catch up time...

On Sunday morning (6/3/07) we went through a bunch of Ephesians and caught up to where we are at on Friday nights.

We left off on Ephesians 2:11. An interesting, much longer than anticipated, discussion about circumcision came up. It was considered unclean not to be circumcised. That is how pious Jews viewed non-Jews. In addition to this physical meaning of circumcision, Paul is also talking about a spiritual circumcision of the heart. Jews and Gentiles alike are unclean before God and need Christ to "circumcise" the sin in our hearts.

The rest of chapter 2 includes a few images of what Christ has done between Jews and Gentiles:
He "has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility" (v14),
"create in himself one new man out of the two" (v15), and
"put to death their hostility" (v16).

Again, I went over the "mystery of Christ" in the first section of chapter 3. Verse 6 sums this up, from the NIV translation: "This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus." Not known until now that Jews and Gentiles are now heirs together equally.

Verse 8 also brings up another good point- "Although I am less than the least of all God's people..." Why does Paul say this? Clearly he was an important evangelist and apostle. The first reason is yes, to be humble. But also, we must recognize continually that the ability for any of us to do good works comes from God. Even if you are not the best at evangelizing, conversing, or debating biblical knowledge, God will give you opportunities to share Christ to others through you. Then it is clear whatever good may come of it is because what the Lord has done!

Closing the day was the Prayer to the Ephesians. It is so rich but pretty self-explanatory. I encourage everyone to meditate on how limitless God's love is. Grasping this in our minds is the easy part. Seeing it in our hearts is my prayer for all of us.