Ephesians 2

A picture of the Clintons at the Library in Ephesus.

Review:

God, according to his will, chose/elected/predestined believers to be adopted, holy & blameless, redeemed, and forgiven.

Believers know the mystery of God's will.

Believers have been sealed with the HS, who is a deposit guarnateeing our inheritance until we are redeemed.

Paul says:

Ever since I found out about you believers in Ephesus I have:

-thanked God for you all continually

-prayed for you all

-been asking God to give you all wisdom & revelation

-prayed that you believers may know:

-the hope to which you were called

-God's great power

What is the mystery of God's will?

What is the hope to which we were called?

Chapter 2

1-10 What the believers at Ephesus were on their own - separated by sin

11-13 What Gentiles were on their own - separated by nationality

14-17 How Jesus has made peace between Jews and Gentiles by making them into one group

18-22 Both groups access God in the same way and become equal citizens in God's household

Chapter 2 seems to go along way in counter acting what could have sounded like prideful and presumptuous statements in Chapter 1.

If anyone is great it is God, not us, or God in us, not us on our own.

What does it mean that "faith is not of yourselves it is a gift of God"?

How is faith different than "works" (things that we do on our own)?

Chapter 2 could be read as a corrective to something that is going on within the Ephesian group of believers. So what might it be correcting? Were Gentiles believers getting out of control and bossing the Jewish believers around? or were the Jewish believers treating the Gentile believers as second class citizens? What do you think? Is there a parallel dynamic in our churches?

What do you think Jews would have considered authorities in regard to their faith?

What does Paul list as the authorities that make up the foundation of God's household?

Pastors and Bible scholars love to argue about whether God still has a plan for ethnic Israel (separate from that of Gentile believers) or whether God now considers all believers to be the true Israel.

Does this passage shed any light on that debate for you?

Is it a debate even worth having? (All eschatology, understandings of Jesus returning, OT prophets, and Revelation means, rest on which conclusion you come to.)