So in our Bible study, we are in the book of Ephesians. So we are Now in Ephesians chapter 3. So we'll be looking at Ephesians chapter 3 verses 1 to 7. For this calls I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, for you Gentiles, if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to Eward, how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words, whereby when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel, whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power." All right, so Paul opened this letter enumerating all spiritual blessings in Christ to all who believe. That's in chapter 1 verses 3 to 14. And included in those spiritual blessings was also the revelation of God's eternal cosmic purpose for the redemption of his creation and unifying of everything in Christ. Now, In that early part, there in chapter one, Paul introduced the dynamics of Jew-Gentile distinctions. And he goes on to speak of how both have received the Holy Spirit as earnest of the inheritance. That's in chapter one, verses nine to 14. And so in line with that purpose, Paul wrote about how that he wanted them, he was praying for them to understand, to comprehend God's mighty power at work in Christ toward those who believe. And he makes things more specific in regard to the Jew and Gentile distinction, being in fact more than a distinction, being rather a 1,500 year long separation and hostility through the Old Covenant, but shows how that now Jews and Gentiles, they're on equal footing in terms of inherent depravity, in terms of sin, guilt before God. This is the beginning of chapter two. and they're equally worthy of condemnation. But God in grace and love has given the gift of salvation to Jews and Gentiles equally by grace through faith. Because through the death of Jesus Christ, he has brought an end to the old covenant, he has removed the barrier between the two, and he's opened a new and living way of access to God through the Holy Spirit for Jew and Gentile alike. And so that's around the middle of chapter two. And by the end of chapter two, Paul has moved from the broad and general that he's been talking about to the particular as he addressed the church at Ephesus. both the Jewish and the Gentile believers have the same access to God through one spirit and the same salvation. The foundation was laid with Christ as the chief cornerstone and the apostles and the prophets teaching and on that foundation Jesus is building many buildings and every one is fit together well, and it grows to a holy temple. And likewise, the church at Ephesus was being built by Christ for a dwelling place for God, with Jews and Gentiles being equal members of the construction. So the building that was referred to back in chapter two, term appears again in chapter 4, but the word refers to the process of construction, the building up, and it gives the idea of growth and of maturity, and we see that idea of growth coming through there in chapter 2, verse 21. The idea of growth and maturity. But here also, notice that this is passive. You also, and that's the second person plural, you all, you all also, talking about those Gentiles, you all also are built together for inhabitation. That's passive. Because here in chapter 2 at this point in the letter, Paul is focusing on God's power at work in Christ and what is being accomplished through that. So he's referring here to the building up, to the fitting together, to the growing that is caused by God's power at work in Christ. So, when you get later in the letter, as Paul begins to speak more in the active voice, and that word, this same word, occurs three times in chapter 4, and Paul gets into the active voice, and there he's speaking more of the offices and the responsibilities of those members to build up and to mature and to grow, to edify, I think is the way that King James translates it there in chapter four. So building is this process. And so chapter three continues the body of this letter as Paul moves toward the more practical admonitions that we get in chapter four, in particular, the second half of this letter. Now, on first glance, It can be puzzling of why Paul is talking about his apostleship, and that's what he does in these first seven verses. Actually, on beyond that, a little further in the chapter, down to verse 13, he's talking about his apostleship. And it can be a little puzzling. Why is Paul talking about his apostleship? Because generally, in Paul's letters, if he says anything about his apostleship, it's generally in the opening of the letters, the beginning of the letter. If he talks about his apostleship in the body of the letter, then generally it's when he's forced to defend himself, like in the letter to 2 Corinthians, for instance. And that is not the case here in the letter to the Ephesians at all. Now some look at this perhaps as a change of subject, maybe just a little trail that Paul gets off onto briefly before he sort of returns, because there's no question that by chapter four he's returning, and really by the end of chapter three, he's returning to connected themes that comes from the first two chapters. So how do we read this? Well, we want to read it carefully and we want to we want to discern if Indeed there is continuity and I believe that there is and so we will try to see that in this opening part of chapter number three So we're starting here in verse 1 for this calls. I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles of course the first clue that we have is is this opening phrase, for this cause, which means for this reason. So obviously there's a connection to what Paul has written previously to this with what he's proceeding to write. For this reason. So what is the reason? I mean, we know that what he's getting ready to say has to do with his apostleship, but what is the reason? Well, the reason really is the thread that I traced at the beginning of our study. And so, just sort of showing that continuity through this letter and these themes, moving through this letter, and ultimately we know that the primary theme of the Letter to the Ephesians is unity. It's a diverse unity of Jews and Gentiles together, but it's a unity in the church. The reason, we could say a little more specifically, chapter 2 expands on the power of God working in Christ toward those who believe. Now that was Paul's prayer, you remember, at the end of chapter 1. So, the power of God working in Christ toward those who believe to accomplish God's purpose of unifying everything in heaven and earth in Christ That's what he talked about back in chapter 1. And removing that barrier and the hostility between Israel and the nations through his death on the cross by doing away with the Old Covenant, inaugurating the New Covenant, making a new humanity of nations where Jews and non-Jews have the same access to God by one spirit, and therefore building church on the earth in this age with Jews and Gentiles together in the same body, particularly in this church at Ephesus. So that's what we saw coming through the end of chapter 2. So that's just sort of getting a little more specific about God's cosmic purpose that was mentioned in chapter 1. So that's the reason. So as Paul gets more specific, we're also going to notice previously we paid attention in certain areas, Paul was drawing attention to we, and us and being distinct from you and you all. We saw that earlier in the letter. Now in this part of the letter, we're gonna notice a little bit different. Here Paul is saying I and you all, and this again, this is second person plural, so that's you all. It is a collective. Same as he here. So I, and you all, me, and this is also second person plural, you word, he made known unto me, as I wrote, when you all read my knowledge, and I was made a minister and given to me and so on. So you notice that Paul's getting more specific and we've seen that as we've worked our way through chapter two. Paul's getting more specific as he's speaking more directly to the situation in Ephesus and now speaking of himself personally as an apostle and his mission to you all, particularly the Gentiles, those Gentile believers that are in Ephesus. So Paul is getting more specific and he is connecting his apostleship with these Gentile believers, with these believers in Ephesus, that grand cosmic purpose of God. Now, Paul says, for this reason I Paul, and then in typical Paul fashion, he doesn't really get to what was for this reason until you get down to verse number 7 where he says he was made a minister. So obviously there's quite a bit of ground between here and there, but it is all connected. Everything is connected. But he's ultimately here saying, for this reason, I was made a minister. And he's talking about his apostleship and he's tying all of these things together. So it is a continuity. We'll see more about minister and such down in verse seven when we get there. So Paul opened up this letter. in chapter 1 verse 1 by stating his apostleship. And here he begins on his apostleship with his imprisonment, the prisoner of Jesus Christ. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, he said in chapter 1 verse 1. And here he says the prisoner of Jesus Christ. So he's putting this here, this imprisonment, That is actually his imprisonment being of Jesus Christ, which means that his imprisonment is a part of his apostleship. It's a part of his mission. It's not just some. random thing that's happened to him, it's just not a bit of bad luck that has taken Paul, it is a part of his fulfilling his calling as an apostle of Jesus Christ. So he's here talking about his apostleship and his mission, stating that it was for, and this again is, ethnos, this is nations, We generally, the translation here generally gives Gentiles as in non-Jewish nations. So if we go back to Paul's calling, let's look at Acts chapter, Acts chapter nine, and down to verse 15, this is of course, after Paul's conversion. So verses 15 and 16 here is the Lord speaking to Ananias. But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way, for he, and he's talking about Paul, is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles, the ethnos, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. So the very calling of Paul was a calling specifically to preach gospel to the nations, as well as to Israel, as well as before kings and rulers and authorities. And it was also going to come with much suffering. So Paul never complained about being imprisoned. In fact, he typically viewed it as a means of furthering his ministry. He was able to have contact with those that maybe otherwise he wouldn't have had contact to, to get an audience with, and he continued to preach the gospel even while in prison because, again, he saw it as a part of his apostleship, a part of his calling. So, in Acts 26, before Agrippa, here is Paul giving an account of his calling, of his apostleship. Beginning at verse 14, And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. But rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." So this is Paul's calling. This is his commissioning as an apostle of Jesus Christ. So as he brings up his imprisonment, he's not just throwing, oh, by the way, I'm in prison. He's essentially putting his apostleship in these terms, that this is a part of his calling and he's a prisoner of Jesus Christ for, because, on behalf of the nations and particularly those at Corinth which we see, or I mean at Ephesus rather, that he's writing to that's emphasized there in his use of you all. So he's a prisoner of Jesus Christ rather than the Roman Empire and his imprisonment is a part of his fulfilling of his calling to preach Christ to the nations and to Israel. And so he continues in verse 2, "...if you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given Me to you." Now this word for dispensation has the idea of administration. It's a word that we could say stewardship. It's a word that can refer to someone that's given a task to manage, or even someone that is managing the affairs of another. They've been tasked with managing someone else's affairs. Now the same term appears in chapter 1 and verse number 10 when Paul was talking about God's cosmic purpose of unifying everything in Christ. So Paul is connecting the two. He's connecting the two as he sees His ministry in terms of that greater purpose. So Paul's dispensation is a part of this larger dispensation that's spoken of in chapter 1 and verse 10. The administration of God's purpose, of God's great purpose. Paul has been given a task in that great purpose of God. And he sees his ministry that way and that's how he is explaining it. The grace of God, referring back to all of those spiritual blessings in Christ that are to those who believe, And we studied those, those blessings enumerated there, chosen to be made holy and righteous, predestined to adoption, accepted by God in Christ, redemption, forgiveness, predestined to inheritance, receipt of the earnest of the spirit, all of those spiritual blessings that he spoke about, including the revelation of God's purpose in Christ. So these things are connected. So this is particularly, his mission to the nations that he's talking about. Remember what we just read there in Acts, how it described his mission, that he's a chosen vessel. He's one that God has deliberately chosen and has called to fulfill a particular mission to the nations and to Israel. And it's going to involve things that he has seen, the things that he has known, and things that are going to further be revealed to him as the Lord appears to him. So we saw all of that. And so now Paul is describing this apostleship, even his imprisonment, in terms of that greater purpose of God. He's been given a small administration of that purpose. He has some tasks, he has some affairs to oversee in that purpose to accomplish. Verse three. how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery as I wrote afore in few words. refers to something that has been hidden or secret that is later revealed. Now he's gonna actually explain mystery when you get down to verse number five. He's gonna explain, basically give that explanation. It's something, as you're reading the New Testament and you encounter mystery, it's something that was not revealed in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, it's being revealed through the apostles, and prophets, it's being revealed, something that was hidden. Now, revelation refers to the disclosing of truth from God. When the New Testament speaks of revelation, it's not something that human beings can find out on their own. It's not something that they can go to school for or be trained for or have some sort of powers to uncover. It is divine revelation. And we saw that back in Acts 26 when Paul said the Lord speaking to him, those things that he would show him as he appeared unto him. It's revelation, which was the office of the apostles and the prophets. They received revelation. So, Paul is saying that by revelation, by revelation from God, the Lord appearing to him, it was made known to him He hasn't said what the mystery is yet, but he will. That was disclosed to him, this truth, from God directly. So part of Paul's administration of God's purpose was receiving revelation of this mystery. And this revelation not only shaped his mission, but it also shaped his message as Paul was responsible not just to receive this revelation for his own personal benefit, but to declare it to others. And that's what he went about doing throughout the book of Acts. Here he is imprisoned and yet he is still imparting this revelation. So this is a part of his calling and apostleship. And he talked about it, I wrote for basically saying he briefly mentioned that. And I think if you go back to chapter one, maybe verses 15 to 16, somewhere in the expression of rejoicing in the Gentiles' faith. He's made just a small reference to this earlier, but he's gonna speak more about it now. In verse number four, whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. So when you read, when you all read, speaking to those, particularly those Gentiles he's writing to, Paul is showing here that he intended to communicate this revelation in this letter. It's the purpose of this letter. And it was for the purpose of their understanding. It wasn't to confuse them, and it wasn't to conceal and hide something from them. It's a revelation. So Paul is writing this revelation. It's a part of his apostleship and calling. He's writing this revelation. And when they read this letter, he says, you may be able to understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. That's a little... comes across a little awkwardly. What exactly is Paul saying here? Paul's saying, when they're going to read this letter, walk away saying, well, boy, that Paul sure has a lot of knowledge. That's not what he's talking about. So there are several different words, actually, in the Greek that relate to knowledge, to understanding, to wisdom, all those sort of things. And so the word that is used here is cynicism. Cynosis. It's not Gnosis or Gnosko or Sophia. A lot of words that are a little more common. Cynosis. And you see this, it's a, it's a syn compound. That SYN there, which is the sigmo, it's all new in the Greek, but it's a, it's a syn compound. which what that does is it gives the idea of together. So this comes into some of our English words like synergy, work together, synthesis, put together. That sort of thing. So cynicism. So this word, this is just mean knowledge, but it has the idea of, of understanding. Or we could say insight. So really, what it refers to is reasoning. we could say, literally, putting things together. Reasoning. So, when they read, they will understand Paul's reasoning in the mystery of Christ. His putting of things together. Now, the word for understand is not a real common one either, noeo, and it means to perceive or to think or to understand it, it really has the idea of comprehending. It's not just that Paul's giving them some knowledge, but they're going to comprehend his reasoning. That means they're going to be able to follow it. That Paul is putting these things together, and they're going to follow it. They're going to get it. They're going to comprehend Paul's reasoning. So again, Paul wasn't... in this letter showing off how much that he knew, he's writing to them in order that they will be able to comprehend his reasoning as he put together the mystery of Christ with the Old Testament revelation. So, we've talked before about the concept of progressive revelation, and you can clearly see, you start reading in Genesis, and as you go along, more and more things are revealed, and as those more things are revealed, they don't. They don't delete or change or nullify what's already been revealed. They build on it. And they make connections and you're getting more revelation as you go along. So this is what Paul is writing for them to understand, to put together the revelation of God and to understand His message. And this is particularly as it relates to the mystery of Christ that he's getting ready to explain. So now in verse 5 we start that explanation. Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. So now he's beginning to explain this mystery, thus in verses five and six. He essentially explains what a mystery is in verse five. And this word for ages is not normally the word for ages, but generations. It can have the idea of ages, but it's not eon, which is normally the word for ages. In other generations, this was not revealed. No one knew this. In other generations, no one knew it. And it wasn't because they hadn't figured out the proper symbolic interpretation of some numbers and did some math about something about the tabernacle and then, you know, relayed that to something in the stars and whatever. No, they could not know it. It was not revealed. So prior, previously, in other generations, which is contrasted with now, which means as we've already seen since Christ came. That's this now and it is contrasted. in these other generations, these past generations, since Christ came. So prior to the coming of Christ, this wasn't revealed. No one knew it. No one could know it. It was not revealed. He says, this was not made known unto the sons of men. And here again, we get Anthropos, which is essentially humanity. It just wasn't revealed to mankind. It wasn't knowledge that was given. So now marks the time since Christ came and he says now it's been revealed. So now it's been disclosed. But how and to whom has it been disclosed? Not directly to every individual believer. but it has been disclosed to the apostles and the prophets by the Spirit. And in turn, The apostles and the prophets have disclosed that to others and have written it down so that it's disclosed even to us today, not because we saw a vision of it, but because we read it in the word. It was disclosed to the apostles and prophets, and now it's disclosed to us by their writings. So it has now been revealed, and here where we get apostles and prophets, and this corresponds back to chapter 2 and verse 20, where we were talking about the foundation. And again, this means their teaching, their teaching of the revelation that they received. And there was a question last time about some of those prophets, so let's just look at a few instances. here in Acts about these New Testament prophets. This is not a reference to the Old Testament prophets. It's a reference to the New Testament prophets. So in Acts chapter 11, I'm just going to go through a few mentions of these prophets. They did not leave us writings, and there were prophets, in fact, in the Old Testament time that were prophets that we know of, and they didn't leave us any writings either. So they didn't leave their revelation as writings, but we know that the revelation is complete in Christ, so the apostles completed that for us. But verse 27, in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch, and there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the spirit that there should be a great dearth throughout all the world, which came to pass the days of Claudius Caesar. So you go on, You go on reading there, and they sent relief to Judea by Saul and Barnabas. So there were prophets that came. And one of them, Agabus is named, and he gave a prophecy about this famine that was coming. And so the church there acted on that and sent relief for the brethren in Judea. Acts chapter 13. Let's see, Acts chapter 13, is that right? Yes, Acts chapter 13, verse number one. Now there were in the church that was at Antioch, certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaan which had been brought up with Herod and the Tetrarch and Saul. Now we're just told they were prophets and teachers and we're not told which is which and we're given a list of names. Here's just another instance in Acts chapter 15. And this is sort of toward the end, verse 32. Acts chapter 15 and verse number 32. And Judas and Silas, being prophets also themselves, exhorted the brethren with many words and confirmed them. And there's one more instance to look at in Acts chapter 21 and verse number 10. And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judea a certain prophet named Agabus. So this is Agabus again. that shows up. And we also have some references like in 1 Corinthians 12-14, we get some references to prophets that were operative at that time. So this is what Paul is speaking about. This mystery wasn't made known in previous generations. But since Christ came, it was revealed, in other words, it's directly disclosed by God, divine revelation, to the apostles and prophets in the New Testament time. And of course, we know that in that first century, apostles and prophets were operative. They were in the process of getting revelation, teaching, and writing down revelation to preserve it for us. Paul refers to. So he explains essentially what a mystery is. And now he explains what this mystery is that he's talking about. And this is it in verse six, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. So this is the mystery that was revealed. And again, this is ethnos. This is nations. that the nation should be fellow heirs being grafted into the New Covenant, be joined in bodies together as equal members of one another and equally partakers of the promise of the Spirit in the New Covenant through the work of Christ and proclaimed by His gospel. So this is the mystery that was revealed, which tells us there was no preaching of this message before Christ came. I'm not saying there wasn't salvation before Christ came, there was. Abraham believed God and was credited to Him for righteousness. So there was salvation. I'm not saying there wasn't salvation. But this message was not preached before Christ came. Because no one knew it. So there was justification by faith. But recall, we talked about this with the Old Covenant and how that even though justification was by faith, even then, the nations were alienated. They were cut off from Israel and access to God unless they became Jews because of the Old Covenant. So there was a process of becoming a proselyte. They could submit to circumcision, join themselves to Israel, and essentially live as one of Israel. We looked at some of those verses. But what that meant was they were no longer Gentiles as such. They had essentially become Jews in order to join Israel. Otherwise, there's a barrier. There was a separation there. There was a hostility there in place by the Old Covenant that they could not cross. So they could not join as Jews. as Gentiles. And then we talked about how the Old Covenant was given for the purpose of fulfilling the Abrahamic Covenant, but that was not to be fulfilled. It will be fulfilled through the new and so on. So through the gospel of salvation by grace through faith to all men, not of works, not through the Old Covenant. This is the removal of the barrier. And so because of that, you get fellow heirs sane body and partakers of this promise of the new covenant. And once again, remember, when Peter went to Caesarea and he preached to Cornelius and those in his house, they are uncircumcised Gentiles. And as he preached, they believed. And what happened? The Holy Spirit fell on them. and those circumcised Jews that were there with Peter, what was it that they were so perplexed about? Not that Gentiles could believe. They weren't perplexed about that. They were perplexed about how did they receive the Spirit being uncircumcised? How did they receive the promise of the Spirit? How did they receive that? And then so in the next chapter they go back to Jerusalem and they have a big discussion about it and then you start having divisions and little parties that have this idea and that idea and then you have that conference in Acts chapter 15 and all of those things and Paul addresses it in pretty much all of his letters. So this was the mystery. that was not revealed. Now, the Old Testament had plenty of prophecies about the inclusion of Gentiles, Gentile faith and salvation, particularly eschatologically, but this aspect of it was not revealed until after Christ came, so that is the mystery. Now this last verse, verse seven, whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Now this word for minister, the Greek word diakonos, which is from which we get our word deacon, and quite literally refers to a waiter, a table waiter. It could be used, though, to refer to any type of menial servant. But just, there's another way that the word is used, and it's just a little bit figurative, or conceptual, you might say. And that is, if you think about a server. So, you go to a restaurant, or if you're, I guess, wealthy, maybe you have servants at your house. Think about a server. You sit down and what does that server do? That server brings a meal that someone else has prepared and serves it to you. So there was a conceptual way that this word could be used to refer to someone being a server like that, that they're bringing something from one to another. And I think that's really the concept that Paul is keying on. when he talks about being made a minister because he was to receive these things from God and in turn then he's to bring them to the nations and that is the very explanation of his apostleship as he understood it and explained it and as he carried it out. So he brings something to someone on behalf of another. So Paul's apostleship was a part of God's working mightily in Christ to accomplish his purpose. And even Paul's imprisonment was a part of that. And he's going to go on talking about his apostleship for a little while as related to this mystery. So not only is the new relation of Jews and Gentiles important, it is important the fact that there is equal standing. There was already equal standing in terms of sin. There's equal standing in terms of salvation and in terms of being grafted in and receiving, being partakers of the promise and becoming heirs and all those sort of things without the Old Covenant, without circumcision, without following the Old Covenant prescription and ceremony and all that sort of thing equally. So that's new and that's important. But the reason that God called and commissioned Paul to be apostle was to declare, to proclaim this truth of what Christ has done, what the coming of Christ has done. So there's sort of, and we've already seen it earlier in chapter two, how Paul kind of spoke about it generally a little more broadly. But there's also important applications And Paul was very firm on this. When he wrote to these different churches, he was very firm about these Jews and these Gentiles being in unity in those churches. Not having a table for Jews and a table for Gentiles like happened in some of the churches for a while. Not having those kind of divisions, but being equal members one of another. It comes out of the revelation of this mystery. It's a manifestation of it. It's a visible representation of it. And so that's what Paul is actually getting to. He's been laying this very foundationally, but he's continuing to drive toward this unity that's going to have a very particular expression in that church at Ephesus. And that's what we'll see as we proceed.