God's Marvelous plan for the Gentiles

Ephesians 3:1-12 (New International Version, ©2010)

Ephesians 3
God’s Marvelous Plan for the Gentiles


1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—
2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. 6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 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, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

One of the three characteristics of God which Paul uses in this passage is wisdom (Sophia) and understanding. Barclay says that the Greeks wrote and thought much about the concept of wisdom. Aristotle speaks of wisdom as knowledge of the most precious things. Cicero defined it as knowledge of things both human and divine. Sophia was a thing of the searching mind, of the questing intellect, of the reaches of human thought. Sophia is the answer to the problems of life and death, and God and man, and time and eternity. The word understanding (phronesis) is defined by Aristotle as knowledge of human affairs and of the things in which planning is necessary. Cicero defines it as knowledge of things which are to be sought and things which are to be avoided. Plato speaks of it as the state of mind which enables us to judge the things which are to be done and what things are not to be done.

In other words, phronesis is the most practical thing in the world. It is the sound sense which enables us to meet and solve the practical problems of everyday life and living. It is Paul's claim that Jesus brought us sophia, knowledge of the eternal things, the intellectual knowledge which satisfies the mind; and that he brought us phronesis, the practical knowledge which enables us to handle and to solve the day to day problems of life and living.

When Paul wrote this letter he was in prison in Rome awaiting trial before Nero. He was waiting for the Jewish prosecutors to come with their trumped up charges and their hatred. It is true that in prison Paul had certain privileges because he was allowed to stay in a house which he had rented, and his friends were allowed access to him; but, even then, night and day he was a prisoner; night and day he was chained by a length of chain to the wrist of the Roman soldier who was his guard, and whose duty it was to see that Paul never escaped. It was in these circumstances that Paul calls himself "a prisoner of Christ Jesus". This is another instance of how Christians always had a double life and a double address. Any ordinary person looking at Paul in prison, would have said that Paul was the prisoner of the Roman government; and in one sense of course he was. But Paul never thought of himself as the prisoner of Rome. He always thought of himself as the prisoner of Christ.

One's outlook on life makes all the difference in the world. There is a famous instance which Barclay cites, of the days when Sir Christopher Wren was building St Paul's Cathedral. On one occasion Sir Christopher Wren was making a tour of the work in progress. He came upon a man at work and asked him: "What are you doing?" The man said, "I am cutting stone to a certain size and shape". He came to a second man and asked him what he was doing. The man said, "I am earning money to feed my children." Sir Christopher came to a third man and asked him the same question. The man paused for a moment in his work, straightened himself up and said, "I am helping Sir Christopher Wren build St. Paul's Cathedral."

There was all the difference in the world in the point of view of the three men. St. Paul is our example in the way we should approach the difficulties and challenges of life. We are to see ourselves not as victims but as the champions of Christ.

When Paul thought of this mystery of which he speaks here and which had been revealed to him, he thought of himself in certain ways. Firstly, he regarded himself as having received a new revelation. It is vital to understand that Paul never thought that he had discovered the universal love of God; he saw it as God having revealed it to him. Barclay says a wonderful thing; he says that there is a sense in which truth and beauty are always given by God. Truth and beauty are not so much a human discovery as God's gift.

Barclay tells how once sir Arthur Sullivan was at a performance of his own opera H.M.S. Pinafore. When the lovely duet "Ah leave me not to pine alone," had been sung, Sullivan turned to the friend who was sitting next to him and said, "Did I really write that?" One of the great examples of poetical music of words in literature is Coleridge's Kubla Khan. Coleridge fell asleep reading a book in which there were the words: Here Kubla Khan commanded a place to be built and a stately garden thereunto." He dreamed the poem and when he awoke he had nothing to do but write it down.

When a scientist makes a great discovery, over and over again what happens is that he thinks and thinks and experiments and experiments and then comes to a dead end. Human thought and human ingenuity will go no further. And then quite suddenly the solution to his problem flashes upon him. It is not thought out; it is given to him - by God. Paul would never have claimed to be the first person to discover the universal love of God; he would have said that God had told him the secret that had never before been revealed to anyone.

Paul saw himself as a person who had been given a double privilege. He has the privilege of discovering the secret that it was God's plan to draw all people into the secret of his grace and love. And he also was privileged to be the one who made this secret known to the Church and then to the Gentiles. But the consciousness of privilege did not make Paul proud, it kept him intensely humble. He was amazed that this privilege was given to a man who, as he saw it, was the least of God's people.

And so I am reminded that, in my work, I am privileged to be able to share the message of God's forgiveness and love, not because of me but in fact, very definitely in spite of me! Toscanini, says Barclay, was one of the greatest conductors and interpreters of music in the world. Once, when he was talking to an orchestra when he was preparing to play one of Beethoven's symphonies with them, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I am nothing; you are nothing. Beethoven is everything." He knew well that his duty was not to draw attention to himself of his orchestra. His duty was to obliterate himself and his orchestra and let Beethoven shine through.

Leslie Weatherhead writes somewhere of a talk he had with a public schoolboy who was thinking of entering the ministry. He asked him when he had decided to become a priest and the boy said it was after a service in the school chapel. Leslie Weatherhead naturally asked who the preacher had been and the boy replied that he had no idea who the preacher had been, only that Jesus Christ had spoken to him that morning. That was true preaching!

Mark