Ephesians

As Paul opens his letter to the church at Ephesus, after an offer of grace and peace to those receiving his letter, he pens a blessing to God Himself. In this, Paul acknowledges all that God accomplished through Christ Jesus from the foundation of the world (v.4) - through our present redemption (v. 7),- until the age that is yet to come (v.21). And though this is a mystery to our understanding, God doesn't intend it to be so (v.9), nor was it ever a mystery to Him, as He planned it from before time (vv.4,5,11,22). As you read this passage today, pray that God would open your eyes and heart to the mysteries of your own Salvation, and the purposes God will reveal in you, through the hope we have in Christ, to the praise of His glory (v.12).

Lets begin with some context- Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
In Ephesians chapter 2, Paul brings us through the amazing grace of our salvation in Christ, but not without first making it clear that we needed it. You aren't a sinner because you sin. You sin because you are a sinner. You aren't a thief because you steal. You steal becasue you are a thief. The same is true for murder, adultery, etc. We were dead "in" our sin, because that is who we are. We are sinners and we were born that way. Sin characterizes our life before Christ. We may chose to allow it to do so after we experience Christ, but we do so at the cost of broken fellowship with God. So, until we experience Christ, we are dead. Before we were even born, we had to pay the price for our lives, with our life. We were born dead. "and you were dead in your transgressions and sins," Eph 2:1.
Here is John MacArthur's comment on the subject:
"because man is born in sin he is born to death. Man does not become spiritually dead becasue he sins; he is spiritually dead becasue by nature he is sinful. Except for Jesus Christ that is the condition of every human being since the Fall, including every believer before he is saved. It is the past condition of believers, and the present condition of everyone else."
Let that lay the foundation for you as you read vv. 5, 8-10,19.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;" Eph 2:8.

Paul doesn't trust the Ephesians to have understood all that he wrote to them in the first two chapters of his letter, so after starting to write a prayer for them in verse 3:1, he gives them a twelve-verse caveat explanation of "why." The summary of it is basically contained in verse 6. Then he begins again in verse 14 where he started in verse one - and prays for spiritual strength and power to be exercised among the believers. Read that prayer as a blessing for yourself today. Receive it as what God intends for you, and your strength and power by His Spirit.

Your Bibles may not divide up this chapter into the different parts that your minds might as you read through what God may reveal in it - but remember: Ask God, "What would you have me know from Your Word today?" Paul emphasizes unity at the beginning of this passage. Next, he delivers one of the sections we refer to as assigning roles within the church body, or spiritual gifts. He admonishes maturity of faith and an ability to withstand the trickery of deceitful doctrines - all toward the building of love. The final section of this chapter is one that deserves our FULL attention. I do not say this as though the entire Bible deserves less, but to acknowledge a current problem among many today. In verses 17-32 we read of how we are to deal with "truth." I could summarize this for you, but instead, let me steer you away from summarizing it. You will be tempted to take verse 25 as the crux of this section. There is so much more that we are called to do with the truth as Followers of Christ. And there is so much more that we need to acknowledge about the power of the spoken word. Absorb these admonitions for what they are: God's Word for you today.

You might be tempted to think that Paul is pivoting hard here in the middle of this chapter to how wives submit to husbands in verse 22, (yes, we've finally reached that part of the Bible). But you'd be mistaken. He starts and finishes this section in the same place - Eph 5:1 "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children," This is the key verse. We are to do all things according to the knowledge and examples we have of God, and all that we know of Him we must imitate. So when Paul wants us to understand purity, he first tells us to walk in love, contrasted with the evil that must have light shown onto it. We "are light in the Lord walk(ing) as children of light." (v.8) *imitators of what we know of God. Please follow me here - that's what Paul is saying as well in verse 17 "On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." So he transitions in verse 21 saying we are to be subject to one another. But now we get to the passage that modern preachers want to skip over or scrub from the Bible: "Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord." (v.22) The beauty of this through the end of the chapter, is that Paul - Spirit-led, is telling us - LOOK at the relationship of Christ and the church! The church is the bride of Christ, and Christ is the husband. We do not struggle with how much Christ loved us that He laid down His life for us - and correspondingly, we do not struggle with the concept of a husband's call to love his wife sacrificially (imitating Christ). We do not mistake the concept of an earthly father's love ideally being representative of our heavenly Father's love (imitating God). Each of those understandings enhances and deepens our concept of who we should be, how we should respond, and how we are blessed. So when we consider what the church should look like, waiting, prepared for Christ's return, subject to Him as the head of the church, knowing that Christ left His Father in heaven to come to His bride the church (look at v 31) - How do you think God plans for wives to be most blessed in an earthly relationship with their husbands, except that the same imitation of Christ's example be followed? "so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless." Eph 5:26–27. Paul is not so much directing a constraint for wives, as he is demonstrating a waiting blessing in the right relationship, imitating the example Christ set before us.

In his closing to the letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul once again reinforces the godly roles of men toward each other according to what God commanded in Scripture, and in the person of Christ Jesus. In verse nine, he ties the previous verses together with an admonition to acknowledge God overall and forget earthly threats or partiality. It is reminiscent of the same passage Hebrew fathers were told to teach their families and recite from infancy: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 "4 “Listen, Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one., 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." He then delivers the well-known Armor of God passage and seals it with the confirmation of all godly promises - prayer. Be strong, Be confident, and Rejoice in the LORD today. He is pleased with our responses to Him as we abide in His Word.