God's Secret Plan Revealed

Naomi’s Business

Naomi had started a small dressmaking business. The brightly colored fabrics of her part of Africa were popular not only in the surrounding district but also, she’d heard, in foreign countries.

She employed two women to help with the dressmaking, and a young man to travel to the city to buy supplies and sell the finished products. Together they worked hard, and soon they had more orders than they could easily complete. Naomi hired two more helpers.

One day one of the women said, “You know, I wonder if we could make other things as well as dresses? Curtains? Covers for chairs? Things like that?”

The others agreed enthusiastically.

Naomi smiled. She went to her desk and took out a sealed envelope, which had a date written across the seal— the day on which she started the business. She passed the envelope to the woman who had asked the question.

“Open it, and read it out.”

She opened the envelope and read the paper. It contained the plan for a larger business that would make the wonderful fabrics into all sorts of things people might want in their homes.

“I’ve kept it a secret all this time,” said Naomi. “I knew if I told you from the start you’d say I was daydreaming and then you’d have started daydreaming yourselves. We had to prove we could make dresses first. But this is what I planned all along. Let’s do it!”

What is one dream you’ve had that came to fruition?

Ephesians 3:1–13 ESV

1 For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— 2 assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. 4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 7 Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. 8 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

Paul’s picture of God in this passage is a bit like the picture of Naomi.

What was God’s secret plan? (vv. 1-6)?

How did he reveal his plan (vv. 2-5)?

What three great privileges did the Gentiles attain (together with the Jews) in this plan (v.6)?

Fancy hearing the news that a family down the street has come into a large and wealthy inheritance— and then being told that you are to become full members of that family, with instant privileges identical to theirs! That’s the situation that Christian Gentiles now find themselves in.

How did God accomplish this plan (v.7)?

What does this plan of God’s— the plan itself, the fact that God kept it hidden and then revealed it, the way he accomplished it— reveal about the character of God?

What task did God give Paul (vv. 8-9)?

Paul is the one chosen by God to pioneer the plan. In terms of Naomi and her dressmaking business, he hadn’t been expecting the localized and family-based company (Israel) to expand like this (to reach out to include non-Jews on equal terms).

How does Paul describe God’s secret plan (v. 10)?

The heart of the present passage is verse 10, which is one of the New Tetament’s most powerful statements of the reason for the church’s existence: the rulers and authorities must be confronted with God’s wisdom, in all its rich variety, and this is to happen through the church! Not, we should quickly add, through what the church says, though that is vital as well. Rather, through what the church is, namely, the community in which men, women and children of ever race, color, social and cultural background come together in glad worship of the one true God.

It is precisely this many-sided, many-colored, many-splendored identity of the church that makes the point. God’s wisdom, Paul is saying, is like that too: like a many-faceted diamond which twinkles and sparkles with all the colors in the rainbow. The “rulers and authorities,” however— both the earthly authorities and their shadowy heavenly counterparts— always tend to create societies and social structures in their own flat, boring image, monochrome, uniform and one-dimensional. Worse: they tend to marginalize or kill people or groups who don’t fit their narrow band of acceptability. The church is to be, by the very fact of its existence, a warning to them that their time is up, and an announcement to the world that there is a different way to be human.