Commenting on how we understand Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), Rebecca McLaughlin writes: ‘We hear a call to care for strangers in need. But Jesus’s first audience heard more. They heard a story of love across racial, religious, and political difference, in which the moral hero was their sworn enemy’ (The Secular Creed, 2021: p.11).

And we might add, yet how many in the wider community today are even aware of the parable of the Good Samaritan let alone understand its significance for us? Even more importantly, how many today know the Jesus of the historical Gospel accounts?

The key to everyone’s understanding lies in the ministry gifts that Paul the Apostle highlights in chapter 4 of his Letter to the Ephesians.

Having written of the unity of God’s people – there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all (4:6) – he moves on to the theme of diversity. In their unity, God’s people are not monochrome but rather, to change the metaphor, can be likened to the instruments of the heavenly orchestra because of the variety of gifts he gives each one of us. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift, Paul writes (4:7).

Having rescued his people through an act of extraordinary and undeserved grace (2:5, 8), God gives to all his people a grace or gift for the building up of the Christian community. Drawing from Psalm 68 which is associated with the Jewish Pentecost and the receiving and giving of the law through Moses to the people, Paul uses it as an analogy for Christ receiving the Spirit and now giving the gifts of the Spirit to God’s people.  Furthermore, as Christ descended from heaven, taking on human form and dying the death we justly deserve, he has now ascended, being raised from the dead to heaven where he now holds supreme power at God’s right hand (Philippians 2:5-11).

From this position God in Christ now gives each one of his people back to the church as a gift. Consider verse 11: The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,… These declaratory gifts are set out first because they are essential for the growth of God’s people.

The apostles were a unique, select group, called and sent by Jesus himself – men who had personally met with the risen Lord Jesus Christ and who were commissioned and equipped by him to reveal and proclaim him to the nations. They would have a true understanding of the significance of his life, death and resurrection. Their unique ministry, together with that of the prophets, is foundational for the church (Ephesians 2:20).

The prophets are also one-of-a-kind in the Bible in that God has uniquely spoken through them. Thus says the Lord characterized their ministry. We therefore need to beware of all who bring new ideas claiming to be prophets.

In some circles much is made of the phrase, ‘apostolic succession’, applying it to bishops and sometimes to church-planters. It is said they stand in the succession of the apostles through the laying on of hands. But Paul is not suggesting this. The biblical way to speak of the apostolic succession is to relate it to the preaching and teaching that is consistent with what the apostles and prophets proclaimed and taught.

Paul next references evangelists (4:11). While all God’s people are called upon to play a part in testifying to their faith. God calls some to have a special ministry as evangelists – being gifted in evangelistic speaking or effective evangelistic equipping of God’s people.

From its inception Christianity has been global, and key to this movement isn’t force of arms but a message. We often forget Jesus’ words, ‘the fields are white (ready) for harvest (John 4:35). With his reference to the gift of evangelists, Paul underlines God’s purpose to rescue men and women and build his church. Every congregation needs to pray for, identify and support evangelists amongst them.

And there is another gift: pastors and teachers. Because Paul omits the definite article before teachers, he indicates that the gift of pastor and teacher is paired. A pastor is a teacher and a teacher a pastor. To teach God’s Word is to pastor God’s people. To be an effective Christian pastor, God’s Word needs to be explained and applied.

The pastor and teacher is given by God as a gift to guide and grow his people. The services for the ordination of ministers in the 1552/1662 Book of Common Prayer reflect these principles from Ephesians, applying them to ministers and bishops. They’re not super-holy people; rather, they are gifted as pastors and teachers.

Paul explains God’s purpose in giving these declaratory gifts to his people: To equip the saints (literally, the holy ones)for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ (4:13).

God is committed to building his church, not just in number but also in maturity. And this is achieved primarily through the ministry of his Word. Evangelists have the task of reaching the wider community. Pastors and teachers are to equip God’s people so that we can all play a part in ministries to one another that promote our unity in Christ and our growth in knowing him. God wants us to become a healthy and mature body of people in our walk together with Christ.

Furthermore, he doesn’t want us to be fickle in our faith, tossed to and fro by every new teaching that arises, new teaching that might at first appear biblical, but which in fact takes us in a new direction that is not biblically-grounded – as happens in churches that are carried along by the culture.

In a world where progressive voices are subverting the Judaeo-Christian message, how much more do we need to grow in our knowledge of God and in our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. Essential to our growth and our voice in the wider community are the declaratory ministries of God’s Word. The ministries of evangelists and pastors and teachers are essential. We may pray for the ministers of our church, but do we also pray we can discern and support those in our midst to whom God has especially given the gift of evangelism?

And, if you will pardon a personal note, have you obtained a copy of my book, The Jesus Story: Seven Signs? It’s written as a refresher for God’s people and as a book to be passed on to people you know who don’t know what to believe. If you are in the US, you can use the link below. It’s available everywhere through Amazon.

A prayer. Lord Christ, eternal Word and Light of the Father’s glory: send your light and your truth so that we may both know and proclaim your word of life, to the glory of God the Father; for you now live and reign, God for all eternity. Amen.

© John G. Mason

One of the outcomes of the rapid development of cell phones is the extraordinary capacity for connectivity we all have. In nanoseconds we can reach people around the world while we sit on a train or wait for a bus. Yet there’s an irony. How often do we see people in twos or threes or more, sipping coffee or eating out together with their phones out? Their proximity to one another does not necessarily mean community. And how often does social media subvert meaningful communication: research is regularly revealing the destructive forces at work on personalities.

Created in the image of God we are designed for meaningful and joyful community.

Come with me to The Letter to the  Ephesians where a central theme unfolds: God is building a new society of people drawn from all the nations of the world. In chapter 4 he develops expectations for this new community. It’s a theme he is excited about.

Humility. Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, he writes in verse 1. On the night of his arrest, Jesus said to his disciples, “A new commandment I give you: that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Our problem is that we keep failing in this. Yet relationships amongst God’s people are so important that Paul tells us we need to work at them. He exhorts us:  Lead a life worthy of your calling, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (4:2-3).

Consider the flipside of humility and gentleness: conceit and insensitivity. Wrapped up in themselves conceited people dismiss anyone for whom they have little regard. No, says Paul, you are called to humility and gentleness. These aren’t signs of weakness, but rather strength: it is only the strong who can be humble and caring.

To these qualities he adds patience, literally, longsuffering. The flipside is the quick-fire temper that explodes at the least provocation. Most of us have areas of our personality where we respond out of all proportion to a situation. It’s as though we have minefields in our lives. Some have very few mines and relate naturally and easily to others – even when they disagree. Others, however, have personality mines that explode when they encounter someone with whom they disagree. Indeed, it only takes one ‘walking minefield’ to destroy the morale and endeavor of a community.

How then can God’s people develop a genuine community? We have a resource and a model that no-one else has: the character of God. God is not without his points of conflict with us, but he is patient and has provided the means whereby he can forgive us. He doesn’t hold grudges and he doesn’t let his anger turn into bitterness.

If we call ourselves God’s people, we are to reflect these qualities in our relationships with one another. In fact, this is a request in The Lord’s Prayer: Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us. We ought to be known as people who are forgiving, having a charitable spirit in all our relationships. It is inconsistent with our calling to be argumentative and explosive, bitter, resentful and complaining.

Now Paul is not saying that we should be long-suffering because we’re prepared to put up with anything. In verse 15 he says: But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,… Being long-suffering doesn’t mean there is no place for admonishment or exhortation. We are called to be non-judgmental. The quality we are to adopt is the spirit of love: love for God and love for one another: lead a life worthy of your calling.

Unity. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all (4:4-6).

How easy it is in life, even when we are at church, to forget the awesome, cosmic plan of the triune God – namely to draw together his people from throughout time and from all nations. Just as God is one, so his people are one, united through the work of the Spirit. As Jesus indicated to Nicodemus (John 3), it is the Spirit who gives us new birth and who awakens us to the binding power of the hope the Lord Jesus Christ holds out to us.

Furthermore, there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. The one faith and one baptism are linked with one Lord because the Lord Christ Jesus is the object of our shared faith. We are not governed by a heavenly Committee but by a person – the exciting, mighty and powerful figure, Jesus Christ. He is the Lord who brings us together.

Paul lifts our gaze and our wonder to God the Father when he says there is one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all (4:6). In his Delighting in the Trinity Michael Reeves says, “It is only when we see that God rules his creation as a kind and loving Father that we’ll be moved to delight in his providence”.

Community. Indeed, because from eternity the triune God exists in relationship and because God has made us in his image, we are made first and foremost for relationship with him and, in turn with one another. No wonder we long for deep and lasting, meaningful and genuine relationships. It’s an essential part of our DNA. The starting point is our relationship with God.

Furthermore, as Paul has been explaining in chapters one through three, even though we have messed up and broken our relationship with God, such is his nature that he delights to love and give new life.

Surely we will want to pray that God’s Spirit and God’s Word will enable us to begin to experience the riches and beauty of God’s love and awaken us to a genuine love for him and for one another.

Tertullian, a 2nd century North African theologian and apologist wrote of the church of his time: “Look,” they say, “how they (Christians) love one another” (for they themselves, Romans, hate one another); “and how they (Christians) are ready to die for each other” (for they themselves, Romans, are readier to kill each other).

Most people I meet long, deep down, for meaningful relationships. Yet in a world where we are all encouraged to explore our self-identity, again and again, we experience proximity without community. How much more then should we bear witness to genuine community in our relationships with one another as God’s people, especially in the church we attend. But first we need to have a true relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ who brings us and binds us together as his people in a new and true community.

A prayer. Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us your servants grace by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and by your divine power to worship you as One: we pray that you would keep us steadfast in this faith and evermore defend us from all adversities; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

How can we weather the challenges of our divided and uncertain world?

Come with me to Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 through 21 where the curtain over Paul the Apostle is drawn aside, and we are given a glimpse of him at prayer.

I kneel before the Father, he begins, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. Genesis chapter 1 tells us that God created us in his image, and it is therefore true to say that all humanity has its fatherhood or parentage in God. However, as the Bible unfolds, we see that there is a very special relationship between God and those who are personally drawn to him. Paul is echoing what Jesus taught his disciples: we can call God, ‘our Father’.

This really is an extraordinary privilege – to be able to call God ‘Father’. In fact, when we think about it, there is no higher honor that God could give us, for it means we stand in a very special relationship with him as his adopted sons and daughters. This awesome truth stands at the head of Paul’s prayer. And he prays that we might experience this awareness in our lives, so we can relax and enjoy the amazing privilege of being God’s special people at every twist and turn in life. Three themes stand out.

Inner strength. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit…

The work of the Spirit goes to the heart of our being. Despite what cosmetologists and exercise gurus want us to think, the truth is that our physical bodies are wasting away. The time will come, when as far as our physical body is concerned, there is little hope for the future. But Paul wants us to understand that it’s not all downhill.

If God is at work in our lives, changes for the better to our inner being can occur. It’s here we see the counter-cultural way God works as opposed to the way that the world expects him to work. The world expects God to work with great displays of power. Tempted to think this way too, we might say that God’s power is to be expressed in self-confidence, self-assertion, success. And when it comes to churches, it is thought that God’s power will be seen in high-powered church growth and in dramatic answers to prayer.

But God has a different plan. For the present he chooses to work in secret, changing us from the inside out, not the outside in. It’s an important distinction most of us miss. Paul is praying that the Holy Spirit will strengthen us at the very root of our character and our lives. He prays that God’s Spirit will so work in our lives and so teach us that we will be strengthened in our appetite for God and our love for and loyalty to Jesus. He wants us to focus our hope on Christ, to drop sinful habits and develop a new framework for living.

Paul says he wants to see the whole of our inner life affected by the Spirit — our hearts and affections, our will, our minds and decisions. It’s radical and it’s painful. Once the Holy Spirit starts to work in our lives, begins to probe, to question, to challenge, to discipline and to develop us, it hurts. For when he takes the Word of God and reaches to the very depth of our being, the Word becomes like a scalpel in his hands.

Transformation. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love(3:17).

This is the only place in the whole of the Bible that speaks about Christ dwelling in our hearts. Dwell means ‘settle down’, or ‘putting down roots’. Mixing his metaphors Paul prays that we will be well-rooted trees withstanding droughts, and well-built houses that can withstand hurricanes.

There will be many things in us with which Jesus Christ will not be comfortable. Repairs and renovation are needed in our lives. And anyone who has done house renovation and repairs knows it takes longer and costs more than originally expected.

Knowing that this kind of life-changing transformation is what God wants and knowing that it requires God’s power in our lives, Paul prays that God will do what is necessary to make our lives a fit home for his Son.

Christ’s Love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (3:18-19).

With imagery that awakens us to the complexity and profundity of God’s love – the breadth and length, and height and depth – Paul prays that we will know the love of Christ. He wants us not only to know but also to experience God’s love so that we may be able to say, and really know it and feel it in our hearts, ‘the Son of God gave himself for me.’

This genuine experience of Christ rarely comes to anyone who is not spending time in the Scriptures – for example, meditating on Ephesians chapter 1 through chapter 2, verse 10. The kind of mind-shift we need to prompt us to do this usually requires large explosive power. Sometimes God give us a wake-up call through hardship, bereavement or tragedy. Sometimes it’s not until we see material possessions for what they are, unsatisfying tchotchkes or knick-knacks, that we begin to comprehend the reality of God’s love.

Indeed, it’s only when God’s power is at work in our lives that we will begin to see what it meant for him to take on human form and enter our world, what it cost for him to suffer and die in our place. I pray, says Paul, that with all of God’s people, you experience the power of God’s love in your hearts, and knowing that experience, the fullness of joy with the transcendent Lord.

Beyond Imagination. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (3:20-21).

Paul’s words here startle and encourage us. Our thoughts and imaginations are lifted beyond time and space to the Lord himself. Significantly, the focus of God’s powerful work is amongst and through his people.

Too often we forget God’s awesome cosmic purposes. We focus too much on ourselves. Maybe we are content to swim in the shallows of faith rather than in the deep, clear waters of God’s love. For in his love God has far greater expectations for us than we can even begin to imagine.

A prayer. Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: so enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

The 250th anniversary of American Independence brings to mind a key statement in the Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”.

Interestingly, Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian and philosopher, observes in his book, Sapiens: A brief History of Humankind (2015: p.109), that the equality of humanity is not self-evident: “The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, and that all souls are equal before God. However, if we do not believe in the Christian myths about God, creation and souls, what does it mean that all people are ‘equal’?”, he asks. According to Harari who writes as an atheist, “Homo Sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas, and chimpanzees have no natural rights” (Sapiens, p.111).

Harari rightly observes that Christianity teaches that all men and women are equal before God. We often forget that the opening chapter of the Bible describes humanity as being created in the image of God – the climax and glory of God’s creation. And significantly, as we read on into the New Testament, we find that Matthew includes non-Israelite women in Jesus’s human bloodline: Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute and Ruth, the Moabitess. Both came to trust Israel’s God (Matthew 1:5).

Furthermore, Luke, in his Acts of the Apostles, records a meeting between Philip and an official from the court of Queen Candace of Ethiopia – ancient Cush, the region south of modern Egypt, into Sudan (8:26-38). While the Bible doesn’t refer to skin color (and so doesn’t note that the official from ancient Ethiopia would have been black), it is vitally interested in our relationship with God. In this instance, Luke tells us that the man responded to Philip’s gospel presentation and was baptized.

Significantly, recent researchers such as Vince Bantu (in A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity’s Global Identity) record the strength and vitality of African churches from the very earliest years. Why did this happen – especially given the antipathetic attitude towards Christianity’s founder amongst the Jewish leaders? We find an important clue in chapter 3 of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians where he writes of the revelation of God’s mystery.

Mystery revealed. Paul uses the word mystery, not as secrets that are only revealed to the elite ‘insiders’, but rather to refer to God’s plan that had been hidden in the past but is now openly revealed to everyone. He says it has to do with Christ who has opened the way for the non-Jewish world to enjoy full and equal benefits of all God’s promises (3:4, 6). This is radical. He is saying that a unique relationship between men and women and God’s Messiah is now available, and that this relationship removes the barriers and hostility between all peoples, no matter their skin-color or race and includes Jewish and non-Jewish peoples.

Through the years the Jewish people had understood that God would bless the nations through them – as he had promised Abraham (Genesis 12:3); they also knew Isaiah had said that Israel would be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). But there is no hint, either in the Old Testament or in Jesus’s teaching that God planned to involve the non-Jewish peoples of the world as equal beneficiaries in a new international community he is building – a community whose head is the Jewish Messiah, Christ Jesus.

Mystery proclaimed. In verse 7 Paul writes: Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power.

Saying he is the very least of all the saints, Paul speaks as one of God’s emissaries in announcing the boundless riches of Christ to the non-Jewish world (3:8). The boundless, unsearchable, inexhaustible, incalculable riches of which he speaks is one of the most profound ideas in the Bible. Paul wants us to know we shall never come to the end of the wealth of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.

An important theme permeates this as he brings together the ideas of revelation and commission: God’s truth is to be passed on! Just think. If we were sure that the gospel is God’s truth and the riches of Christ are for all men and women, not one of us would be able to keep quiet.

The story is told of a conversation between a prominent Russian communist leader and a Western church leader at the height of the cold war. The Christian was bemoaning the fact that the USSR was closed to Christianity. The Russian leader’s response was immediate: ‘You don’t know what you are talking about! We envy you. Look at the vast resources you have to get your message out: you have people.’ When the first Christians came to faith their lives were changed and they talked their faith – gossiped the gospel.

Light and Truth. To make everyone see (enlighten) what is the plan (administration) of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, Paul continues (3:9).

Plan or better, administration refers to the implementation of God’s plan – which is revealed in Bible-believing and teaching churches. So that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (3:10).

The mystery of God was no abstract idea. Now revealed, it takes shape as men and women from all walks of life, from all cultural and racial backgrounds, are brought together as one people. It reveals the rich tapestry of God’s grace, power and wisdom. And as the story of this work of God continues to unfold, Paul tells us that there are supernatural watchers, the angelic world, spectators to the drama of God’s astonishing work.

This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, Paul writes, in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him. I pray therefore that you may not lose heart over my sufferings for you; they are your glory (3:11-13).

Sadly, so many of us have lost sight of the wonder of God’s great cosmic plan. The very existence of healthy, vital churches growing across the nations of the world, reveals the global extent of Christianity and, when we think about it, the impact of the fundamental value that all men and women are created equal.

A prayer. Lord Christ, eternal Word and Light of the Father’s glory: send your light and your truth so that we may both know and proclaim your word of life, to the glory of God the Father; for you now live and reign, God for all eternity. Amen.

© John G. Mason

Back in 1979 Christopher Lasch in The Culture of Narcissism wrote, “Our society has made lasting friendships, love affairs and marriages, increasingly difficult to achieve. Social life has become more and more warlike and personal relationships have taken on the character of combat. Some dignify the combat by offering courses in assertiveness training. Others celebrate the impermanent detachments which result with slogans like ‘open marriages’, but in doing so they merely intensify the pervasive dissatisfaction with the quality of human relationships which is at the heart of the problem”. And this before the age of the internet and social media.

Alienation is a word often used to describe our human plight. Everywhere relationships are broken – within and between nations, in the workplace, within families and between friends.

Love is said to be the cure-all for the brokenness and division. But what does it mean? What does real love look like?

Throughout the Bible, especially as it relates to God and his relationship with us, we find a radically different way that love is understood. As we touched on last week, in chapter 2 of his Letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks of our natural state as the walking dead: You were dead through the trespasses and sins, he says (2:1), … children of wrath (2:3).

However, God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us has given his people new life withChrist, raising us from death and giving us a seat beside Christ in his victory and rule (2:4f). God is truly just in judging us because we chose to divorce him. Yet at the same time, he has chosen to love us and reveal his grace because his nature is to have mercy.

Paul goes on to explain what this means for his non-Jewish readers: Remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (2:12).

Pointing out that they were once without Christ: they didn’t know the Messiah of the Jewish people and were thus separated from God and from God’s ancient people. They were aliens – implying that being men and women made in God’s image, a former relationship with God had been broken. The Gentiles were without God, living in the darkness of self-interest without the light of Christ in their lives. They had no hope beyond this life.

Barriers of power and greed, culture and class, color and race cause division everywhere. Broken relationships exist at every level, as we see exemplified across the political divide. We experience proximity but without community. Remember what you were, Paul says.

Yet how often do we forget! We write our Christian testimonies failing to remember that we were once without Christ, without God, and without hope – that we were saved by grace and now live by grace (2:8,9).

The peace-maker. In verses 13 through 16 we read: You (Gentiles) have been brought near by the blood of Christ. In his flesh he has made both groups into one. So that he might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.

God could have justly written off humanity. But that would have been an admission of defeat. Instead, at an extreme cost to himself, he chose a path that would enable a just peace between the Jewish and non-Jewish (Gentile) peoples, and alsobetween both groups and himself (God).

The Bible tells us that from the very beginning of his creating work, knowing what men and women who were created in his image would choose to do, God determined on an infinitely more costly strategy. Instead of abandoning this evil and ungrateful world that had rejected him, he would provide a path to peace. He would rescue people from the consequences of their folly by dealing himself with the penalty of his own just anger.

The key is Christ Jesus and the blood he shed when he died at Calvary. It’s the first time in the Letter that Paul has developed the theme of the cross of Christ. And here he is telling us in memorable words what God has done. In an extraordinary gift of love, he has opened the way to peace through Christ’s sacrificial blood shed on the cross.

Christ is creating a new society in which hostility gives way to harmony; alienation gives way to reconciliation. Of all the great teachers, prophets, mystics, and all the -isms of the world, Jesus alone has been able to achieve this.

This doesn’t mean that humanity is now united and at peace. Daily the news tells us it isn’t. But while at times it is difficult to believe, there is one group where true community is possible: amongst God’s people.

Citizens of God’s new society. In verse 19 we read: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,

You non-Jewish believers, Paul is saying, are no longer what you used to be— strangers and visitors without legal rights. Rather, you have a new status. Once you were without God, but now you have the same God and Father as Jewish believers: you are brothers and sisters together in Christ. Once you were without hope; now you are joined together with believing Israel and being built into a temple – the people with whom God lives. It’s an awesome picture.

Without the teaching of the apostles and the prophets we wouldn’t have a clue about what God has done. Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is the chief cornerstone of God’s work. Cornerstones were essential in ancient buildings, setting them and keeping them in line and steady. The glorified Jesus is the key to God’s new community.

Not there yet. This doesn’t mean that God’s people are yet perfect. Far from it. It does mean our being honest with God, daily turning to him in repentance and asking for new resolve and strength to live his good way. It means less self-interest and self-will and more of what God expects of us.

It means putting aside everything that stands in the way of developing true community as God’s people – getting to know one another, including those who are not normally part of our social network, caring for those in need, working at reconciliation with those we have hurt or those who have hurt us. Not bearing grudges or grievances.

Men and women everywhere are looking for meaningful relationships of trust. In an angry, bitter, and divided world a powerful testimony to the truth of God’s gospel is the local church community where peace, not division, should exist. What are we doing with this precious jewel God has given us?

Prayer. God of the nations, whose kingdom rules over all, have mercy on our broken and divided world. Shed abroad your peace in the hearts of all men and women and banish from them the spirit that makes for war; so that all races and people may learn to live as members of one family and in obedience to your laws; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

Three years ago I referenced an article by Chris Kenny, ‘Our politicians and media are letting us down’ (The Weekend Australian, June 17-18, 2023). He observed: “When we see the open deceit and toxicity of politics and the media in the Canberra bubble (Australia’s DC), it is tempting to despair … We see persistent tension between truth and lies. We are informed about political systems we do not trust by media we do not believe”.

He then commented, “The depressing reality is that politics and media are manifestations of human nature, which is stubbornly flawed. Dante knew 700 years ago that the propensity to lie was our greatest flaw … More than 2000 years ago Aristotle warned that the only thing we “gain by falsehood” is to ensure we are not believed when we speak the truth. Yet in the here and now this same battle between truth and lies is the most important daily struggle”.

Two thousand years ago Paul the Apostle took the notion of our flawed human nature to another level. In Ephesianschapter 2, he writes: You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived,…

Our real problem. In our natural state we are the walking dead in God’s eyes: our relationship with him is dead, non-existent. Our trespasses and sins – our self-interest and pride, our covetousness, lies and deception, are all illustrations of this.

Furthermore, Paul identifies another layer behind our deeply flawed, self-interested nature when he says that in our natural state we follow the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient…

We are subject to oppressive influences – our flawed inner self, and from outside the prevailing secular culture. However, beyond both and actively working through both, is the ruler of the kingdom of darkness who holds us in captivity.

All too often, even so-called gospel churches fail to understand the depth of the abyss into which humanity has plunged – because we’ve turned our backs on God. It is an abyss from which we can’t extract ourselves. Humanity’s problem is not that it has simply taken a by-path in life. Rather we have chosen the path that leads to death. ‘Is there any hope?’ we might ask.

But God … All of us are by nature children of wrath, but God, who is rich in mercy, … Paul declares (2:3, 4).

The contrast between verses 3 and 4 is astonishing. God’s just anger in condemning us is not incompatible with his love. The two can be held together. God can be truly just in judging sin and at the same time choose to forgive because his nature is always to have mercy – choosing to love and to give life. Indeed, his justice reveals the depth of his mercy.

And consider what his mercy means for all who turn to him: … Out of the great love with which he loved us… he made us alive together with Christ … and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, (2:4, 5b, 6).

Although we were dead to God because we had chosen to ignore him, he nevertheless chose to give us a new life withChrist, raising us from death and giving us a seat beside Christ in his victory and rule – such is the tight link we now have with him through his Spirit (1:13).

God has done this, Paul tells us, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus (2:7).

How different is God’s love – his grace and kindness – from the self-focused, emotional and sentimental way love and mercy are understood today. Out of God’s pure love, his grace – his mercy so totally undeserved – he acted in rescuing the Ephesian Christians. He also planned that the overwhelming nature of his mercy he had shown, would be seen in the ages to come.

‘Can all this be true?’ we might ask. ‘Or is it another lie to promote the noise of the churches and to prop up the cripples of life? Two great themes in this passage provide an answer: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and the witness and evidence of the changed lives of genuine Christians throughout the ages (2:6, 7).

In verses 8 and 9 Paul restates the extraordinary mercy and gift of God: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

Three foundation gospel words stand out – salvation, grace and faith. Salvation is more than forgiveness: it is deliverance from death and the gift of new life in Christ in all its fullness. Grace is God’s free and undeserved mercy towards us. Faith is our response of trust by which we each receive God’s free gift for ourselves.

There is no place for asking, ‘How much penance should I do?’ God’s gift of forgiveness and new life is full and free. It echoes Jesus’s words to the repentant criminal as he was dying on the cross: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Good works. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life (2:10).

We are God’s work of art. Our salvation is God’s masterpiece in his creation. In the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s, ‘The Creation of Adam’ portrays God reaching out to Adam. Paul wants us to know that God’s masterpiece is of a totally different order: salvation is not just creation, or re-creation. It is a new creation.

Furthermore, we are created in Christ Jesus for good works – good works that God prepared beforehand. Before God in his mercy brought us to Christ we walked in trespasses and sins in which self-interest and the powers of evil had trapped us. Now we live out the good works God has eternally planned for us to do.

There are many things happening around us today that are troubling. Our only hope is to be found in the depths of God’s mercy. Let me encourage you to reflect on these words of Paul and ask the Lord to awaken the riches of his love in you, stirring you to live out each day the good works he has prepared for you to do. When we do this, others will notice – especially if we wisely play a part in helping them to discern truth in the midst of the deceptions around us. Maybe then, they with us, will come to know the hope and joy that only God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, can give us.

A prayer. Almighty God, our heavenly Father, like lost sheep we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts and have broken your holy laws. Going our own way we have not loved you as we ought nor loved our neighbors as ourselves. We justly deserve your condemnation. Father, for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, forgive us all that is past. Turn our hearts to love you and obey your will. Help us to live for your glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason