Ephesians part 1

Intro

a letter from prison

some similar themes to the last letter we went through but from a different author

“the mystery of God” is a major theme revealed in full

a key city around modern day Turkey, linking the Roman empire to the rest of Asia minor

a large city with a vast array of people

Predestined

every spiritual blessing- you have every bit of the spirit available to you

this is something he has been working for from the beginning

make no mistake about who God is or what his intentions are for his creation

predestined is a loaded term that is important to understand

literally- determined before

something that God had made his mind up about doing and had set in motion

are we puppets on strings? no we choose to believe

is it all dependent on us and our action? no and thank goodness

Why for the Letter

Paul lets us know the point of the letter up front

that you may know and understand the hope that you have been given among other things

we are not just doing this to be cool and we are not just in it to avoid eternal punishment

there is something real we are after with all that we have

through Christ we have all that we need, we have a guarantee of life after this one

we have through him the strength to face whatever might come our way and in the end to even overcome death as he did

all of that through Christ and in that way, everything that we have that’s worth having is through him

Application

Paul writes to a large group of people to let them know what it is they ought to believe

because there are a lot of people telling you that you should believe a lot of different things about all of this and everything else

who Jesus is and what he gives us is something that we can be certain of just like when John says we can be certain of our salvation

you can know what all you have gained in Christ

and more than that you should know and be confident about those things