Ephesians

Bryan Chapell

• Editorial: P Publishing
• Año: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781596384514
• Categoría: Teología y religión
• Categoría: Comentario bíblico

A redemptive-historical, homiletical commentary that unfolds Paul's glorious description of the ultimate triumph of the church, how it will occur, and what our roles are in Christ's ultimate victory.

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OUR CALLING

Ephesians 1:1–2

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph. 1:1–2)

Please pray—our church is in the fight for its life over the issue of polygamy. Please pray—rebel attacks came again this spring and forced our evacuation from the people we are trying to serve while they remain in great danger. Please pray that the catechism being formed by this new church will truly reflect the primacy of the gospel of grace and not simply establish the authority of local leaders to set new rules in reaction to generations of pagan customs. Please pray for my habitual tendency to be activity focused—acting as though my self-worth and God’s work depend on my ability to accomplish tasks.”

These prayer requests are from Rick Gray, a missionary who serves in Bundibugyo, Uganda. When I read such reports in his mission letters, the challenges that Rick faces often leave me marveling at his faith—and longing for it. Consider the overwhelming odds against which he labors: an entire society crippled by extreme poverty and torn by civil war; an indigenous church caught in familial and sexual sin that is culturally sanctioned and generations old; church leadership that seeks to combat such evil with authoritarian legalism; and a heart that tries to do ministry amid all these problems with a reflex reliance on “what I can do to fix it.”

The world outside and the world inside pose such imposing challenges that it would be understandable if Rick were to wilt or run, but he does neither. Somehow faith has granted him the ability to face the reality and the immensity of his challenges and still to serve with persistence, courage, and joy. What is the source of this ability to face a challenge greater than oneself with the expectation that God has a purpose in it—that one’s efforts are not in vain? This is something all Christians want to know because we understand what it means to face challenges greater than ourselves, even if our mission field is not Uganda but our neighborhood, workplace, or home.

We know what it means to face shortages of resources and not know how or if God will supply as we wish. Many of us also know what it means to face families whose problems run through generations, to face companies or churches so influenced by the sins of our culture that they cannot even see what is wrong. And we wonder how we will make any difference because sometimes we do not see the wrong either. The challenges that are greater than we are not just outside us; they also are inside us. If we dare to look inside, we see our failures to overcome besetting sin, our persistent doubts about our capabilities to do what God calls us to do in our own homes and personal lives, and our own heart’s resistance to the humbling freedom of the gospel. The immensity of the challenges outside and inside makes us want to wilt or run from God’s calling, too. “The challenge is too much, Lord. I can’t do this,” our hearts cry. So how do we face the challenges that are greater than our resources and resistance? The apostle Paul answers for us in the opening words of his letter to the Ephesians. His introduction signals the responses of faith needed to meet the great challenges of an outside culture and our inner heart.

AFFIRM THE SOURCE OF YOUR STRENGTH (1:1)

Paul has an immense challenge before him. He is to be an apostle—a chosen messenger of the Lord Jesus to the Ephesian Gentiles (Eph. 1:1a and Eph. 1:2a).¹ Not only is their culture historically opposed to the message of God’s covenantal love, but the covenant people—the Jews—are opposed to the Gentiles receiving that message. Immense barriers of cultural, historical, and racial differences confront the apostle. And what can he do about it? He is in prison under Roman guard.² We would understand if Paul simply said, “I give up, Lord; the obstacles are greater than I. You’ll just have to find someone else.” Yet Paul refuses to quit because he recognizes that his strength to face the obstacles lies in provisions beyond him: God’s Word and God’s will.

God’s Word (1:1)

When Paul says that he is an “apostle” of Christ Jesus, he is claiming to be an appointed messenger. The term is not incidental. The crucified Jesus who is the Christ—the Anointed One of the Jews, the long-prophesied Messiah, the One once dead but risen and alive with God, the King of the universe, the Lord who struck down the rampaging Saul on the road to Damascus to make him a redeeming voice to the Gentiles of the eternal love of God—this same Jesus Christ is the One for whom Paul has been called to speak. All of this means not only that Paul belongs to Christ Jesus, but also that Paul represents him so definitely that Paul’s message is Christ’s own message. When Paul speaks under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, Christ himself speaks. When Paul speaks of grace and peace to the Ephesians, “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” are bestowing their very own blessing on the people. What does it matter that Paul is in prison, that his deprivations are real, and that his opposition is great? He speaks for God, and knowing this fills him with courage and purpose for the challenges of his calling.

One might think that the special calling of Paul denies similar confidence to us. “After all,” one might reason, “I am not an apostle. So what does his assurance have to do with me?” The answer is that all believers benefit from his gift. Through the wisdom of his Lord, Paul provides a written record of God’s message that is still available to us. So when we speak faithfully these truths, the Word of God is yet ours. We may face opposition, resistance, and deprivation, but the knowledge that God is yet speaking to and through us means that we are not dependent on our wisdom or authority. Whether we speak to our culture in the public arena or to a lost friend in a family room in the wee hours of the morning, God is still speaking his truth through us. We are not dependent on our words alone. His Word is here for us, and that is a source of strength when we face the limitations of our powers and the immensity of our challenges.

God’s Will (1:1a)

Not only do we face challenges strengthened with the Word of God, but also with the will of God. Paul says that he is an apostle of Christ Jesus by “the will of God” (v. 1b).³ Against the great challenges that he is facing, this phrase is his defense, his offense, and his confidence.

Because Paul’s apostleship is the will of God, he can defend his right to speak. There was a time when Paul breathed out threats against those who confessed Jesus as Lord. He held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen. We could rightly question, “What right did he have to speak for God?” None at all, based on his record. But Paul is not an apostle because of his record. He is an apostle because of Christ’s redemption. Jesus had corrected him, claimed him, and commissioned him. Paul could well confess that he was the greatest of sinners, yet he could still speak for God, because it was God’s will for him to do so.

What a message of comfort that is for us, too. When others who know about our past life question what right we have to speak for God—when they know the faults and failings in our personal history, we can say like the apostle Paul, “Were my speaking based on my doing, then I would have no right to speak. But God corrected me, claimed me, and commissioned me to speak of himself. Because God wants me to speak, I have a right to speak.”

But the will of God was not only Paul’s defense that he had a right to speak, it was also his offense. Because his apostleship is the will of God, Paul could say to his hearers, “I have a right to speak, and you have a responsibility to listen.” Paul is about to say some hard things to the Ephesians. He knows how easy it is for them to belittle or ignore his words. But if his speaking is the will of God, then all must heed what he says. Because Paul’s calling is the will of God, he has authority.

The will of God is Paul’s defense, his offense, and, finally, his confidence. Not only does the “will of God” give Paul authority, it also creates a powerful expectation in him: “God has a purpose for me.” That is power. When a person believes that he or she has been called from darkness to light by a power greater than any challenge this world can offer, then where others see opposition that person sees opportunity.

Paul’s traveling companion, Luke, gives a wonderful picture of the power coming from the confidence that our calling is the will of God. Luke records that Paul did extraordinary miracles in his previous journey to Ephesus (Acts 19:11–12). As a result, many people began to believe on the Lord Jesus, openly confessed their sins, burned their valuable sorcery scrolls, and stopped buying idols from the silversmiths. Then a silversmith named Demetrius convened his fellow tradesmen and incited a riot. He said that the message of Paul was demeaning the goddess Artemis. The whole city erupted into uproar. A maddened mob seized whatever Christians they could find, hauled them to the city theater, and for two hours threatened violence, shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians.”

I have visited that great stone theater which seats twenty thousand people. Even today it is frightening to be there and to envision a huge throng screaming for the blood of these new Christians. But what was Paul doing in the midst of this great danger? He was confidently saying, “Let me at them now that they are all gathered together.” Paul’s friends had to hold him back from going before the mob. In God’s providence the city clerk told the people that if they did not settle down, the Romans would come and punish them for the riot, and that disbanded the crowd. But we do not doubt the confidence of Paul, who looked at a mob breathing for his blood as a providentially gathered congregation (see Acts 19:30).

What is the effect of our believing that God’s people are chosen for a divine purpose by the will of God? It is not simply affirming that some missionaries in far places speak because they believe that God has called them to that purpose. Instead, we believe that no challenge facing any of us is beyond God’s plan. When my friend and New Testament scholar Hans Bayer returns from ministry in economically depressed areas of the former Soviet Union, he grieves at overwhelming despair that can envelop an entire culture. Still, he returns to those areas again and again, because he says that he believes that God’s Word is real, and that it is yet God’s will to use his people who believe his Word to overcome overwhelming challenges.

We may face similar cause for despair, such as decades of abortion acceptance in our culture of promiscuity. Yet when we believe that the Word of God has spoken and that it is the will of God to use his people to overcome the greatest challenges, we will not only still dare to speak—we will also bother to speak. When we face the consequences and devastation of generations in poverty, we still fight for justice because we know the Savior we serve still delights in mercy and ministers his grace through it. When we face unbelief, ridicule, and long resistance to the gospel in our own families, we will not give up because of the faith that God’s Word can be on our lips. We will believe that God’s will in choosing us as his servants is our defense (even though others know our weakness), our offense (even though others may say we have no right to speak), and our confidence (even when there is little likelihood of change from a human perspective).

From where does this confidence come that God’s will and Word enable us to overcome such overwhelming challenges? The apostle’s starting point is important. Paul himself is an apostle because of the will of God (again, v. 1a). What is before his own eyes is how distant and opposed to the gospel was his own heart when Christ called him. The greatest witness to Paul of the great power of the gospel is its claim on his own heart. When he was Christ’s enemy, God called him. When there was no desire to seek Jesus, the Savior made this Pharisee of the Jews an apostle of Jesus. Paul has been transferred from one universe to another, and it is plain to him that this was not and could not be his own doing but, rather, the sovereign work of God.

Once when I was attending a church meeting, this sovereign work became apparent to me. We were facing some difficult issues that could have caused us to despair. But in the middle of our discussions one man recounted how he came to Christ. Then another did the same. Then another. One after another, more men told the story of their salvation. One told of how he grew up in a non-Christian family; another had lived a hard and rebellious life of thirty years in the military, laughing at men of faith; another acknowledged that his college days were marked by sin and the assumption that Christians were crazy. Each said that the only explanation for their new lives was that God had acted in their behalf and turned their world upside down. Many believers could say the same: “I was caught up in business pursuits . . . caught in a web of immorality and deceit . . . immersed in secular philosophy . . . raised in a non-Christian family . . . sinking in cynicism and despair . . . when God lifted me up.” There is no other explanation. God did something that cannot be explained and no one else could arrange. God changes the world by his will. This is what Paul says, and the affirmation gives him confidence in the face of his challenges.

The greatest evidence to Paul of the power of God’s Word and will to overcome overwhelming opposition is the work of God in his own life. His apostleship is not only for the attestation of the truths of God, it is testimony to the power of God—a message that life can be different, that change is possible, that the greatest challenges to the gospel can be overcome. Paul rejoices in words not unlike those from the hymn that reminds us God is “the power of my power.” Paul starts with this testimony because he knows that the Ephesians (as well as we) need to know the source and strength of spiritual power in light of what he must say next.

ACKNOWLEDGE THE STRENGTH OF YOUR OPPOSITION (1:1B-C)

Paul affirms the source of our strength, in order to help us properly acknowledge the nature of our opposition. Though it can seem overwhelming, it can be overcome.

The Opposition Seems Overwhelming (1:1b)

Our eyes do not make the appropriate U-turn at the second half of verse 1 because we are unfamiliar with the ancient world. When Paul says his letter is to the “saints” in Ephesus, we rarely catch the significance.⁴ We do not recognize that in modern terms this is something like saying his letter is to the Christians in Iran or the evangelicals working at MTV. The phrases do not seem to go together because the challenges to faith in the place these believers live are so strong.

Ephesus was the fourth or fifth largest city in the world of Paul’s time. The sheer numbers would seem to overwhelm any new faith message. A missionary who flew over Calcutta for the first time sensed similar futility. Seeing the sheer mass of humanity below made him wonder what difference he could make in the city. The only thing that made him stay, said the missionary, was the belief that God was in Calcutta ahead of him...