![]() They are a living temple, built through the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, in which God is worshiped. Believers make up the body of Christ, demonstrating their devotion to Christ and their unity with each other. In pursuing the importance of being part of God’s church, Paul develops four metaphors for the church. In living out unity where hostility would be expected, they have an opportunity to exhibit the characteristics of God’s new society and the coming kingdom. He is especially invigorated by the thought that God has joined estranged segments of humanity-Jews and Gentiles-as one in the church. ![]() Paul spends a good deal of his letter expressing his excitement for this new pattern of what it means to be human through membership in God’s church. It means offering fellow citizens of Ephesus clear examples of a new pattern of human existence. It means, in our relationships within church and household, borrowing from the example of self-sacrifice offered by Christ. It means resisting the patterns of mean-spirited and sexually decadent behavior so rampant in their culture. To love Christ means to respect and value fellow believers. A devotion to Christ impacts how one acts and speaks. Christians are called to Spirit-inspired, Christ-honoring, God-directed worship, which Paul illustrates again and again. He spells out in some detail what Christian behavior and community look like. Jesus is the goal of the divine plan for the ages, a plan in which believers, as the church, play an important role in God’s plans to unify all things in Christ.Īs Paul seeks to draw believers in Ephesus into fresh devotion to their Lord, he does not dumb down the demands of Christian discipleship. So Paul highlights Christ’s exaltation in heaven, above all the powers and deities that seek to attract the devotion of believers in Ephesus. If wobbly Christian disciples are to regain their footing, it will be because they recapture their first love for Jesus and establish fresh trust in His grace and power. He seeks to reenlist them in Christian faith, to reignite the fire of their devotion to Christ, and to resurrect the excitement of being part of God’s great enterprise in the world, the church.īecause the Christian faith is all about Christ, Paul radiates admiration and worship of Him. Though his hearers are already Christians, Paul’s tone is one of recruitment.
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