Ephesians 3.1-13 – the mystery of the church

AJM Holy Trinity 6.2.05

Introduction

Good morning. We are going through the book of Ephesians. We have spent several weeks looking at chapters one and two, and now we have reached chapter three. Today we are looking at the first half of the chapter, the half that was read to you. Let me summarise its contents:

Looks funny – but this is a serious point!

It’s important to look at the structure of any piece of writing. One of the reasons we like to go through whole books sometimes is so that we don’t miss anything out. But another is because often it’s in the way a book is put together that you see where the emotional energy in it lies. And I think that perhaps in Ephesians the emotional energy lies in this very passage we are looking at this morning. It’s certainly different from the rest of the letter, a sort of digression from the main themes, and much more personal. This warns us to take a careful look at it. And when we do, we find that it’s the pivotal passage in the whole thing. Let’s take a look.

The structure of Ephesians

Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has 6 chapters. So far we’ve had 4 sermons, 2 on chapter one and 2 on chapter two. This is what we covered:

Firstly that we have been chosen by God. We looked in the first half of chapter one at the blessings we have received in Christ.
Then secondly that we have been empowered by God. We looked at Paul’s great prayer that we would know who we are in Christ, and at the hope and the power which we have through him. That was chapter one.
Then in chapter two we looked first of all at how we have been made alive in Christ – at our salvation.
And finally, last week we looked at how we have been made one in Christ – at our unity, a unity which draws together those born far from God and those who have always known about him. Lots of glorious and amazing principles. It’s an inspiring description of the inheritance we receive through Jesus.

But at this point the tone changes. Paul starts off, chapter 3 verse one, like this: for this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles – and then he breaks off. He only comes back to that sentence and finishes it at the beginning of chapter 4, when he goes on, as a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. In between the beginning and the end of this single thought there’s a whole chapter - two paragraphs of explanation and a passionate prayer. Next week we’ll look at the prayer; today we’ve got the paragraphs of explanation. They are paragraphs in brackets, if you like. They don’t form part of the main argument, and Paul’s obviously thought of them at the last minute as he dictated or as he wrote. Why? Well, that’s what we’ve got to work out.

Let’s start by looking in a bit more detail at the structure of the letter. Here’s a summary:

Principles Applications

Chosen Persevering in prayer

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Empowered Living in power

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Made alive Living the new life

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Made one Living as one

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Paul’s authority

Looked at like this you can see that the letter falls into two parts. The first part describes the great themes of the Christian life. It’s about the principles. And then the second part describes the applications of those principles – it describes what the Christian life looks like on the ground. We will look at these applications over the next few weeks. We will look at what our unity means in practice as we learn to love one another, to live and to think differently. We will look at what our new life means in practice, as we examine the realities of our behaviour, our marriages, our role as parents, and our relationships at work. We will look at the power available to us in Christ in practice too, as we learn to do spiritual warfare. And finally, we will end where we began, with the urge to live close to one another and to God.

But before we do that we have this great long piece which Paul interjects in brackets. It’s not really about the Christian life at all. It’s about himself. What’s he doing? I tend to think in pictures, and so I offer you this - this is what he’s doing:

He’s quietly tiptoeing over the middle of a seesaw. It’s a delicate act. He has to go carefully, so that the seesaw doesn’t clang down and dump him on the floor. So far it’s been quite an easy read. We’ve had some long words, but basically it’s all been heart-warming stuff. About how God has chosen us. About how he gives us hope. Power. A future. About how he gives us life. Freedom. Grace. How he saves us. How he gives us things to do. How he makes us one with each other and with God. Turns us from scattered bricks into a beautiful new building in which we each find a place, each find a purpose. It all sounds great. Too good to be true, almost. Paul’s done a great job, and it makes for a great read. It’s as if he’s been walking up the seesaw, from the seat on the ground up towards the pivot in the middle.

But there’s a but. And it’s a very big but. Walking up the seesaw is great. But something happens when you get to the middle. What seemed straightforward suddenly becomes a bit less straightforward. Dangerous, even. And Paul knows it. He knows that at this point he’s got to change gear. He’s told us the easy bit, the work that Jesus has done for us and how we have received this, and that, and the other. But now he’s got to tell us something a bit harder. He’s got to tell us not just what has been done for us, but what we ourselves have to do in response. And the question is, are we going to take any notice? Would these ancient Ephesians stop reading at this point, and chuck the letter away, or would they take what’s coming to heart?

This is what’s in Paul’s mind at this point. He has some very demanding things to say. Some life-changing things. Some things which will, if taken note of, change not just life in Ephesus but the course of history itself. How’s he going to make sure they listen? How’s he going to get over the hub of the seesaw, and begin to walk carefully down the other side without anyone falling off?

A change of lifestyle

Now before I come to how he does it, I want to look at what he’s trying to achieve. What is the before and after which he has in mind?

Ephesus was one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire, with a population of 300,000 people – about the size of Leicester. It was a major trading port on the Aegean Sea, it had a temple to the goddess Artemis which was 4 times as big as the Parthenon and one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, and its theatre could seat 25,000 people. It also had a magnificent new temple dedicated to the cult of the emperor. Its main activities were pagan worship and the making of money. What was it like to live there?

Well, I think the first thing we need to be aware of is that the Roman empire was a magnificent achievement, a bringing of peace out of war and order out of chaos. For the first time in history the peoples in the lands surrounding the Mediterranean had been brought together despite their racial, social and religious differences under the single banner of the empire. They had a single political system open to all, a single army, an extensive road network and great opportunity for travel and trade.

But there was a downside. This peace came at a price. The Roman empire was also a very repressive place to live. The political, economic and religious systems demanded conformity. They were all weapons of mass control, and stepping out of line brought enormous penalties. If you read the Roman historian Tacitus’s account of what went on you’d be horrified. We know that Christians could be persecuted. But it wasn’t just Christians. Anyone could be persecuted, for anything. Not smiling at the Games could be taken as an insult to the emperor. Knowing the wrong person, having the wrong relations, could land you in prison. Treachery and poisoning and suicide were normal. Children counted for nothing, and women for not much more. There were 140 men for every 100 women in most of the Empire – because female children were killed at birth. In the Eastern empire women were the property of men, and could be divorced by ordering them out of the house. If they were raped their husband was legally obliged to divorce them. Children were just pawns in the affairs of adults. Tacitus has one story about the young children of a man accused of poisoning the emperor’s son. Not only he, but also his young children were executed. It was against the law for virgins to be executed – so they had the little girl raped first.

It wasn’t much better for men. One Roman general lost a battle; he made his battalion draw lots and had every 10^th man flogged to death to make a point. All over the empire people plotted against one another and informed on one another. Someone was sentenced to death for writing a poem criticising the emperor. Someone else for having gardens that were more beautiful than was thought appropriate.

Now life was lived pretty much in public and out of doors in the Roman empire. And so in each city in the Eastern Roman empire there was a citizen assembly, where political debate and civic government was conducted, along with the cult worship of the emperor, and probably quite a lot of the things I’ve just mentioned. I imagine it wasn’t a very nice place to be, this assembly - but it was a key part of the Roman machine. It was called an ekklesia. So when Paul uses the word ekklesia, which we translate as church, to the Corinthians and here to the Ephesians, he wasn’t inventing a word, he was using one which already meant something. He was using it deliberately. He wasn’t just talking about a nice new fellowship group. By the very use of this word, he was effectively threatening to replace a whole social and political structure with a new one, centred not on the cult of pagan gods or emperors, but on the person of Jesus Christ. He uses the word 9 times in this letter, and it’s going to be a major theme of what comes next. Here we find it in verse 10:

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We’ll come back to that in a minute. But you can see, that as Paul stands in the middle of this pivot on the seesaw, that the stakes are quite high. He’s got some pretty revolutionary stuff to share with them. He is going to reinvent their concept of assembly, of civic life. He’s going to suggest nothing less than a new social order, with Christ at its centre. And we know that the kind of society Jesus imagined didn’t look like the Roman empire. It was a society in which the masters were servants, children were the most important, women were equal with men and the governing principle of human relationships was love. This is what Paul knows he’s got to persuade them into. What he’s going to say about life and how to live as a Christian community is going to be totally revolutionary. This is what one modern rabbi said about the New Testament:

To adopt Jesus’ teaching means no less than to remove oneself from the whole sphere of ordered national and human existence.

If it looks like that now, what did it look like then?

Paul’s authority to speak

So, Paul knows that the stakes are high. He knows that he’s not just offering them freebies, he’s got something he wants from them too. He wants nothing less than for them to learn to live a completely different way, with different values from the society around them. He wants to create a new order, a community which will be the first outpost of the kingdom of God. How is he going to persuade them?

Let’s look at the first 6 verses.

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—

Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly.

In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.

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.

So he starts, then he stops. For this reason, I … He wants to go on, ‘I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received’. But he stops. He’s got to make sure that they will listen. Oh, but come on, you know what this is about, don’t you. This is about God’s grace. This is about the mystery made known to me by revelation. When he says mystery, he doesn’t mean mystery like we mean mystery – as in mystery tour, or murder mystery. It’s like when he says church; he’s using a word they know, with a meaning they are familiar with. A mystery to them is something which has been revealed to those chosen to be initiated into it. The empire was full of so-called mystery religions, with secret bodies of knowledge and secret initiation rites. This is like that: it’s something which has been hidden but is now being revealed for the very first time. The mystery is this: that through the gospel all who believe in Christ are now members of one body, and that that body is the church.

Then he goes on, and this time he shifts from talking about what is being revealed to the person who is doing the revealing. He talks about himself, his sense of responsibility, his sense that he has been charged at whatever cost to himself to make these things plain.

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.

Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

He says that he has been chosen, specially chosen, as he had written to the Corinthians, to meet the risen Christ and be commissioned by him as an apostle. Chosen, in other words, to reveal this mystery, to speak the intention of God to a waiting world. And for why? For the reason given in verse 10:

The purpose of God is the church. The purpose of God was a new order, the kingdom of God. It was to be a public order, visible not just to the rulers and authorities in this visible world, but also to those in the heavenly realms, the rulers and authorities of the invisible, spiritual world. This, Paul is saying, is about something big: and I am its ambassador. Not because I am important, or wise, or powerful: but because I have been chosen to speak the word of God.

And then he goes on to talk about what that means in practice, what it demands of them. That’s the subject of the rest of the letter. So the letter really has three parts:

what we have received
the mystery of God now revealed: God’s plans for the church
what it is going to mean

Even then he’s not confident that they will listen. Will his own authority be enough? Will the fact that this is the key time in history be enough? He’s not sure. So before he gets to the point in chapter 4, he launches into a long and passionate prayer for them. We will look at that next week.

Did it work?

But for the moment, let’s ask another question. Did it work?

Well, the answer is that it did. Paul was talking about the church, for the first time in history. What is a church, what did he mean by it? Not the same as the Romans meant when they used the word, to be sure. Here’s one definition:

A church is a community of people who present living proof of a loving God to a watching world.

And they did. They began to live another way, by the new commandment Jesus gave, the commandment to love one another. They set up a new community, one in which children were valued and women respected, one in which service and sacrifice were the norm. It caught on. People began to notice. People became Christians.

Paul was writing in about 60 AD. For the next 300 years the Christian church grew at an average rate of 40% per decade, the fastest in history, until the Roman empire itself became officially Christian. Why? Because the Christians took Paul’s words to heart. They were prepared to live a different way. When the plague struck in the second century, the Christians were the only ones to nurse and pray for the sick, and to welcome the widowed and orphaned into their communities. Christian marriages set new standards for relations between the sexes, and Christian children survived. Christians turned their back on the occult practices by which many sought to get some control over their lives. Christians actually began to live longer than non-Christians. The Christians had answers to life’s big questions, and the pagan philosophies and cults didn’t. Christians had practical ways of coping, and non-Christians didn’t. One emperor asked the Pope to stop Christians from visiting women in their homes, because too many were converting. Another complained that everyone could see the Christians showing ‘benevolence towards strangers’ and caring for the poor, while the state did nothing. And so it was that in a brutal and fragile world people increasingly came to find their security in Christ. This was a kind of assembly that worked.

What about us?

So what about us? What will we make, over the next few weeks, of Paul’s teaching about loving one another, about being part of the body of Christ, about the language we use and how we handle our anger and our pain? What will we make of his teaching about sex and money and drink? Will we be open to listening to him about marriage, and about parenthood, and about work? And if we do, will we look any different from those who don’t?

I think we will. It’s not my job today to think about any of those things. But maybe it would help us to look briefly at the kind of world we live in. It’s very different from the Roman empire. Or is it? Let’s just take a look.

1. Global context – a fragile world

They lived in a fragile and frightening world. So do we.

• 9/11 – compare the Fire of Rome a few years after Paul wrote this letter

• Madrid train bombing

• Tsunami – compare the eruption of Vesuvius half a generation later

2. Lifestyle – searching for relief

They lived in a world where people sought relief in pleasure, in getting and drinking and having. So do we.

• casinos

• late night bars

• consumerism – we contributed £90m towards the tsunami appeal. Sounds great – it’s about £2-3 per head. Let’s get it in proportion – we spent £4.2 billion on cosmetics over Christmas.

3. Relationships – are they working?

They lived in a world of fragile relationships and frustrated ambitions, where each person had to look out for himself. So do we.

• It’s been called the ‘society of the unencumbered self’

• 30% of people have never spoken to their next door neighbour

• we work harder and earn more than ever before; and yet in 2001 doctors issued 22m prescriptions for depression

4. Spirituality – seeking answers beyond the material

And they lived in a world of occult activity and spiritual searching. So do we.

• spiritual experimentation – the occult explosion

• Linda’s slide

Conclusion

So what do we take from this little interruption into the flow of Paul’s letter? It’s where the emotional energy lies. It’s intensely personal, it contains his whole sense of life and mission. He knows that he has to speak this word, explain this revelation, announce this victory.

The result of this revelation? Well, it’s revealed not just to individual human beings but also to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. This is one of the passages we ignore at our peril. It tells us that there are whole dimensions which affect our lives which we can’t see – there is a spiritual realm, in which powerful spiritual beings live. But Jesus has already made known to those beings that things have changed on earth. The scene is set for a new way of living and being. All we have to do is live it out in practice, knowing that the powers which oppose us have been defeated:

In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Life won’t become a bed of roses. But what matters isn’t that, it’s the future. It’s the people of God, chosen, empowered, saved and united in the church. The church is where we begin to enter into the kingdom.

What then when things are still tough? Well, we don’t need to be discouraged. Paul wasn’t: his life had a purpose, and it was part of the purpose of God. So do ours.

I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.