness, we give up our wickedness. This is reality. We can complain that it doesn’t suit our feelings or desires. At that point we need to realize there is a separation between our desires and us. We are not the product of our desires; therefore, we cannot claim that someone is being intolerant of us when they simply do not approve of our beliefs or lifestyle. Jesus Christ is completely and unrelentingly intolerant of any and all forms of ungodliness. People are angry that their lifestyle doesn’t match up with the holiness of God, which they so closely connect with themselves that they aren’t willing to give it up under any circumstances, preventing them from surrendering to Christ.

Give it up. It is so worth it.

Guilty but Free

I'm going to attempt an amazing feat: start and finish this blog in 30 minutes. Going to SAT practice today reminded me that I dont get very much time to write that essay they ask for. Perhaps this can be practice... bleh. I don't really want to think about it.

Last night I got to watch a scary movie with a few good friends of mine: Kelsey, Julie, Spenser, and Justin. I saw the previews on TV, and I didn't get to plan anything for my birthday, so I decided that I wanted to use that as an excuse to go. A few weeks and many invitations later, we ended up with this small group going to see this movie together, that after eating a nice dinner at Taco Bell. Personally I prayed about the movie, that it would not instill fear, but excite submission. The movie was "The Excorcism of Emily Rose" based on the true story of a girl named Emily Rose whom the Roman Catholic Church officially recognized as possessed (they officially endorsed an excorcism). Although I had a few intellectual problems/questions with the movie (If Emily really was a Christian, as they seemed to suggest, how could she have been possessed? How can demons not obey a command at the name of Jesus Christ? and the fact that there's so much catholic tradition tied up in this movie), I did thoroughly enjoy it. There was a lot of screaming by other people, and I only jumped once. I was expecting horror, and had seen all the trailers I could find, so I wasn't taken aback by a few of the scenes that others deemed "scariest moments in the movie." I suppose you'll have to watch it yourself.

I can only recommend this movie for the discerning. I can't say it would be healthy for those with strong inclinations toward superstition (Put it this way - you'll never sleep again). I did not have nightmares, nor did I lose any sleep over the idea of being woken up at exactly 3:00 am to the smell of something burning (a movie reference). The more I watched that movie, the more I was grateful for the fact that I have the power of Christ within me. It did not provoke me to fear demons, but to fear God - a possible theme of the movie that was completely left out. Actually, the power of God was downgraded, proving unable to free Emily from her demons (They did give a few explanations for this, which I was grateful for, but even those were not completely satisfying). Another encouraging part of the movie was the end when they found Father Moore, the priest who performed the excorcism, guilty of the crime he was charged with. A few people boo'ed. Perhaps its just my wishful thinking and those people were just rooting for him because they thought he was supposed to be the good guy.

My absolute favorite line in the whole movie was this one by the judge, who sentences Father Moore: "Father Moore, you're guilty. And you're free to go." I love that!!!! Immediately when I heard that I thought of the amazing grace God has given to me. Jesus Christ has interceded on my behalf, just like the jury did in the movie for Father Moore, and reduces the punishment for our sin and disobedience to simply that which we suffered as natural consequences on earth, or as the jury put it - time served. This analogy of course, like all other analogies, is not complete. The Judge doesn't find us guilty or let us go; He finds us innocent and lets us in. He allows us into a loving and deep intimate relationship with Him (John 3:16, John 17:3).

Well, that was 31 minutes. Time to go to Teen Ministers! I hope this was encouraging to you in far more ways than one.

Ephesians 2:1-10

It’s been a few days since I’ve posted, and I am required to work on these Bible journals about Ephesians, so I’m posting one of them like I said I would. I hope to get back to 1 Corinthians 11 soon, but forgive me if I’m having a harder time finding an application for the beginning of that chapter…

INTO
Paul is writing a (circular) letter to the Ephesians. The first half of the letter focuses on Christian theology.

THROUGH
Paul here writes again about salvation (this seems to be a theme, perhaps the focus and core of Christian theology). He explains our condition prior to salvation, how we acted, who we served, who else served (and serves) him, and how we acted when with those people. All of these attributes were horrible, disgusting, and sinful in nature. Paul then contrasts that with the goodness of God, tells of His gracious character, mentions why He chooses to save us even in our depraved state, extrapolates on the implications of this gift, and gives a reason that accounts for his extrapolation. He then gives a straightforward explanation of how we come to experience salvation, that it is by grace through faith and a gift of God, specifically clarifying that it is not of our own works, to prevent boasting. The last verse is a crucial one that many people (including myself) forget about. Paul explains that we are God’s masterpiece, and we were created to obey God by doing the good things He has prepared for us to do!

BEYOND
Paul’s manner in presenting salvation in this passage is really convicting to me because it reminds me what a lowly state God has saved me from and reminds me what a glorious state I am now in as a Christian. He explains that we are raised up and seated in Christ. If we know anything about what the Bible says about the position Christ is in, we know it is an amazing position of authority to have, with no one below Him. Verse 7 also catches my eye because it seems to be a hint as to what we will do in heaven, which Paul refers to as “the ages to come.” We are going to be learning directly from God! He will be teaching us about the abundance of His grace toward us, given through Jesus. As much as we can know about what Christ did for us, there is an eternity to look forward to of continuing to learn about His truly awesome love and kindness.

I love verses 8 and 9. They are so common, so powerful, and so freeing. They are the most commonly quoted verses for showing that God saves, not man. Yet verse 10, the commonly ignored one, flows right from it. The idea of God planning out our path for us is inexplicably fulfilling to me. It is another great example of the sovereignty of God and the lowliness of man, where God is good and I am not. If I were completely honest with myself, I’d have to say that I’d rather have Him in control of my life than anyone else.

May the Name of the Lord be Praised

I have been reading a little bit of Job lately, and let me tell you - this dude's reaction to loss was amazing. I had always heard of Job's story, but never actually read it, so I decided to do a little bit of that, and what I found was amazing. It certainly cut deeper than the song based on it.

This guy is described as a blameless man, righteous before God. If you read further in the book, he even claims this himself! Yet he is not prideful, he says even in his innocence he is shamed. In Job 19:20 Job says, "Even if I were innocent, my mouth would condemn me; if I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty." God is so incredibly holy, we can't even fathom it. Even in our innocence we pale in comparison!

In any case, he was described as righteous for good reason. He was comitted to praising God in every circumstance. In an extremely short time he found out that all of his children were dead, all but 4 servants were killed, all his flocks and camels were burned up or stolen, and all of his oxen and donkeys were killed. Perhaps that doesn't hit home for you with the donkeys and camels and such. Look at it this way - you go to work only to find that you have been laid off, go to the bank to discover that your account has been frozen, and come home to a completely burned down house in which all your family was caught inside. This is how Job responds to such a situation:

"At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised'" (Job 1:9).

I don't even know how to respond to that. What more need be said?!

Ephesians 1:15-23

Here’s another journal entry! I hope it’s encouraging. Forgive the repetition of INTO… It’s just that way because sometimes passages change (the author might change, audience might change, or purpose might change – obviously in a letter this is not the case, but we are still required to do this section just for it’s own sake).

INTO
The book of Ephesians was most definitely written by the apostle Paul. The intended recipient is in question, though, as some scholars believe it might have just been written to the entire church is Asia Minor, being sent to the capital first, which just so happened to be Ephesus. This, of course, is of no consequence. Currently Paul is the focus of Paul’s letter is theological doctrine.

THROUGH
Paul in this section, tells us that he is so encouraged by the faithfulness of the Ephesians (v.15) that, since he heard, he has continually prayed for them (v.16) to receive many spiritual gifts. In order as he lists them, these are wisdom, revelation, knowledge, understanding, hope, the riches of God’s glory, and power (vv.17-19). He then extrapolates on what he means by power, telling us that it came from Christ in being resurrected and glorified (v.20). Then he expounds on what he means when he says Christ was glorified, stating that no name is above Him, no matter what position or time it comes from (vv.21, 22). Christ is especially in authority over the church: “His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (v.23).

BEYOND
Paul has quite a lot to say about God and his goodness, gifts, power, methods, and purpose. I noticed that the first seven verses of this passage are all one sentence! He has a lot to say about every aspect of his statements about God, and leaves nothing (from what I can see) to question. All the content aside, this is deeply inspiring to me, because it leads me to believe that Paul was extremely excited about God, and every facet of His truth was fascinating to Paul. It should be so with me as well!

The next inspiring aspect of this portion of Paul’s letter is his love and commitment to those who love the saints. He says he prayed continually for them that they would receive from God all the spiritual blessings that he goes on to list. I know I don’t do that for my friends very often, let alone ceaselessly. If I had this goal on my mind for my friends all the time, my attitude towards their spiritual growth would be dramatically different, not to mention I’m sure my self-centeredness would melt away, and my prayer life would be enhanced. That is an attainable goal I can set for myself. I’m excited already.

The third intriguing aspect of this section of Paul’s letter is his method of expression, using phrases such as “riches of His glory” (v.18), “exceeding greatness of His power,” “mighty power” (v.19), “far above principality” (v.21) and “all things” (v. 22). This communicates to me how high God is and how low I am. Paul uses diction like this often. It communicates the awesomeness of God, yet still not fully. However mighty we think God is, He is twice as mighty; however loving, twice as loving; and however glorious, twice as glorious. God is absolute control all the time without fail, and I love Him for that. He gives me something sure and worthy of being leaned on. It’s freeing.

P.S. Bobby, I love "Call." For those unaware, check it out via the Godsongmusic link in my "links" section to the right!