Ephesians 1:3-14. Wow, today is Sunday, September 13, 2015. The first post on Ephesians was on April 13, 2015 exactly 5 months ago; and this is supposed to be place where you can read your Bible each day. Why each day? Because the Bible is God’s communication to all of us humans until he establishes a forever kingdom where those who want to have a relationship with God, and have responded to his offer of forgiveness through Jesus (see the first post on Ephesians), will live forever with Him.

A lot has gone on in my life recently as some of you know. After 23 years of teaching Junior High students about Jesus at Village Bible Church in Garden Grove I have had to move. Loving and leading those students wasn’t my job in the way most people think of jobs, a way to pay the bills, so like Paul I also worked to earn money and support my family. I was self employed and often that sort of situation can lead to lots of long days. Writing these posts usually takes at least two hours each morning and after a 12-14 hour day, or when facing one, that can sometimes be difficult. I hate not learning about God and sharing it with others in this way (the posts).

To make matters worse at the beginning of July my landlord for the last 17 years (we lived in the house for 21 years) gave me 30 days to move out. Eventually we had 60 days but that is not much time to pack 21 years of living and working and find a new place. Unfortunately we were not able to continue to live in the Southern California area and God has taken us on a new adventure to Texas, the Dallas area. All of the packing and planning for a move half way across the country took a lot of time and money. It also left me with little time to work and less time to study and write, but I have not been without God in my life, there has been tons of prayer (talking to God) and plenty of listening for God’s answers (by considering all the words of God I have read over the years and all the words of advise from those who love God and my family). If you have read much of the stuff on this site you know that there is more to a relationship with God than reading your Bible each day. Of course the Bible is the first and best way to hear from God and we need to work hard at reading and understanding it, and we should do that regularly. My absence from this site for so many months does not mean that I have been absent in relating to God. It just hasn’t been here, and for that I apologize to those who have been faithful readers from the beginning and have not had this resource available. I have a new job in Texas but it is a little unstable; not full time yet, and does not have entirely regular hours. I don’t have a permanent place to live yet either, but I am going to try to start writing again. I know at least a couple of my former students are waiting for more on Ephesians. I also must confess that the first part of the book has been very difficult for me to understand and communicate but I will try. Keep me and my family in prayer as I move forward in work, in my relationship with God, and in my love and care for all who are sharing this journey with me.

I wrote that first part last week before church and was unable to return to it the rest of the week. Most days I have to be up about 4:30 to get into Dallas for work. Sometimes I don’t get home till about 7:00 in the evening and I had some trouble with my truck this week too. Here I am before church again, hopefully I will get this posted before I have to go. So Ephesians 1:3-14. In the previous post we saw that Paul introduced himself as someone who had authority in the lives of his readers. He also greeted them in a way that indicated that he wanted the best for them; he wanted them to enjoy the free gift of a renewed, full and satisfying relationship with God. His greeting also told his audience how this gift would come to them, through Jesus the chosen one (Christ). The greeting also hinted at the fact that God had been working out this plan for a long time; Paul’s language echoed words and ideas in the Old Testament. Jews in his audience certainly would have made the connection.

Some Bible experts see the verses we are looking at today as a sort of technical message called a benediction. They feel it follows the pattern that Jewish priests would use for that sort of message. We need to remember that Paul was a very educated Jewish man trained by one of the greatest Jewish teachers of his day.   Although people can change their style and language depending on the circumstances of what they are writing, we are also influenced by our habits. If this next part is similar to some technical form that Jewish teachers used I’m not sure it would have been read in such a technical way by the mostly gentile (non-Jewish) believers in Ephesus. And I think Paul was certainly smart enough to understand that about his readers. Reading all the stuff about this supposed connection really bogged me down when it came time to write this post. Hopefully what I write will be helpful and accurate to all of us.

In verse three the word translated “blessed” is a Greek word that basically means “good words” (remember that the new Testament was mostly written in Greek, the common language of the day). So basically Paul is saying “We should say good words about God who has said good words for us.”   Way back in the beginning of the Bible the creation of the universe is describe. If you look at Genesis 1 you will see that it was created by God’s command; that is he said something and it happened. God’s words are not just noise they are powerful and when God says good words for us things happen. On the other hand our speech doesn’t have the same sort of power behind it, in this case Paul is telling us we need to “speak well” of God because he has used his power for our good; we need to be thankful to God. In the end of verse three we are told three things about these “good words” God has spoken for us. They are “spiritual”, they are in Heaven, and they are in Jesus. Some people think that the “good words” God has spoken for us are called “spiritual” in contrast to being natural, material, or earthly. In this case though the idea probably relates to the fact that the Holy Spirit (see “Three or One?”) is a big part of our new relationship with God.

When we use the word “blessing” it is easy to think of things but when we use the more exact translation “good words” we get a different picture. If I say God has “things for us in Heaven” we might think we have to go there to get them. When I say, “God has good things to say for us in Heaven” it paints a different picture. Now we see that the “blessings” aren’t “in” Heaven but they come from Heaven; its not just you or me making wishes for others this is the all powerful God in Heaven speaking powerful words that are good and helpful for us.

The last thing we are told about the “blessings” are that they are in Jesus, Paul actually says “in Christ”. Paul probably uses the title “Christ” here instead of the personal name Jesus to help his readers understand that the “blessings” from God are available because of God’s plan. Remember that the word “Christ” (Messiah in the Old Testament) means, “chosen one”. Jesus was chosen by God for a certain job, dying in our place so justice would be served and God could forgive the things we had done that offended him. We can have the help of the Holy Spirit in having a new relationship with God only because Jesus took our punishment (Romans 6:23, 1 John 2:2).

Verses 4-6 makes it clear that living for and with God was the plan. Verse 4 starts out by telling the believers in Ephesus (and the rest of us who have trusted in Jesus to make us right with God) that God the Father (v. 3) “chose” us in Jesus before the foundation of the world. The word translated chose is “eklegomai”. It is a compound word “ek” and “legomai”. “ek” means “from” or “by” and “legomai” means “to say, speak, call, or affirm”. Another way to translate this might be, “We are in Jesus by God’s words, and this happened before the world even was created.” As we saw above God’s word is powerful and here we see that that power put us in a protected place. The place where Jesus’ sacrifice covered our disobedience and disrespect (sin) toward God.

Some people want to say that God’s choice is all there is to this but that idea isn’t in this verse. So far the verse hasn’t said why God used his powerful words for our good. Those same people say that the fact that this happened “before the foundation of the world” (and obviously before we existed) means that nothing about our existence has anything to do with the “choice” God made. They want to say that the choice was completely arbitrary (random); whatever God decided. But remember that God exists outside of or above time. Sometimes I use the idea of a movie to describe this. Now days movies are digital files that are translated and cause different lights to turn on and off in a TV creating changing images. In the old days movies were a series of images or pictures on a transparent strip of plastic (film). Each image captured the changes in movement of the actors or other action when they acted out the movie. That strip of plastic was then loaded into a machine (a projector) that caused the images to be flashed onto a screen in order, creating the illusion of movement or action. Now pretend that the people in the pictures on the film are real, with feelings, memory, all of that. The “person” in any part of the movie only knows what has gone on before; the pictures they have been in, they have no idea what is coming because they haven’t been in those pictures yet. But God is like the movie director; he is outside of the film. He can take the film off the spool and look at any one of the many pictures he wants to. In fact God is so talented that he can actually see all of the pictures at the same time and remember them. The fact that God’s powerful words put us in Jesus before we even existed doesn’t mean that God’s actions were random and had nothing to do with our personal existence. We exist in life picture by picture but God sees and knows all the pictures of our life even before he created the universe and us.

The middle of verse 4 tells us the result of being “in Jesus”, we would be “holy” and “blameless”. The idea of “holy” is the idea of dedicated, often of things “dedicated or offered to a “god”. Another idea is “set apart”, like special clothes (dedicated for work, or school, of a special occasion; like a wedding dress) or dishes (some people have special dishes just for holidays). The idea of “blameless” means without a spot or defect. In ancient times only the best things were offered to “gods”, in fact in the Old Testament it was part of the rules. Paul told the believers at Rome that all of us are defective (Romans 3:23, think of glory as God’s perfectness) but in Jesus we have been dedicated to God and when God looks at us he sees Jesus’ perfection (Romans 3:21-22. Righteousness means right living in God’s eyes).

The end of verse 4 actually hints at the reason behind God’s action, His love for us. The end of verse 5 has a similar thought when we are told that God’s actions are according to the “kind intentions of his will” or “good thoughts”. The first part of verse 5 tells us that God “predestined” us. Again there are a lot of people who see this as God arbitrarily forcing certain ones of us to be a part of his kingdom, or as the words here suggest, his (forever) family. First of all we need to understand the word “predestined”. The Greek word is “proorizo” it is a compound word “pro” and “orizo”. “Pro” means before and “orizo” means to declare or limit, make a boundary, draw a line or circle around something. We get our word “horizon” from this word. What we see here is God drawing “a circle of belonging” around us “before” some particular time. From verse 4 we might understand this to be before we existed (but not before he knew us, see Psalm 139:16). The belonging isn’t as a possession though; we belong as a family, adopted as his children. And in verse 5 we are reminded again that Jesus is why we can be a part of this forever family.

Verse 6 tells us how we should respond to this free gift God has offered through Jesus, we should praise the glory of his grace. Praise translates a compound Greek word that means to “put recommendations on”. “Glory” has the ideas of “magnificence and splendor” in it. Grace is referring to a gift, in this case from God. So our response to the awesome offer of God to pay the penalty for our disobedience and rebellion and adopt us into his forever family should be acceptance of it and our highest recommendation of this totally awesome gift to others.

In verse 7 Paul explains the gift of God more clearly. We are redeemed (a price was paid that we owed) by the blood of Jesus (The blood here is a metaphor or symbol of Jesus’ death, a death he personally didn’t deserve. And remember that the idea of death in the Bible is the idea of separation. Physical death was a consequence of rebellion against God, originally we were created to live forever. A second consequence of rebellion and disobedience (sin) toward God is spiritual separation from God. Adam and Eve were God’s friends and had a face to face relationship with him. That ended with their rebellion and continues in all of our lives today). Jesus suffered both types of death in our place opening the door for a new relationship with God. In verse 7 Paul uses the idea of trespassing (going where we are not supposed to go) for sin and tells us that Jesus’ death (blood) make it possible for God to forgive us. According to verse 8 God isn’t a cheapskate either, this is a really awesome gift.

Verses 8-10 tell us that this plan of God was well thought out, the words wisdom and insight talk of a skillful and well thought out plan based on a lot of information. The “mystery” talked about in verse 9 is the facts about who Jesus is and what he has done for us. At the right time God made the plan clear. Most translations have the words like “administration” or “dispensation” in verse 10. The Greek word is “oikonomia”, we get the English word “economy” from it. In the ancient world though it was mostly used for running a household, more specifically it was used to describe having other people run you household. In this case God showed people like Paul the plan (the mystery) to save the world and bring people into his forever family so that people like Paul could get the program going. The goal was for everything to be gathered together (some translations say “summed up”) in Jesus.

Verses 11-12 kind of repeat the ideas we have already looked at. Having an inheritance means we have become part of a family, the idea is parallel to adoption. The idea of “predestined” is repeated and the idea of God will and wisdom are too. And again we see God getting a lot of credit in the end of verse 12.

Verses 13-14 make all of this “theoretical” discussion personal. Paul and guys like him might have been told the “secret” first but they were not to keep it to them selves and they didn’t. They told others, like the people in the Ephesian church(s), about Jesus; the “truth”, the good news (gospel) of their salvation. Notice the next part though, then they believed. That word means that they wee convinced of the truth of the news and made a commitment to it. Then they were “sealed in Jesus with the Holy Spirit”. Notice that the Holy Spirit here is also related to a promise. Through out the Old Testament God promised to deal with the sin problem. He promised Eve that one of her descendants would “crush the serpent” (meaning the Devil who had encourage Adam and Eve to rebel. This is probably a symbol of all that sin is and all the destruction that is in the universe because of it). There was also a promise to Abraham that one of his descendants would bring a “blessing” on the world. All of those sorts of promises are probably what Paul is talking about here. Paul also uses language relating to family and adoption and inheritance when he says that the Holy Spirit is given to those who put their trust in Jesus as a “pledge”. That word means a “down payment”. When you put a down payment on something you do it with the idea of getting that thing, you have your eye on something and you put a down payment on it so that you can get the thing later. In this case what God has his eye on is us. Right now we have the Holy Spirit as a down payment by God, we haven’t moved into his house yet but that is what he has in mind. Today’s reading ends with one last praise of God’s greatness.

As I was reading these verses I was impressed with how many times Paul tells us what God is or has done. He chose us, He predestined us, He gave us a free gift, He made known to us. It is very impressive how much effort God has put in for us, he clearly wants us to be a part of his forever family. I especially like it that he “predestined” us, I like it that he put a circle around me, put his name on me, what ever it was. Remember that idea of holy? I’m God’s, if you want to touch me you better look out. All of this action by God doesn’t mean he forced me though. Remember verse 13, we are free to believe or not; to put our trust in Jesus or reject him. God allows us to choose, that’s real love, not forced. But he knew my decision before I actually made it and put his name tag and protection on me from the earliest moment of my existence. God is awesome.

God thank you for loving me. Thank you for respecting me and letting me have the choice to be a part of your family or not. Thank you for making the “mystery” known. Thank you for having a plan even before Adam and Eve and all the rest of us even existed and screwed up. Thank you for making a way to “live” again. Thank you for you amazing love. Help me live holy for you each day as you new and forever son.