Ephesians 5:21-33 There are a few times when it helps to start at the end and read back to the beginning.  Did you know that copy editors are trained to read a page backwards? Otherwise, they get caught in the flow of a thought and their mind skips over the errors and fills in the blanks.  This is a good example of starting at the end and working backwards. Paul writes in verse 32 that “this is a ...[Read More]

Normally, we think of chapters as the beginning of something new – a new stage of life, new development or new thought. There is a break, we turn the page and then start the next chapter.  As you probably know, chapters and verses were not added to the Bible until much later than the original writings. A man named Stephen Langton divided the Bible into chapters in the year 1227. Langton was ...[Read More]

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.  They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of ...[Read More]

It did not take long for the early church to create some basic structure.  Of course, for the Jewish Christians, there was the existing model of the synagogue which was the local organization with different roles for members.  While worship and sacrifice were focused on the Temple in Jerusalem until the destruction of the Temple around the time of Paul’s death, synagogues were local assemblies of ...[Read More]

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wi ...[Read More]

The last several verses of Chapter 1 are soaring.  “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his rig ...[Read More]