SHOW NOTES: - Head to our Start Page for all you need to begin! - Join the RECAPtains - Check out the TBR Store - Show credits FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Video: Ephesians Overview - Video: Philippians Overview BIBLE READING & LISTENING: Follow along on the Bible App, or to listen to the Bible, try Dwell! SOCIALS: The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok D-Group: Instagram | Facebook TLC: Instagram | Facebook D-GROUP: D-Group is brought to you by the same team that brings you The Bible Recap. TBR is where we read the Bible, and D-Group is where we study the Bible. D-Group is an international network of Bible study groups that meet weekly in homes, churches, and online. Find or start one near you today! DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact. Links to specific resources and content: This is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc.. Their views may not represent our own.
Full Episode
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. For our New Testament readers, we just finished our 15th book. And for our full Bible readers, we finished book 54. Ephesus is in modern-day Turkey.
However, some scholars believe this book in particular may have been intended as some sort of mass email to lots of churches in the area, which could be one reason why it doesn't address any specific problems or offer rebukes, and instead seems to serve as more of a general encouragement and vision-casting letter. Chapter 1 is dense. If you were half-awake when you read it, check it out again.
It is rich with theology and encouragement and the kindness of God. Paul opens by reminding them that they were chosen by God in Christ before the world was made. Reconciliation has always been God's plan, even before things fell apart. And he's working out all things according to his will. One of his glorious purposes in all of this is to give his kids an inheritance with Christ.
He did, and the Spirit signed the paperwork. Paul also reminds them that the Father raised the Son from the dead, and that the same power God used in that action is the same power that resides in His kids via His Spirit. Chapter 2 is an overview of the past, present, and future of every believer. We were dead in our sins. We were slaves to our flesh doing whatever it wanted.
And by nature, we were children of wrath, just like everybody else. There was nothing special about us. We weren't especially good or moral or awesome. So what happened? How are we different? According to Paul, God's mercy happened. He intervened and made us alive in Christ. He raised us from the dead. And that's not going to be the end of his kindness to us.
He's going to keep being kind to us forever. That was just the beginning of the gifts God gave us. Verses 8 and 9 tell us about a few of those gifts specifically. Those verses say, By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Grace is a gift. Salvation is a gift. Even faith is a gift.
He just keeps giving. And you know how Paul keeps thanking God for all the things humans are doing? Like, he thanks God for the faith and love people have? We see that idea again here in verse 10, except he's more explicit and creative about it this time. He compares this to artwork, actually. The word workmanship is poema in Greek.
So he's basically saying, you're a poem God wrote a long time ago. Then Christ formed you and made you, and now you're living out the good works God prepared beforehand for you to do. There was so much intentional planning going on behind the scenes. God isn't a haphazard artist. He's intentional, thoughtful. He put purpose and love into his design.
And your good works are part of what he prepared beforehand for you. For the Gentiles specifically, this reminder is even more intense. Paul says, not only were you far from God because of your sins, but you didn't even have proximity to his covenant promises. God's people weren't allowed to go near you.
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