Year 2, Day 144: Ephesians 3

The Mystery of the Gospel.

In the modern world, we like to talk about the mystery of the Gospel as Jesus Christ bringing salvation to the world.  We talk about the mystery of the Gospel as how and why God would pay the price for humanity.  But here in the book of Ephesians, the mystery is narrowed a bit.  Ephesians 3:6 says, “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.”

Do you hear the refinement?  The mystery is centered on the inclusion of the Gentiles.  That’s the really dumbfounding part for Paul and the rest of the Jews.  They always knew that a Messiah would come for God’s chosen – or at least those among God’s chosen who would believe.  They knew that God loved human beings – or at least a specific subset of humanity.

The inconceivable part of what happened through Christ is that the Gentiles have a part in the promise!  The inconceivable part of God’s grace is that those completely outside of God’s promise were given a free ticket inside!  The inconceivable part for the Jew is that God can love the whole world regardless of whether the whole world wants to obey ever single portion of God’s Law.

On one hand, it might be argued that this isn’t quite so inconceivable.  After all, aren’t all people sinful and fallen short of the glory of God?  Is not Christ the only way to salvation regardless of Jew or Gentile?  From this perspective it isn’t inconceivable because all people must rely upon Christ.

However, what is inconceivable is that God didn’t owe anything to the Gentiles.  Granted, He didn’t owe anything to the Jews, either.  But He had promised the Jews that a Messiah would come.  God had made a promise and because He is God He is true to His promises.  But no such promise had been made to the Gentiles.  Thus, the inconceivable part is that God was under no obligation to do anything for the Gentiles – and God showed His supreme grace by including us into His free gift of salvation.  God’s grace is inconceivable!

As Christians, we like to think of the mystery of the Gospel as the fact that God sent Jesus to die for our sake.  And that is absolutely a mystery.  But in Ephesians, Paul is refining that mystery to an even more specific mystery.  God sent Jesus to die even for the Gentiles.

Paul’s Prayer

Then we turn to Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians.  At this point we have a full understanding of Paul’s wordiness.  But if we are diligent, we can truly scope out the reason that Paul says he prays.  He prays so that the Ephesians would have the strength to comprehend God’s agenda and the knowledge of the love of Christ.  Paul’s prayer is for the Ephesian community and their spirituality.

I find this point really neat.  It is how it should be.  We should be praying for the spirituality of one another.  We should be praying and hoping that God increases the spirituality in one another.

The question that I find myself asking is: is that really what we pray for?  When we pray, do we really ask God to increase each other’s faith?  Are our prayers centered upon what God knows we need or what we self-discern that we need?

Don’t we often pray for ourselves and our own desires?  Do we pray for stuff we’d like to have?  Do we just pray for problems in our life – or the lives of others – that need resolved on our own timeline as we impatiently wait for God to do something about it?

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think that praying for our concerns and our worries is bad.  But in the greater scheme of things, what is really more important?  Are our own self-discerned needs what is important or is us learning to wait upon the Lord that which is important?

I don’t know about you, but I could really stand to finally learn this lesson from Paul.  I could stand to learn to pray less about my worries and concerns and pray more for the increase in spirituality in the people around me – especially those with whom I relate with any frequency.  I should be about concern for their spiritual lives – far more than I should be concerned about my needs.  After all, in the end are my temporal needs more important than the spiritual relationship between God and the people who love Him?

Again, please don’t get me wrong.  We can absolutely pray for our needs and our concerns.  Jesus Himself directs us to do so when He says that whatever we genuinely ask for in His name we shall receive.  {See John 15:16 and John 16:23.}  But we should not forget to pray for the things even more important than our needs.  We should pray for the spirituality of His people and the world around us in general.  After all, that is what we have been called to be about in this world.  Christ told His disciples to go and make disciples.  They are to baptize and teach what Christ commanded.  We are to be about the work of spirituality in this world.  It only makes sense that if spirituality is our focus in action that it should be our focus in prayer, too.

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