Over the next 7 Sundays our second readings will be taken from one of St Paul’s prison letters – the circular letter to the community in Ephesus (in Asia-Minor, or modern-day west-coast of Turkey). It is a beautiful, rich and deep insight into Paul’s meditation and worship.
Our reading today from Ephesians 1:3-14 contains 12 verses, but only one sentence in the original Greek. Blessing – Father, Messiah, Spirit.
The entire prayer is woven through with the story of what God has done in Jesus the Messiah.
God has:
blest us in the king
has chosen us in him
foreordained us through him
poured grace on us in him
gave us redemption in him
set out his plan for us in him
sums up everything in him as head
We obtain our inheritance in him
have set our hopes in him
have been sealed in him with the Spirit as the guarantee of what is to come.
EVERYTHING that God has done he has done in Jesus the Messiah: for us – ‘in him’
