Ephesians 3:1-13. In the first two chapters of this letter Paul has spoken over and over again about the power of God and how he is using it for the benefit of Paul’s readers. It’s good to remember that Paul was writing this letter to a group of believers in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor (Modern day Turkey). In those days the world around the Mediterranean Sea was ruled by the Roman Empire. One part of how Rome ruled was by allowing people to maintain their ethnic and religious identities. As long as conquered nations world stayed peaceful they could keep their culture. There were things added to their lives by the Roman government but not major changes. We also want to remember that Christianity had its roots in the religious history of the Jewish people.

Who Jesus is and what he came to earth to do was foretold in the Old Testament and was hinted at in the religious practices of the Jewish people. In a way, the way God set up for the Jewish people to live and relate to him was like a movie trailer, “Coming to your existence soon, The Kingdom of God, a kingdom for al nations, ruled by God’s suffering servant, the Messiah!” (Jeremiah 10:7-10, Jeremiah 31:10-12, Isaiah 9:6-7, Isaiah 52:7-15, Isaiah 53). The first believers in Jesus were almost all Jews. It wasn’t long, though, before the message started going out to the non-Jews, Gentiles. In the beginning Christianity was considered a branch of the Jewish religion. By the time Paul wrote to the believers in Ephesus all of that had started to change. Many Jews felt that what the believers believed about Jesus was wrong, and those Jews were very serious about their beliefs (remember that Paul started out as a Jew dedicated to killing believers in Christ, see “Paul Sent One to the Gentiles”). This tension came to the attention of the Roman authorities who came down hard on anything that disturbed the peace of the empire. Also the church (believers and followers of Jesus) was changing from mostly Jewish believers to a mix of Jewish and non-Jewish (gentile) followers of Jesus. Some churches were almost all gentiles.

So by the time Ephesians was written there was a lot of pressure in the church (or churches) both inside and out. Pressure from the government, pressure of non-believing family members to come back to the old religion (both in the families of Jews to return to Judaism and the families of Gentiles to return to their Polytheism (worship of many gods)) and pressure inside the church between the Jewish believers and the gentile believers about what things were really part of this new thing, this “one new man”, this “house or temple of God” as Paul called it in the last chapter. And we don’t want to forget that Paul was writing this while on house arrest near Rome, chained to a Roman guard, waiting a trial to see if he had been causing riots back in Jerusalem, a charge that could carry the death penalty.

In today’s reading Paul starts by saying “for this reason”, he wants to tell the readers something that is based on what he told them in the first two chapters. As I said above, Paul had been talking to them about the power God was using for them. More specifically he was telling them about God “saving” them, making them “alive with Christ” (Ephesians 2:5). You can look back two posts to see more about that. Paul used the term “Christ” instead of the name Jesus to get them to think about what Jesus came to do rather that about him as a person (we sometimes think of “christ” as a name but it is really a title, it means chosen one, and is a link by Paul back to ideas in the Old Testament). What Paul is linking back to is our broken relationship with God and God’s plan to fix it (see “The Old Testament Connection” and “A Tale of Two Trees”). Maybe even more specifically, what he is about to say to them is about this whole “new man” thing in Ephesians 2:15, also compared to a house in in Ephesians 2:20-22, and a kingdom in Ephesians 2:19. Paul is going to talk to them about the way God is combining both Jews and non-Jews into a new group of people, the church, who are going to be His family (see his use of “father” in Ephesians 2:18 and the idea of inheritance in Ephesians 1:14) and His people forever (see 1 Peter 2:9-10).

Paul then identifies himself as “the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you gentiles (non-Jews)”.What ever he is about to say to them is related to the fact that he is a prisoner. Notice that he is a prisoner of Jesus. Although he is in custody of the Romans it is really Jesus who limits or controls his life. Again the title “Christ” comes first to emphasize the mission Jesus came to complete, a mission he has asked his followers to continue and complete (Matthew 28:19-20) and a mission that drove Paul’s actions. Jesus told his followers to make other followers in the whole world and Paul was doing that specifically among non-Jews (gentiles). Paul had spent the last thirty years traveling around, suffering a lot of trouble and expense, to get the word out about Jesus (1 Corinthians 9:1-12, 2 Corinthians 11:23-28). So as a “prisoner of Christ”, who has spent the last 30 years working hard to help non-Jews (especially) come to understand that they could have a part along with the any Jewish people who would believe in God’s forever family, Paul has something to say to these gentile believers.

But Paul gets interrupted almost immediately. He wasn’t interrupted by something outside of himself but by what he has been saying. And he was probably literally saying what we are reading. In Paul’s day letters and other documents were often dictated by the author and actually written by someone else. In five different letter Paul makes a point that some part of the letter is being written “in his own hand” (1 Corinthians 16:21, Galatians 6:11, Colossians 4:18, 2 Thessalonains 3:17, Philemon 19). Paul makes this point to make sure his readers know that these letters are really from him and carry his full authority. But it also tells us that some part of these letters were probably written down by someone else. Colossians and Philemon were probably written at exactly the same time as Ephesians, so although Ephesians doesn’t specifically tell us that someone else was doing the writing it is very likely. So as Paul brings up the fact of being a prisoner it makes him think about that fact and he stops what he is talking about and chases that idea for a little bit, 12 verses or the rest of today’s reading to be exact. Tomorrow we will get back to what it was that Paul wanted his gentile readers to know about this “new man” they were now a part of.

Remember Paul is taking this little side trip because of the way he had identified himself in verse 1, “prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the benefit of you gentiles”.   Here in verse 2 he tells them that he assumes they have heard of the “stewardship of God’s grace given to him for them”. The Greek word translated “stewardship” is “oikonomia”, we get our word “economy” from that word (remember the New Testament was written almost entirely in Greek, the language of the day) . The idea behind the word is of running something like a business or a country. In Paul’s day though the main usage of the word was for running a household. Often a large household was like a small business and often servant would be given parts to run. The use of this word echoes back to the end of chapter two where Paul told the gentile believers that they were being carefully fit together with Jewish believers into a house for God. It also fits with the idea of us being in a family with God (the Father) who has given us an inheritance.   In this case the part of the “household: that Paul has been trusted with is God’s grace. Remember that “grace” describes an undeserved gift, Paul is handing out presents. Cool! We also see that this “gift” was given to him to hand out.

In verse 3 Paul tells them that it was only by “revelation” that he could make known to them the “mystery” that he had just written about to them. It is interesting that back in Ephesians 1:9-10 Paul talked about the “mystery” of God’s will; His kind intention which God set out to accomplish through Jesus. And how what God had a plan (administration in Ephesians 1:10 is the Greek work “oikonomia”) to add things together in Christ. So here in verses 2-3 we see the same words as Paul used in chapter 1 “mystery” and “oikonomia” and we also see the link to the house/household idea in chapter two where it was gentile believers and Jewish believes being joined together in to one new thing the church.

In verses 4-5 Paul links his next idea back to verse 3, he understands the mystery because God revealed it to him, he didn’t figure it out, the “insight” was all from God.   Here we find out that Paul uses the word mystery because this wasn’t something that was generally known or could be figured out. The mystery is also like with Christ and that this mystery was not known in the past. This mystery is only known now because God apostles (sent ones) and prophets (more guys who would speak from God) were giving out information that had been revealed to them. Paul was one of these “apostles”. We also see this stuff came to these guys with the help of the Holy Spirit, revealed directly from God, in other words. We aren’t sure why Paul decides to call these messengers of God “holy”. The idea is of someone or something that is given to or special to someone or something else. Perhaps with all the trouble going around (like being in prison) Paul wanted to make sure that the Ephesian believers understood that these guys were God’s guys and still under his protection. In verse 6 Paul becomes very specific about the mystery. In chapter 1 the mystery that was revealed seems more general, its God’s plan to fix the sin problem (see “A Tale of Two Trees”) through Jesus. The idea of “summing up in Christ” in that chapter might hint at what Paul talks about in Chapter 2 when he talks about gentile believers being full members of God’s forever family and his eternal kingdom. Here is verse 6 Paul says the mystery he is talking about is this same thing that Jewish believers and gentile believers are equal members of God’s family.

In verse 7 Paul returns to idea of God’s power. He says he was made a “minister” according to the gift of God’s grace when God used his power in Paul’s life. The word translated “minister” means servant. That idea ties in well with the whole family and “oikonomia” thing. So the work that Paul was doing, telling the world about God fixing our relationships with God and bring all believers equally together through Jesus, was a gift from God that he didn’t deserve and that this opportunity Paul had was because of the power of God. In verse 8 calls himself the very least of all God’s followers (saints, holy ones) and again says he didn’t really deserve (grace) the chance God had given him to tell gentiles about the unknowable (literally untraceable) plan of God to bring people together as His family. Paul also uses the idea of turning on a light to describe how he got to be a part of the working out of God’s plan to help the world know the mystery that had been hidden for ages in God. Only God knew exactly what he was going to do but he had hinted at it thorough out history.

Remember that the mystery Paul is talking about involves fixing the “sin” problem (see “A Tale of Two Trees”) but more exactly he is talking about how God was going to make all sorts of people a part of his forever family. To many it might have seemed that the benefits were only going to be for Jewish people but God’s plan included believers form every people group. In verse 10 when Paul tells us that this secret, that was hidden in the plan of the creator God, comes to light it reveals just how awesome God is. The Greek word “manifold” used to describe God’s wisdom in this plan of salvation is “polypoikilos”. This is a compound word and the interesting thing about this word is that the second part of the word “poikilos” means many colored, spotted, made with many colors, etc. The idea is beautify or complex. Paul could have used just this word to describe God’s wisdom but instead he magnifies it with the prefix “poly” which means “many”. God’s wisdom is “way beautify, way cool, way complex”, its awesome.   And it shows up best in how he is dealing with mankind; a mankind that defected from him, by making this “new man” out of many believers, this church. Interestingly the group that Paul is turning on the lights for is “rulers and powers in the heavenly places” this is talking about evil demonic powers. According to verse 11 this was a part of God’s plan all along. According to 1 Peter 1:12 angels are very interested in this whole salvation thing. When Satan convinced one third of the angels to join him in an attempt to overthrow God they were immediately judged and banished form Heaven as their home; there was no second chance for them. So this whole idea of God’s patience, and not punishing our sin immediately, and Jesus substitution for us, taking our punishment is all unknown to them. While Peter says the angels want to check this all out here in Ephesians Paul tells us that the demons are gett’n a little school’n. This was all part of that “way cool” plan of God that he brought about in Jesus, a plan that he made before any of this all even started (eternal).

In verses 12-13 we see why Paul went down this side street. He had mentioned his imprisonment. Everybody was worried about that, remember it could result in the death sentence if his accusers came and convinced the Caesar (Nero at the time, and he hated Christians) that Paul was a revolutionary. And many of these believes were feeling more and more threatened too. Not to mention gentile believers might have felt like second-class Christians. In verse 12 Paul uses all that he has said so far, the mystery, the plan of God all about bringing people from all tribes, tongues, and people groups together, each one fit together with the others, into his family, to help the gentile believes (and really all believers) understand that we can confidently and boldly talk to God. The language here is language of close friendship. What had been lost in the Garden of Eden was here restored through faith in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-10). In verse 13 he makes it clear that this side trip is about what was happening to him because he tells his reader not to be discouraged by the trouble he was going through. He was going through it for them so they would one day enjoy that honored position as children of God in God’s forever kingdom (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

A couple of things I want to mention first some people don’t understand how Paul can call the salvation of Gentiles a “mystery” especially in Ephesians 3:5 when he said no one in the past knew about it. While non-Jews who didn’t have the Old Testament writings available to them were mostly in the dark (but see “A Tale of Two Trees”) and were “far off”, certainly the Jewish people who did have God’s word understood that gentiles would have some place in God’s forever kingdom. There are predictions in the Old Testament of people from all corners of the world coming to Jerusalem to worship or honor God. But the mystery is more than that, Paul is describing a situation where the gentiles don’t just come by for a visit but are equal members in God’s forever families with Jews. Of course this all only applies to those from both groups that have put their faith in Jesus to deal with their sin problem (their rebellion and disobedience to God). The other thing to think about is how troubling it must have been for the early believers to see their leaders being hunted down and even killed by people in power, religious or political. For me the words of verse 10 are sort of a “hey demons, check this out”. I wonder if they were like my dog when I take her over to show her something she has done wrong, “What did you do?”, and she tries to look away. If the demons, who are way more powerful than any human powers, could have their noses rubbed in the love of God seen in the church how much more to we have a real victory over human posers and authorities. All of today’s reading is really about saying, “Oh by the way god’s power is still working in my life, these chains are really nothing, I’m free to serve my real master where it counts and my service means you will have honored places in Heaven.” How cool is that message. Way better than Obi-Wan-Kenobi or Han Solo giving up their lives to fight the empire. Here we are on the winning team because Jesus has already won the victory. We get to help people join the winning side and all with real power, God’s power.

Thank you God for giving us places on your sinning team. Thank you that its not about our power and plan but about yours, a plan you made before any of these events even occurred. None of our lives is a surprise to you and we are really on the offensive, we get to act, we don’t have to react. Of course there is trouble in this battle we are sharing in but we need to remember that we have the victory in the end. Help me show many people the way back to you. Help me help back to a place of honor in your family. Help me turn on the lights and show them what has only been dim and vague in their existence. Thank you for the honor of being a part of your forever family. Help me do the work you have prepared for me to do since before time ever began.