Title: Introduction to The Prison Epistles and The Book of EphesiansText: Ephesians Scripture Intro:[Slide 1] Turn in your bible to the book of Ephesians. In a few moments I will ask 6 readers to come to the front to read a chapter of this amazing book. At any time during this intro, if you would like to volunteer to read, you may come up to the front and have a seat. You don’t have to wait until the end to do so. Today we begin a lengthy series covering the Prison Epistles. Let me get the preliminary questions out of the way before we dive in. What are the Prison Epistles? Hey, that’s a great question! The Prison Epistles are a group of letters written by Paul so named because they all are written while Paul is in prison. In fact, based on who Paul sends with the letters, we assume they were all written during the same imprisonment. Which one? We’ll save that for our introduction to the book of Ephesians. But for now, that is why these books are called the Prison Epistles. What books are included in the Prison Epistles? Another amazing question! The prison epistles include four letters. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. Hey wait, didn’t you already preach through Philemon? Wow! You remember that long ago? Yes! I did. While I was candidating to be the pastor here, I preached a two-part series on the book of Philemon. Since it was not recorded and since I wasn’t officially the pastor yet, I thought it might be cool to preach through the book again 10 years later. 😊 So, 4 books, how long is this gonna take? Again, you have some great questions! I’m not a prophet, but after preaching through 15 New Testament books in my 10 years here, you can gather the data points to get an idea of about how long I usually take to preach thought by thought through a book. I am estimating that this entire series will take anywhere from 50-75 sermons to complete. Which puts us at probably a year and a half to complete it, give or take a month. So, why the prison epistles? You all are on fire with the questions today! I actually really wanted to study the prison epistles right after we finished the book of Acts but because the prison epistles contain many of the same themes and because it would be another lengthy study, I felt the Lord lead me to something else which is why we studied 1 and 2 Thessalonians. But my initial desire to study the Prison Epistles after Acts stemmed from the date discussion we will have in just a moment concerning the book of Ephesians, so I’ll save those details until then. I think that is most of the initial questions before we actually dive into the series and the book intro. But before we do – let’s take a moment to ask the Lord to be with us this morning. [Slide 2] Series or Four Independent books?This morning I have been, perhaps, a little unclear on what exactly we are doing. I am talking about a series and also about a book study. So, the question arises, are these four letters independent of one another or are they a series? Well because they are written to four distinct audiences, I have to say that this is really more of four independent books than a true series. However, the themes of Ephesians and Colossians are so similar it is hard to imagine that there is no connection between the books. Philemon and Philippians are outliers though. Philippians is very different from Ephesians and Colossians thematically and Philemon isn’t written to a church at all but to one person… a man named Philemon. Nevertheless, because Paul probably wrote these in such a short time, I can’t help but see them together, even if they are probably more of 4 independent studies. So, we will loosely introduce this as a series and preach through them accordingly. I plan to cover them in canonical order. There is some debate over which letter is sent first. But thematically, if we go through Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and then Philemon – the topics we address will never get stale. I say that because Ephesians and Colossians are remarkably similar. Although Colossians is a good deal shorter and much more argumentative than Ephesians, it is estimated that a little over half of what is said in Ephesians is also found in identical expressions in Colossians. Separating our study of Ephesians and Colossians with Philippians will be a good break between them. But this point about Ephesians and Colossians being so similar is what brings us to the debate over authorship. [Slide 3] Authorship:Really until the Enlightenment and the modern era, no one in the history of the church questioned whether or not Paul wrote the book of Ephesians. It has been only recently that many have supposed that a person posing as Paul took up the style and content of Paul’s letter to the Colossians and endeavored to write a letter that seemed like it was Paul’s but it actually wasn’t. There are, of course, MANY difficulties with assuming that this is the case with the book of Ephesians. First, Paul is named directly. He identifies himself as the author. Although this doesn’t dismiss the possibility of someone pretending to be Paul, it does change the argument from one of authorship to one of canonicity. If someone claims to be someone they aren’t… what do we call that? Yes. A lie. And if this letter is supposed to be inspired of God, can God lie? No. So if Paul is not the author of this book, this book doesn’t belong in the bible. Plain and simple. Second, if Paul wrote Colossians and Ephesians at the same time, we might expect him to have similar themes and expressions distributed in these letters. In fact, Tychicus is identified as the messenger delivering Ephesians and Colossians, almost assuring us that they were sent together. Colosse is actually fairly close to Ephesus, so the issues that Paul is addressing in Colosse could be just as pertinent to the Ephesians too. So why not write the same things to two different churches? But one of the biggest challenges to Pauline authorship is identifying who exactly the audience is for this book we call, Ephesians. [Slide 4] Original Audience:Astute readers will see the name of the book and read verse 1 of the first chapter and wonder why this is uncertain. It says Ephesians and Paul addresses this to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Case closed! Well, not exactly. There are three big challenges to this letter being written to the church in Ephesus. First, the words “at Ephesus” do not appear in the earliest manuscripts we have of this letter. It says, “To the saints who are and faithful in Christ Jesus”. Second, Marcion, a second century gnostic heretic, who made waves trying to control what books were included in the canon and what books weren’t, wrote about this letter that Paul wrote, only he said that Paul wrote it to the Laodiceans. Finally, as we scour the book of Ephesians, it is quite interesting to discover that Paul never once names anyone, nor does he call out any particular problem or issue that he is addressing that is unique to Ephesus. In fact, Ephesians is the only book in the entire Pauline corpus that we can look at and say – there is no reason that Paul HAD to write this. There is no issue he is addressing or heresy he is correcting. Because of this, some modern scholars doubt the Pauline authorship of Ephesians and attribute it to a cunning imposter who doesn’t say anything specific so he won’t get caught. But one main problem with this line of argumentation is that the early church did not look highly upon works pretending to be written by apostles or other famous people in the church. From the earliest records we have, no one, not even Marcion the heretic, doubted that Paul wrote this book. This is because, typically, Paul sent his letters WITH people who vouched for the letter as having been written by the person who signed it. Although that might put to bed the uncertainty about the authorship, it still doesn’t answer our questions about who is the original audience of this book? Well, let’s go back to the manuscripts that omit the phrase “at Ephesus”. See the problem with that is that syntactically, that Greek sentence, although technically correct, is quite awkward. [Slide 5] I have put the two possible ways to translate it on the screen here. Keep in mind that the Greek word “and” can also be translated “also” “To the saints who are and faithful in Christ Jesus” is really awkward both in English and in Greek. Paul is talking about their existence and their faithfulness… If he just mentions their faithfulness, he need not mention their existence. “To the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus” is also really awkward in Greek and also Theologically. This isn’t normally how we’d see the word “also” used in Greek and for Paul to express that they are saints and that somehow in addition to that, they are also faithful in Christ Jesus, is problematic to say the least. How can you be a saint and NOT be faithful in Jesus Christ? What does this mean? It could mean that “at Ephesus” was omitted on accident, or, that those words were NOT present in the original letter that Paul sent, but a blank space was. Most scholars conclude that Ephesians was a circular letter. Ephesus, like many modern cities, had many villages and suburbs surrounding the city where the gospel had no doubt spread in the five years that Paul had been absent from them. Ephesus is also very close to several other city churches mentioned in the New Testament. Cities like Smyrna, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, and Miletus among others a little further away. The thought is that since the book of Ephesians is not addressing a particular problem or issue in a church, that it was probably copied several times and sent to Ephesus first and also various cities surrounding Ephesus, and Tychicus was instructed to simply write in the name of the city he brought the letter to. This view is not without its problems though. It is difficult to believe that with the cost of scrolls and the risk of sending letters to various churches, that Paul would have written the several copies of the same letter to several churches. It would have cost him a fortune and put Tychicus at great risk. Furthermore, if Paul knew what cities he was sending these letters to, why didn’t he simply fill in the name of the city prior to sending it with Tychicus. And why do almost all of our translations still call it Ephesians and have the words “at Ephesus” in the text? Although a few early manuscripts omit “at Ephesus”, the VAST majority and some of them quite early, HAVE the phrase. Furthermore, several early church fathers, many of whom are second generation disciples, name Ephesus as the destination for this letter. [Slide 6] Which leads me back to an improbable but perhaps most sensical conclusion. The early manuscripts omitted the phrase “at Ephesus” on accident or were copied from a source that omitted the phrase on accident. But God has preserved for us, by tradition and broader manuscript evidence, the actual intended audience of this book as the church in Ephesus. If that is the case, why is Paul not writing any specifics? Perhaps because he intended to send it to the villages surrounding Ephesus as well as the church in the city too. This would mean that although some would read it whom he knew, many would read it whom he did NOT know. Or perhaps because Paul didn’t have any occasion to write to them, but did wish to convey to them the message of this book. [Slide 7] So, now that we’ve talked through that – Where is Ephesus and what is the culture like there? Ephesus is situated at the mouth of the Cayster river on the east side of the Aegean Sea. [Slide 8] The city was best known for the temple to Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. [Slide 9] Of course, when Paul visited many of the converts to Christ gave up their witchcraft and burned their spell books, putting a mighty dent in the economy. So religiously, Ephesus is a very dark place with ties to paganism and the occult. [Side 10] Ephesus was also an important political, educational, and commercial center sitting on a port giving access to the greater part of Asia and Galatia. When Paul arrived, the church was already established. Pricila and Aquila had helped Apollos discover that the Christ he was preaching had already come, and His name was Jesus of Nazareth. Apollos then went to Corinth to continue the work in that church. So, the church of Ephesus was not initially founded by Paul, but was certainly expanded under his 3-year apostolic ministry. [Slide 11] Of course, we know that Paul left to go to Jerusalem and was arrested and kept in prison for quite some time before being shipped to Rome to stand before Caesar. [Slide 12] We also know that Timothy eventually is called to pastor the church there at Ephesus and deal with some problems that were arising there – Female leadership, heresies, and fights over myths and genealogies being a few of them. And thirty years later the church at Ephesus is again mentioned by the apostle John in the book of Revelation, as one that although it had not succumbed to heresy, had unfortunately left its first love and allowed its love for Christ and His church to grow cold. Many scholars think that prior to John being sent to the prison island of Patmos, he was in Ephesus after the fall of Jerusalem. So, he would be uniquely positioned to write about the state of Ephesus and what the church had become in about 1 generation from its founding. [Slide 13] Ephesus and the church founded there were central to the first century spread of Christianity. And as a church positioned where it was in the Roman Empire, there is, perhaps, no better church to send the letter of Ephesians to. More on that in a minute. So, when does Paul write this to the Ephesians? [Slide 14] Date:Since Paul ministered at the church in Ephesus on his third missionary journey, we can easily rule out any imprisonments that occurred before that. However, Paul was imprisoned by the Jews, Felix, Festus, was a prisoner aboard a ship, then on the island of Malta, and then again under house arrest in Rome, was then released and imprisoned again before he was executed. All this occurred in a span of about 10 years. So, we must wonder, when is the most likely time that he would have had a chance to write to the churches of Ephesus, Colosse, Philippi and to a man named Philemon. Due to the time, provisions, and freedoms that would be necessary to write such letters, the relationship of these letters to other Pauline letters, as well as tradition of the church, it seems best to see this letter written during the period that he was under house arrest in Rome. He had many freedoms to have visitors, he had access to materials to send letters as well as people who could transport them to where he sent them. This is why I wanted to study these books after Acts. Because it would pick up right where Luke left off. That would put the date of Ephesians between AD 60-62. Because the themes of Ephesians and Colossians line up and the belief that Philemon was an Ephesian, these three letters seem to have been written and sent simultaneously while Philippians could have occurred later or earlier. [Slide 15] Occasion:As we’ve said already, Ephesians is an odd duck since Paul is not specifically addressing any problem, heresy, issue, or occasion unique to the Ephesian church. But that DOESN’T mean that the letter of Ephesians is sent for no reason. In fact, many scholars deem this letter to be Paul’s crowning achievement, even above Romans. So much so that some scholars argue, albeit unconvincingly, that Ephesians was written as a preamble or a cover letter to the entire collection of all Paul’s letters. Again, this is unconvincing for several reasons. But it does go to show you just how rich this book is. And indeed, after reading it through several times this past week, I can already tell there are some absolutely HUGE themes. My guess for the occasion of this letter is that Paul, being aware of Luke’s two-part tome on the gospel of Jesus and the beginning of the church, wrote Ephesians as a sermon to proclaim the same teachings Luke was saying in his narrative history. That being said, what is the purpose of the book of Ephesians? [Slide 16] Purpose:Paul’s main doctrinal point happens immediately in the first chapter. He proclaims that God the Father has a cosmic plan to reconcile all of creation to Himself and that plan centers on the glory and headship of Jesus Christ, His Son. His application, which occurs in the second half of the letter, is how specifically the church must participate in that cosmic plan. 1.) Paul attacks his main point with feverish doxology praising God for His absolute monergistic and sovereign role in the salvation of a people to Himself through His Son so that His Son would be over all.2.) He progresses this idea by teaching that God not only individually reconciled Gentiles and Jews to Himself through His Son, but that in Christ He is also reconciling two men (Jew and Gentile) into one new man.3.) Then Paul begins to apply this plan of God to how the church must participate. He speaks of unity, growth, separation from the world, rejecting our former ways and imitating God.4.) Then Paul talks about the need of the church not only to grow and expand but to stand firm against the forces of darkness. Paul warns that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. The enemy of the church is not human… it is ancient, malevolent, and powerful. But he leaves no doubt… if we take up God’s armor… we will stand. And when we stand, we play our part in God’s cosmic plan to reconcile every dimension of His creation… to Himself through Christ as its Head. This… is a POWERFUL book. And if you leave this study thinking that the church today, or our church specifically, is living up to the place God gives it in this plan… then I will have failed you as a preacher. My friends… this one is gonna hurt. So, what are some key themes that will bring the pain? [Slide 17] Key Themes: 1.) All mankind, Jew or Gentile, born in false religious homes or born in Christian homes, all mankind is BY NATURE, meaning who we are naturally from conception, spiritually dead, transgressors of the law, under the rule of Satan, and deserving of the wrath of God.2.) God monergisticly (by Himself) saves His church by predestining, electing, drawing, and regenerating them by pure grace, so that through faith we might be saved in Christ to do the good deeds He has designed for us to do and be His body on earth.3.) God’s salvation of His church is into the New Man Jesus Christ. There is no Jewish church and Gentile church. There is one church which inherits all the promises of God given to the commonwealth of Israel. Christ is the New Israel. Not that Israel is replaced by the church or that there is no room for Mosaic law practicing Jews in the church. But that there is no divide in Christ.4.) The church must be a reunified humanity that is reconciled to God, the House of God, the body of Christ, the Heirs of the commonwealth of Israel, the bride of Christ, the Army of God, and the wisdom of God displayed to angelic rulers.5.) [Slide 18] Even though called a house of God, this temple must continue to grow and expand.6.) The church must separate from the world and imitate God in all they do including in every relationship they have with other human beings.7.) The church must weather the assault of ancient evil beings with God’s armor as He continues to put all things under His feet. Indeed, God will crush Satan under our feet. [Slide 19] Words and concepts to keep an eye out for: 1.) The phrase “In Him” or “In Christ” is mentioned more times in this book than any other letter of Paul’s.2.) Look for the images or pictures Paul points to of the church.3.) Look out for the word mystery.4.) Look out for cosmic language such as heavens and dominions and principalities and powers. [Slide 20] Theological Challenges and Spicy Topics 1.) The first chapter is going to be VERY heavy. If you have not submitted to the teaching of predestination and God’s sovereign election of those whom He will save… the first chapter is gonna be a bumpy ride for you. But, maybe it will be what finally convinces you that God is sovereign over who He saves. I hope it does… because that is exactly what it teaches.2.) Are we sinners by nature or must we sin to become sinners. This book will strongly affirm the ancient doctrine of original sin. Original meaning pertaining to the origin of our sin. Which is what the Greek word “nature” means.3.) We will argue about what is a gift of God in chapter 2. Is it faith or grace or salvation?4.) We will struggle through the implications of Gentiles inheriting the promises of Israel and what that might mean for Israel today.5.) [Slide 21] We will seek clarity at what it means that there is only one baptism.6.) We will wonder what it means that Jesus descended to the lower parts of the earth.7.) We will endure the toe smashing of the put off put on principle.8.) We will address submission of wives and love of husbands and what that means and doesn’t mean.9.) [Slide 22] We’ll talk about principalities and powers and how we don’t wrestle against human beings. At least not ultimately. [Slide 23] Outline of Ephesians 1.) The Father’s plan of cosmic reconciliation: The Glory and Headship of Christ (1:1-1:14)a. Greeting and recipients (1)b. Prayer for grace and peace from God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2)c. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing of heaven in Christ (3-14)2.) [Slide 24] Prayer that all believers may know this plan, God’s power to bring it about, and their place in it. (1:15-23)a. Paul thanks God that he has heard that the Gentiles there have believed on Jesus and are loving like Jesus (15-16)b. Paul prays that they’d be given spiritual wisdom to understand even more about God’s plan of cosmic reconciliation. (17-23)3.) [Slide 25] How God is accomplishing His plan of cosmic reconciliation (2:1-3:21)a. God saves individuals by grace (2:1-10)b. Christ reconciles two men in to one man (2:11-18)c. Christ unifies Jew and Gentile into one House, one temple, one family. (2:19-22)d. God’s wisdom is revealed through the church He has made (3:1-13)e. Paul is continually praying that all believers would have a deeper understanding of God’s power and love to be filled with the fullness of God (3:14-19)f. Paul prays to God who is able to do this and gives glory to Christ, closing out his doctrinal section (3:20-21)4.) [Slide 26] How the church must participate in God’s plan for cosmic reconciliation (4:1-6:20)a. The church must practice unity in love (4:1-6)b. The church must grow in spiritual maturity (4:7-16)c. The church must put off the ways of the world and put on God’s ways. (4:17-5:21)d. The church must practice relational submission and love. (5:22-6:9)e. The church must stand firm against the forces of darkness in the strength of God (6:10-20)5.) Conclusion, Greetings, and Benediction (6:21-24)a. Tychicus has been sent to inform them how Paul is doing (21-22)b. Peace and love and Grace is hoped for by Paul to them from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (23-24) Read Ephesians[Slide 27 (end)] As I said already, this book, is gonna hurt. There is a lot in here that has already kicked me in the teeth and I can’t wait to study it further with you. Let me pray and ask the Lord’s blessing on our study for the next several weeks. As I pray, the six readers can queue up to read the text this morning.