Introduction to Ephesians — Queen of the Epistles

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.

Ephesians 3:10

Ephesians is the epistle that ranks high among devotional Scripture. It has a dear place in the history of the Church and clearly defines the purpose of the Church. She is called, by some scholars, the “Queen of Epistles”.

Although the universal church is invisible to the naked eye, the visible church is the local congregation of God’s people. This is a place where the pure word is preached, the Great Commission followed, and lost souls meet their Savior, Christ Jesus. We need to understand the purpose of the universal church if we’re to understand God’s intent for His people.

Immediately, Paul reminds us about who he is: an apostle by the will of God. It’s like he’s saying, “Wake up! Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Church — the one body of Christ, including every faithful follower of Christ.”

Interestingly enough, Paul wrote this letter when he was in prison. He calls himself “a prisoner of the Lord” and an “ambassador in chains.” Ephesians was written near the end of his life. Although Paul wrote every letter with truth and fortitude, I wouldn’t call Ephesians his last will and testament. However, we should note how clearly Ephesians presents the truth to ensure we are informed and equipped in our role as Christ followers.

Circular Letter

If you take your time, you will notice that Paul is addressing primarily the Gentiles. We who were grafted in as strangers to the covenant of promise (2:11-12) are now the primary members of the Church, less the completed Jews who have accepted Christ as the Messiah. I love the way the Lord does things. It’s almost as if Paul is writing to us right now and the ink is still wet.

Adding to the uniqueness of this letter is that although Paul spent three years in Ephesus, we see no personal greetings or messages hidden in the letter. A brief look at Acts 20:17-35 provides us a window into the heart of Paul as he affectionately says farewell to the elders of Ephesus.

Scholars discovered that the earlier transcripts were not addressed to the Ephesian Church, but to the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Many have formed their speculations, but it’s not worth going down any rabbit trails and missing the point. The best answer, is that it’s a “circular” letter, purposed to be passed on from church to church and so on. I’m glad because we are blessed to sit here with Scripture in our hands, written in a prison cell, circulated, transcribed, bound, preserved and translated for our hearts and eyes only.

We learn that Tychicus was the servant of Christ delivering Paul’s letters to the churches: see Ephesians 6:21 and Col 4:7. He was sent to Ephesus (2 Tim 4:12) and possibly to Crete (Titus 3:12).

Given some thought, I’m curious about what churches he visited and what they talked about as they ate and drank together. I have no doubt that this letter was read “out-loud”. But I do not know if he went to the Church of Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, or Laodicia? I can only imagine that as he read it, I imagine that as he read to them, his faith multiplied. Indeed, he was prepared to die for Christ, and so he did just that — tradition holds that he died a martyr.

Lost Their First Love

When this letter reaches the Ephesians, they were known for their faithfulness and yet by the time we meet them in Revelation, they have lost their first love. What happened? Does this letter tell us how they could have avoided such a change in their heart?

How do we stay balanced — knowing the requirements of the Church while drawing ever closer in a personal, intimate relationship with the Lord?

The answer is in the practice of Spiritual Disciplines. So, along with the study, we will learn what the early church knew and found uncompromisingly true: That Spiritual Disciplines are as important as the breath we breathe. They strengthen our faithfulness, cultivate our love relationship with God in Christ Jesus, and the reward is priceless — intimate knowledge of the Holy.

If we did a survey of churches, I wonder how many know and practice Spiritual Disciplines. How many even teach them to the congregation?

We’re going to take our time, to learn Spiritual Disciplines as we walk through the book of Ephesians — “Queen of Epistles”. Trust me, after years of study and practice, I know for certain that they’re biblical and, most importantly, they’re key to our “with-God life”. Try not to think of them as mere exercises in piety. I believe that had the Ephesian Church ignored these spiritual disciplines, then they would have never lost their first love.

Spiritual Disciplines for Every Disciple of Christ

• The With-God Life: Spend a little time in the Bible, and you’ll discover that it’s all about human life “with God.” The “with God” life is what God made us for, and making it possible to live with Him every day. “Immanuel” means “God is with us”. It is the title given to Christ, our Redeemer, because it refers to God’s everlasting intent for human life: in every way a dwelling place of God.
• Celebration: Utter delight and joy in ourselves, in our life, and in our world because of our faith and confidence in God’s greatness, beauty, and goodness
• Chastity: Purposefully turning away for a time from dwelling on or engaging in the sexual dimensions of your relationship with others (even our husband or wife) and thus learning how not to be governed by this powerful aspect of your life.
• Confession: Sharing your deepest weaknesses and failures with God and trusted others. The purpose of this discipline is simple — it allows you to enter God’s grace and mercy and, in-turn experience His lifelong forgiveness and healing.
• Fasting: The voluntary absence from an otherwise normal function — most often eating — for the sake of intense spiritual activity.
• Fellowship: Engaging with other disciples in common activities of worship, study, prayer, celebration, and service. This discipline, if experienced rightly, sustains your life together and enlarges your capacity to experience more of God in community.
• Guidance: Experiencing an interactive friendship with God who gives direction and purpose to daily life. He/she who walks in the Holy Spirit walks with God.
• Meditation: Important exercise in drawing near to God with your mind, heart, and soul. It requires prayerful, deep and contemplative thoughts on God, His Word, and the world He created.
• Prayer: Simply an interactive conversation with God about what you and other disciples are thinking and doing together with Him.
• Sacrifice: Deliberately forsaking the security of satisfying your needs with your resources by trusting ultimately that God Himself will sustain us.
• Secrecy: Well known as “not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing”. You intentionally refrain from letting others know your good deeds and qualities purely with a longing for recognition.
• Service: We are the Lord’s servants, and should act like it. Not begrudgingly, but with love, thoughtfulness, and actively promoting the goodwill of others and God’s purpose for humanity. This may require “little deaths” because we are required to go beyond ourselves to fulfill the servant’s role.
• Silence: We live in a noisy world. It takes a concerted move to close off your soul from “sounds”, whether noise, music, or words. The rewards are worth it, as we still the inner chatter of our noisy hearts and set our attention on God alone. It is impossible to hear His voice amid such a distractive world.
• Simplicity/Frugality: A single-hearted focus upon God and His ways will cause a change of life, thought, and desires. Your outward lifestyle will be modest, open, and unpretentious. Your hunger for status, glamour, and luxury will be history. But, first, exercise simplicity and frugality.
• Solitude: One of my favorite disciplines and yet, at first, one of the hardest, was solitude. To be found by God, I had to create an open space intentionally by purposefully abstaining from interaction with other human beings, freeing myself from every competing loyalty.
• Study: Through study, we intentionally engage our minds with the written and spoken Word of God and the world He has created. This intentional process helps our minds develop the required order to focus on God’s order, pushing aside chaos and allowing God’s order to shape our thinking.
• Submission: Until we are subordinate and dependent solely on God, then “submission” is a dirty word. Subordination is the act we take to the guidance of God as we live in community. Within the Christian fellowship, there should be a constant mutual subordination, out of reverence for Christ, which opens the way for respectful subordination to those who are qualified to direct our efforts to live the “with God” life. Then they add the weight of their wise authority on the side of our willing spirit to do the things we would like to do and refrain from doing the things we should not or rather would not do.
• Worship: Expressing in words, music, rituals, and silent adoration the greatness, beauty, and goodness of God, through which we enter the supernatural reality of the shekinah, or glory, of God. This discipline is done in private as well as in community.

If you were to study Christian History, you would discover that the Spiritual Disciplines have proven extremely valuable.

Below is a quote from D. Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), a Welsh Congregationalist minister and medical doctor and faithfully pastored Westminster Chapel in London for 30 years. He was a prominent evangelical of his time.

Look at the lives of those men and the time they gave to Scripture reading and prayer and various other forms of self-examination and spiritual exercises. They believed in the culture and the discipline of the spiritual life, and it was because they did so that God rewarded them by giving them these gracious manifestations of Himself and these mighty experiences which warmed their hearts. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones.

In prison, Paul had eyes to see what had escaped him in the hustle and bustle of ministry: God has a plan for the church, and that plan does includes the members of the Church. We meet in sacred assembly and unity as the body of Christ. Without Spiritual Disciplines, it’s difficult to meet in sacred assembly and unity.

Justin Martyr (100-165) was a powerful teacher, writer, and ultimately a martyr. The word “martyr” does not come from his name. It comes originally from the ancient Greek legal term for “witness” and Justin Martyr, without a doubt, was a testimony and evidence of what it means never to lose your first love.

No one makes us afraid or leads us into captivity as we have set our faith on Jesus. For though we are beheaded, and crucified, and exposed to beasts and chains and fire and all other forms of torture, it is plain that we do not forsake the confession of our faith, but the more things of this kind which happens to us the more are there others who become believers and truly religious through the name of Jesus. Justin Martyr.