Blog Archives

14 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #48)

Ephesians (Program #48) – A Mysterious Type of Christ and the Church

It’s well known among Christians that Ephesians Chapter 5 offers many meaningful and helpful words for married couple embarking on life journey together.  It reads in verse 31 & 32, “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.”  But far beyond its’ value for our married life, it actually reveals the longing deep within the heart of God for a counter part for Christ.  “This mystery is great, (Paul continues) but I speak with regard to Christ and the church.

To understand this aspect more fully, we need to return to the very first pages of the Bible on Genesis Chapter 2,  “And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. And Jehovah God built the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman and brought her to the man.”  What did Genesis 2 in Ephesians 5 reveal regarding God’s eternal desire?

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13 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #47)

Ephesians (Program #47) – Living in the Relationship Between Wife and Husband

If you’ve been to any weddings lately, you very likely may have heard this passage quoted from Ephesians Chapter 5, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord; For a husband is head of the wife as also Christ is Head of the church,… Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”

Yes, this is the exaltation that nearly every Christian couple begins their married life with. Yet as good as these verses are, they neglect one important thing.  How can we do it? How can wives submit? How can husbands love to such a degree? If we don’t offer couples these verses in the context of Chapter 5, including verse 18, we may not be serving them faithfully, in fact we may be setting them up for failure.

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12 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #46)

Ephesians (Program #46) – Living by Being Filled in Spirit

Have you ever picked up the Bible hoping, wishing even praying that it would just tell you in plain language what God’s will is for you?  Well, in truth probably all of us have this experience or something similar.  But in fact there is a very clear word in Ephesians 5:17 and it says “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.” and it goes on in verse 18 to tell us, “And do not be drunk with wine, …. but be filled in spirit,”  That’s it! God;’s will is clear. for you and me – be filled in spirit. But what it is to be filled in our spirit?

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11 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #45)

Ephesians (Program #45) – Living in Love and Light

Human beings are very good imitators.  We all tend to copy the behavior of the others that we esteem highly. We teach our children to imitate. And even society as a whole is all the time encouraging positive role models.

The apostle Paul tells us that we should imitate his pattern. But he goes further in Ephesians 5 where he commands us not just to imitate him or even other apostles but to imitate God. Ephesians 5:1 “Be therefore imitators of God.”

Well, much as we may want to as mortal man we simply cannot do it. Even as Christians is beyond our reach. But there must be a way or else the word of God would not command us to do it. The key lays in the second half of the verse. Listen carefully, “…Be therefore imitators of God, as beloved children.”

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10 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #44)

Ephesians (Program #44) – A Summary of Learning Christ

The Gospel of John begins in a marvelous way with God Himself been incarnated as the man, Jesus Christ.  1:14 “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.

In Ephesians, Paul also refers to Grace and Truth, only with the order reversed, exhorting us to learn Christ as the truth is in Jesus and then bringing us to the reality of the details of the life we’re learning through grace.

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09 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #43)

Ephesians (Program #43) – A Living that Does not Grieve the Holy Spirit of God

The Gospel of John promises that the Holy Spirit would come and would abide in us forever, never to leave and all genuine believers should live with and in this assurance. But though He never leaves us, it is possible for us to grieve Him. And the apostle Paul admonishes us not to do so in Ephesians 4. Listen “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption.”  If we do grieve Him, we loose His presence, the satisfaction and enjoyment that only He can bring. These are the manifestation of grace. But more than loosing these, we loose the capacity for living a life that expresses Him.  Learning to live Christ by not grieving the Spirit is our focus today.

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08 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #42)

Ephesians (Program #42) – Learning Christ as the Truth is in Jesus

Chapter 4 of the book of Ephesians begins with a strong exaltation by the apostle Paul regarding our walk. “I beseech you therefore, I, the prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called.

In the verses that follow verse 1, he goes on to develop just what this walk details.  Finally in verse 17, he contrast our walk of that of the unbelievers. “This therefore I say and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the Gentiles also walk in the vanity of their mind.”  And then verse 20, After detailing the darken condition of the mind of the unbelieving world, he added this marvelous exclamation,  “But you did not so 1alearn Christ.”  Notice he does not say, you did not so learn about Christ.  What is it to learn Christ?

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07 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #41)

Ephesians (Program #41) – The Growth of the Members for the Building Up of the Body

There is a well known verse in Ephesians Chapter 4 that has troubled Bible translators for years. The King James Version and most modern Version, such as the NIV, the New American Standard, says something like in verse 15 “But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all things into Him, Who is the Head, Christ.”  Though this certainly is not a wrong translation, it only conveys part of the actual meaning of the verse. Other versions like Darby’s and the Recovery Version use another phrase, “But holding to truth in love..”

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06 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #40)

Ephesians (Program #40) – Babyishness and the Winds of Teaching

In Ephesians Chapter 4, the apostle Paul speaks of three things that we are to arrive at.  First, is that we, the believers in Christ arrive at the oneness of the faith. Then number two, we arrive at the full knowledge of the Son of God. And finally we arrive at a full-grown man. Compares this now to verse 14, the very next verse, which says,  verse 14 “That we may be no longer little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a system of error.”  A big contrast, little children or babes, as some version render it or a full grown man brought to the full knowledge of the Son of God.

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05 Aug 2021 Ephesians (Program #39)

Ephesians (Program #39) – Arriving at Three Things

Oneness is a critical matter in the book of Ephesians. This book which has the Church as the Body of Christ as its’ subject stressed oneness in a number of places. In Chapter 4 we’re told in verse 3, to be diligently to keep the oneness of the Spirit then in verse 13, we have a marvelous expression concerning oneness. “Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of  the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Yes, our oneness surely is the oneness of the Spirit but we must not overlook the destination of our oneness, a three fold destination.

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