MA. in Ministry with three tracks: Theological Education, Pastoral Leadership, Bible Translation. January 25, 2023.

Graduation of M.A. in Ministry

In 2016, I helped launch — in partnership with SETECA (Central American Theological Seminary) located in Guatemala - the only Master’s level degree in any discipline in the entire country. SETECA is generally regarded as the “top dog” in evangelical theological education in the entire Hispanic world.  In 2016, I secured a grant of $60,000 through an anonymous couple in Canada which paid for the program: the finances principally brought visiting professors over to Equatorial Guinea from the USA and Latin America, Spanish-speakers with Ph.D.’s who could teach at the Master’s level. The airfare of my own trip back to EG in Jan. of 2023 was paid for through this fund, as the graduation ceremony basically emptied the coffers of the original grant.

The goal of the M.A. program was principally to raise the level of education of IBCP’s own African professors who teach at the diploma level program.  Three “tracks” of the M.A. were eventually added: M.A. in Ministry with Emphases in “Theological Education”, “Pastoral Leadership”, and “Bible Translation”.  Eight graduates persevered and were honored not only with M.A. degrees but with B.A. accredited degrees through SETECA.

With national professors possessing M.A. degrees, the way forward towards establishing an accredited B.A. program in Equatorial Guinea at IBCP Seminary now opens up in the future, to help evangelical Christianity keep pace with the next generation of young people graduating from college in the country.

Personally, it was immensely rewarding and satisfying to see this program come to a glorious conclusion; all the churches and pastors and extended families were overjoyed at the accomplishment, which was definitely a “big thing” for Christianity in the country, as no Christian evangelical leader had ever possessed that kind of degree.  I was even interviewed by the national media the day of the graduation. To God alone be the glory! 

Overview of IBCP Seminary:

IBCP Seminary resides in the former Spanish colony (Spanish Guinea) which received its independence in 1968. Equatorial Guinea is the only country in African where Spanish is the official language. IBCP plays a critical and important role in the discipleship and training of pastors and leaders amongst all the Evangelical and Pentecostal churches in the country.

Instituto Biblico “Casa de la Palabra” Campus in the city of Bata, Equatorial Guinea

At the present moment, IBCP Seminary is training leaders in both the two major cities of the country: the main campus in the city of Bata on the African mainland and the extension campus in the island capital of Malabo. Within the last couple of years, IBCP has also pioneered training leaders and pastors “in the interior” of the country in the largest interior village of the African mainland, in the village of Evinayong, with an additional 20 students from the interior set to graduate in June of 2023 in phase one of “Biblical Studies”. 

The health of discipleship, the integrity of trained pastors, and the overall health of sound doctrine for the churches of Equatorial Guinea can all be traced back, principally, to the vital ministry of IBCP Seminary which works with the breadth and width of the churches of Equatorial Guinea. No other mission in Equatorial Guinea, I believe, plays such a pivotal role for the development and integrity of evangelical Christianity in Equatorial Guinea than does IBCP Seminary. Countless churches have been started by graduates of IBCP Seminary over the last 20 years in a context where virtually all the pastors and leaders of the churches are first-generation Christians.

Gregorio Nsomboro, Rector of IBCP

Churches like this one on the island capital of Malabo deserve pastors who “correctly handle the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15).

Here is a PDF overview of the first six “everyday practices” from our Sermon Series The Intertwined Life: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad.

I distinctly remember my freshman year at Baylor University.

I had many burning questions from “Why do I need an email address?” to “Where’s the gym for pick-up basketball games?” 

Yet, midway through my freshman year, a burning question of faith roared to the top of the list: “Why does everyone seem to hear the Lord speaking with such clarity and regularity?” I was surrounded by (some) zealous Baptists who loved to begin faith conversations by stating, “The Lord told me…”

After about 100 times of hearing my friends exclaim: “The Lord told me”, I had my own question for the Lord: “God, why don’t you ever speak directly to me?” I was experiencing a mini-crisis of faith.

Eventually, I sensed that in the instances where I might say: “Here’s where I sense the Lord is leading me” or “God’s Word taught me this cool thing” or “I believe the Lord is calling me to…”, my Baptists friends were more comfortable with “God spoke to me” or “God told me” language.

At the time, I chalked it up to denominational differences and differences in personality.

Today, upon further theological reflection, I believe my hesitancy to state so baldly “God told me” and “God said to me” is based upon two ideas:

1) The Sufficiency of the Word of God.

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the their of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb. 1:1-2).

The point of Hebrews 1 is that in Christ “we have the fullness and finality of God’s redemption and revelation”.

Kevin DeYoung writes, “And we must not separate redemption from revelation. Both were finished and fulfilled in the Son…The words of the Bible and the Word made flesh are distinct, but they are also inseparable. Every act of redemption—from the Exodus, to the return from exile, to the cross itself—is also a revelation. They tell us something about the nature of sin, the way of salvation, and the character of God. Likewise, the point of revelation is always to redeem. The words of the prophets and the apostles are not meant to make us smart, but to get us saved. Redemption reveals. Revelation redeems.”

“Does this mean God no longer speaks? Not all. But we must think carefully about how he speaks in these last days. God now speaks through his Son.”

“So, yes, God still speaks. He is not silent. He communicates with us personally and directly. But this ongoing speech is not ongoing revelation. “The Holy Spirit no longer reveals any new doctrines but takes everything from Christ (John 16:14),” Bavinck writes….In these last days, God speaks to us not by many and various ways, but in one way, through his Son. And he speaks through his Son by the revelation of the Son’s redeeming work that we find first predicted and prefigured in the Old Testament, then recorded in the gospels, and finally unpacked by the Spirit through the apostles in the rest of the New Testament.”  Read DeYoung’s entire article here.

So when I heard my friends say “God spoke to me,” it felt to me, theologically, that the immediacy and clarity of that kind of religious language should be reserved exclusively for the Word of God.

Impressions are different. The Holy Spirit’s leading is different than God speaking decisively and finally through his Son (Heb. 1:2).  

2)     Theological Humility

One of the weaknesses of John Eldredge’s religious language that he utilizes throughout Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad, is that he gives off the impression that when he enters the kitchen, “God tells me this,” and when he sits down in the living room, “God tells me that”.

That kind of religious language, I believe, could use some theological humility.

We are to enjoy a personal and intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. That is the hallmark of an evangelical faith. Yet, that kind of “casual” and “immediate” encounter by God seems to be worlds away from how God typically speaks and reveals himself in Scripture.

When God speaks, the world is created (Gen. 1). When God speaks, the apostle John falls down as though dead (Rev. 1:17). When God shows up, people are undone (Isaiah 6:5, Luke 5:8-10).  

Brother Lawrence in The Practice of the Presence of God talks about a sweet communion with his Savior even while doing the most menial of tasks (like washing dishes) at the monastery. No doubt, that can be true! Yet the humility of Brother Lawrence invites you “practice the presence of God” without resorting to describing God’s direct speech outside of the Bible.

The point is that the way we talk about the faith matters.

The sufficiency of the Word of God matters, even in our Christian world which is always looking for something unique, fascinating, and alluring other than the Word of God. We must not become bored with the Word of God yet always extol its utter Sufficiency for life and godliness.

By the same token, theological humility matters. We should never presume to be more in touch with the Almighty God than is biblically and reasonably warranted. We should not speak as if God is our Genie in the Bottle or Must Show Up at our Every Decision. Being a Christian means being authentic to the entire repertoire of the human and biblical experience of God: sometimes God withdraws his presence, his silence is a mystery to us, and we wonder with the Psalmist: “How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1). In fact, these experiences of God are much more commonplace for the people of God than we often dare admit.

In our zeal to hear from God, let us not forget humility before God.

In our digital age, Christian leaders are increasingly called to be a “curator of resources”. Here are five resources that I believe will challenge you, sharpen your life in Christ, and generally bless you as you seek to follow Jesus:  

The Question of Marriage

The first resource that I heartily recommend (and thus place it at the top of this list) is a lengthy podcast about marriage from Tim and Kathy Keller. So many nuggets of wisdom. You could listen to it twice and be blessed both times!

Podcast: “Marriage and Our Culture” ~ Tim & Kathy Keller from the “Gospel in Life” podcast.

The Question of “I love Jesus but Not the Church” Posture in America

An interviewer gives John Piper a scenario very much alive in 21st century American religiosity.

Interviewer: What about the scenario - “I’m not walking away from Jesus, but I’m done with the church.”

John Piper: “If you do that, you’re walking away from Jesus” 

See the video here: https://twitter.com/brmorris/status/1713087443849593238

Trevin Wax explores this dynamic in a blog post entitled “Prone to DeChurch, Lord I Feel It”.

“While not ruling out the choice of a believer to walk away from a particular congregation, Piper stressed the impossibility of thinking someone could follow Christ and leave the church altogether. ‘To walk away from the church is to walk away from Christ,’ he said…..if you zoom out of our contemporary Western setting, you find that Piper’s comments about following Jesus and belonging to the church are standard fare for nearly all Christians around the world today, as has been the case for nearly all of church history…

We can go back even further, to the New Testament itself, to see this connection between following Christ and belonging to his people. The church is the body of Christ (Rom. 12:4–5; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 1:23; Col. 1:24). It’s impossible to cling to the head of Christ without doing the same to his body…

…An unchurched Christian, as John Stott pointed out, is ‘a grotesque anomaly’. . . . The New Testament knows nothing of such a person.” ~Trevin Wax

What is the Factor of Why Most People Attend Church?

The answer may surprise you, especially if you went through the “worship wars” of the 1990s or you have recognized the relational poverty that characterizes our era, where people are desperate for community and connection. The answer to “Why Do People Come to Church” is this:

A Gallup poll indicates that it’s neither the music (38%) nor community (49%) nor the kids or youth ministry (64%) as the leading number one reason of why people come to church. That distinction belongs to preaching (75%). As Brandon Hilgemann argues: “Three-quarters of the people come to church because of the preaching.”

Check out Brandon Hilgemann’s blog: “Fact: Preaching is Why People Attend Church”.

Check out the Gallup Poll entitled: “Sermon Content is What Appeals to Most Churchgoers”.

The Question of “Do you actually know the Scriptures”?

I recently recommended the best long answer essay that I know on infant baptism was written by Dr. Gregg Strawbridge. A staff member sent me this vignette written by a mentee about Greg Strawbridge himself:

“When I was first ordained, Gregg inserted himself onto my examination committee with the primary intention, I am convinced, of giving me a good-natured ritual hazing. One of the questions he asked me has now become something of ecclesiastical lore in my old communion. “How important would you say the Psalms are to the life of the Christian?” Gregg asked. I immediately began extolling the Book of Psalms as the prayerbook of the church, a model for both personal devotion and public worship, even a divine hymnal of sorts. I spoke of its role in spiritual warfare and how it prophesied the messiah. All very high and pious-sounding stuff. “Ok, great answer,” Gregg said. “Now I wonder if you could just work through each of the psalms, giving us a one or two sentence summary of what they say.” I laughed, wondering if the question was serious or not. But here we all were, on the floor of my ordination exam. This was on the record. “They don’t have to be exact quotes,” he smilingly reassured me. So, I tried to get started and made it to about Psalm 3 before sputtering out. “Oh that’s ok. You know, for some people it helps to jog their memory if they work backwards. Maybe you could try starting with Psalm 150.” On this second try, I made it through Psalm 148.  There was a sort of playfulness to this, for sure. But Pastor Strawbridge also wanted to make a point. It’s all well and good to have strong theology and good ideas about the Scriptures. It’s another thing entirely to know the Scriptures.”

The Question of Moral Proximity

“Proximity and Plausibility: Why Do People Behave Contrary to their Beliefs?” by Samuel D. James:

Samuel James: Why do self-described pro-life people still get abortions? Freddie Deboer’s recent piece isn’t interested as much in answering this question as simply pointing out the fact that there are, indeed, people who do this. Freddie observes that abortion rights are a “revealed preference,” meaning how people actually behave in the marketplace—i.e., what they consume/buy/obtain for themselves—is a more accurate indicator of who they are than their stated political views.

He’s right about this. Freddie makes this observation in the context of celebrating legal abortion, but the same point is made by Christian professor David Ayers in his recent book After the Revolution: Sex and the Single Evangelical. The entire book is a compendium of research showing how American evangelicals say they believe sex is sacred, meant only for marriage, but behave as if they don’t. In fact, in the introduction, Ayers mentions that when he was teaching at a small fundamentalist school, he was told by the director of a local crisis pregnancy center that several students from the school had recently visited the center but decided to get abortions.

So here’s the question: When people who engage in pro-life activism, sign student covenants, and assent to traditional Christian teachings have premarital sex and get abortions, are they proving that they really don’t believe that? Certainly this is possible. There are lots of reasons why someone would feign certain convictions; pressure to conform, wanting approval from parents, etc. Absolutely, that happens. But I think Freddie’s concept of the “revealed preference” is insightful here. I wonder if in many cases, these people really do believe that abstinence until marriage is best and that unborn babies are human persons. But these convictions are connected to thick plausibility structures which can get suddenly, and forcefully, challenged. And the further away a person finds themselves from that conviction’s plausibility structure, the less likely they are to actually make life harder or less pleasureable for themselves for the sake of it.

Abortion makes this very obvious. As Freddie points out, a pro-life woman who gets an abortion will almost certainly reason that her particular situation is exceptional. She might even admit that it’s wrong. But the alternative to the abortion is so unthinkable, so impossible to contemplate, that she simply absorbs the moral offense. What is that alternative? Having a baby. Thus, for some who ascribe to pro-life worldview, the plausibility structure of their convictions is life without an unprepared-for child. When that structure fades, the conviction doesn’t go away, it just feels much further away.

Same thing with premarital sex. There is obviously a big difference between saying you are waiting for marriage when you live at home, have no car, and little realistic opportunity to sleep with somebody. Thus, the plausibility structure of sexual abstinence could be life without an urgent sense of desire and/or opportunity. In a college dorm, this plausibility structure disappears. Again, it’s not that the person stops believing something, or that they never actually believed it in the first place. It’s that putting conviction up against a hot and heavy moment of desire and opportunity is, for the vast majority of people, an unfair fight. It’s not about what they believe; it’s about what they prefer.

For a couple years now I’ve been fleshing out the idea that proximity creates plausibility. In other words, the place you’re at, the moment you inhabit, the people and words and objects around you—these are all live wires jolting your soul. People are not robots whose convictions are uploaded into their motherboards from age 0 to 18, who then go through life pre-programmed. Rather, human nature is constantly responsive to our situations. We believe, but we also feel, and these feelings are deeply contextual and in turn shape our beliefs. Behaviors can make more sense to us the more we watch them, the more we give our attention to them. Ideas can commend themselves to us the more time we spend contemplating them—actually, the more time we spend around them.

The key text for this idea is Proverbs 7. Have you ever wondered why Solomon goes out of his way to describe in great detail the encounter between a foolish dude and an adulterous woman? It seems at first glance that Solomon takes a long time to tell a very simple story. But I think Solomon belabors the details—the time of day the boy goes by her house, what she’s wearing, and what she says—because he wants us to feel just how powerful this moment is. Every aspect of this interaction builds up a plausibility structure of illicit desire, to the point that not even the boy’s best logic can resist. For Solomon, the lesson is clear. He concludes not with, “Resist her charms” or “counter her lies,” but: “Do not stray into her paths.”

I’m sure many people will read this and think, “Well that’s 15 minutes of my life I can’t get back.” All of this may sound very obvious to you. But let me push back on that for a minute. In the age of the Internet, how obvious is the relationship between proximity and plausibility? How intuitive is it actually? I don’t think it’s intuitive at all. I think the digital age has made this concept deeply counter-intuitive. All of us feel in control of our input. All of us feel in command of our virtual worlds. And yet all of us have instantaneous, un-filtered, completely private access to every single behavior, idea, or identity imaginable. Everything, all of the time. We literally inhabit a digital universe that possesses the power, every second of the day, to conjure up any image, any scenario, any how-to, any bigotry, any kink, any manifesto, any truth-claim…..anything we want. “Desensitized” is too small a word for our imaginations in the computer age. We are constantly on the precipice of human (and nonhuman) imagination, every, single, day.

Let us grant that proximity creates plausibility. Let us also grant that the modern, 5G-connected person is proximate to just about anything, from violent pornography to kinism to “how to make a bomb.” What kind of plausibility structure is arising out of this? Just how far out are the limits of our conscience expanding? And why don’t we seem to talk about this more?

Any framework for Christian witness in the 21st century—much less any framework for political theology or the wielding of power—must account for this. Any framework that doesn’t cannot comprehend the modern situation.

You can subscribe to Samuel James’ “Digital Liturgies” online.

"The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.” ~ Dwight L. Moody

How do you, at the same time:

• relativize your own feelings (because they often lead you astray)

• know “the good” and keep your life pointed in that direction

• minimize sin while increasing joy

• know the truth and understand how to live truly free

• become wise, increasingly knowledgeable about how to live well

• understand there is a “word from God to you” that has already been spoken

• soak in the height and length and breadth and width of the love of God

• know such a great salvation, that you are united to Jesus Christ, the Son of God

• practice the faith by breathing in the words of God and breathing out prayers to God

• become like Jesus in quoting scriptures to keep the devil at bay

• know your sin, so you can daily repent and believe in the gospel

• know your Father who so loves you that he has numbered every hair on your head

You pick up the Word. You meditate on the Word. You study the Word. You submit your life to the Word. You choose the Word every time rather than the voice of your culture, your fears, your failures.

You let the Word lead you to the Word Incarnate.

As you breathe in the Word of God, you breathe out worship, you breathe out prayers, you breathe out gratitude.

There are lots of Bible reading plans: here are 20 options.

I’m going back to one that I created a few years ago called The Gospel-Centered, Wisdom-Inspired Bible Reading Plan that allows you to:

• Read the Gospels 2x per year. (I want to keep Jesus’ life and teachings always before me; hence - the “Gospel-Centered” part of the plan.)

• Read the NT Epistles and Letters 2x per year.

• Read the OT Wisdom Literature 1x per year (I want to worship, lament, and acquire wisdom from God; hence - the “Wisdom-Inspired” part of the plan.)

• Read the rest of the OT once every two years

• While reading 4 chapters a day Monday-Friday.

 “The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.” ~ John Flavel

Why preach on the doctrine of predestination and election? The short answer is because it is in the Bible! Twice in Ephesians 1 , the word “predestined” appears (vs. 5, 11). Paul is not ashamed of the doctrine; quite the contrary, he praises God for this “glorious grace” (vs. 6).

In Paul’s farewell discourse to the Ephesians elders, he defended his apostolic ministry with these words: “For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

The whole counsel of God. Including doctrines that make you bend the knee before the Lord even if it means it breaks your brain. Some ignore the doctrine. Some “yeah but” the doctrine to death. Yet, at the end of the day, you have to actually interpret Ephesians 1.

Here is my (somewhat expanded) sermon entitled “The Father’s Purpose” from Ephesians 1:4-6.

I begin by answering FOUR COMMON OBJECTIONS to the doctrine of predestination & election before delving into the main text of the sermon.

When you open the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, gone is the hard-driving contentiousness of Galatians or the myriad of sticky holiness issues of 2nd Corinthians. In Ephesians, the vision is grand, the theology is stirring, and the prayers are beautiful. Ephesians is like theology set to a majestic score of music: gospel truth that sings and praises and prays.

Ephesians is theology on bended knee with practical implications for living.

Paul’s letters typically begin with greetings and blessings, followed by with prayers of thanksgiving and intercession, before delving into the main teaching part of the letter.  Ephesians is different. Paul’s theological ideas (1:3-3:21) are woven into the very fabric of prayer:

• The initial benediction (1:3-14) reflects upon the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’s purposes in the lives of believers.

• The prayer of thanksgiving and intercession (1:15-23) highlights gospel truths of our glorious inheritance and Christ’s exaltation as the Lord and Head of the Church, then Paul reminds us of the benefits of grace (2:1-10) and of both Jew and Gentile living together as united and reconciled people (2:11-22).

• At 3:1, Paul resumes his prayer but suddenly interrupts himself again (you aren’t the only one!) to revel in the mystery of the gospel which calls forth the church and his own role in God’s plan (3:2-13).

• Paul finally closes his prayer (3:14-19) with intercession for believers to experience the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s unsurpassed love before closing with a memorable doxology (3:20-21). And that’s only the first three chapters!

As the desert monk Evagrius said, “The one who prays is a theologian; the one who is a theologian, prays.” Paul would have agreed!  

EPHESIANS at a GLANCE:

Ephesians can be laid out simply:

The Wealth (chapters 1-3)

The Walk (chapters 4-5)

The Warfare (chapter 6:10ff)

PRISON EPISTLE

Ephesians is one of the four “Prison Epistles” of Paul (along with Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon):

“For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles” (3:1).

  “I therefore, a prison for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (4:1).

“For which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it [the gospel] boldly, as I ought to speak” (6:20).

Paul wrote Ephesians (probably in 62 AD) from a Roman jail, often reminding his readers of his predicament.  

Paul in Ephesus in the Book of Acts

Paul spent two occasions in the city of Ephesus in the book of Acts. His first stint (52 AD) was brief (Acts 18:18-21). Paul’s second stay in Ephesus (53-56 AD) saw him engaging in highly fruitful ministry (Acts 19:1-41; Acts 20:17-38) for over two years:

“And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12). Extraordinary indeed!

The ministry was so fruitful that people broke in mass with the Ephesian obsession with magic and the occult. New believers brought their magic books to be burned in the public square. Luke records that the early church counted the price of books: 50,000 pieces of silver (Acts 19:19), equivalent to 50,000 days of wages! A massive movement to Christ was taking place that challenged the prevailing cultural truths of the day.

The sales of silver dropped dramatically! Sales of little dolls of Artemis plummeted in the city. One silversmith by the name of Demetrius was so incensed that he stirred up a riot and the whole city was thrown into confusion and chanted “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” (Acts 19:23-34) The gospel always confronts the harmful, hurtful, and untruthful ideologies of man.

In Acts 20:17, Paul stopped at Miletus (30 miles to the north of Ephesus) and bid farewell to the Ephesian elders for the final time in a moving and heartfelt speech warning the church of “fierce wolves” (Acts 20:29) but also reminding the elders that he did not “shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27).

As a personal note, my own mentor, Rev. David Bridgman, on his death bed in a hospital in Orlando a few years ago, read this verse over my own life moments before his death: “And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified” (Acts 20:32). Like the Ephesian elders, it was a moment I will never forget.

Ephesus, the Great City

Ephesus lay 4 km inland from the Aegean Sea on the west coast of modern Turkey. Outside of Rome and Athens, Ephesus was the 3rd most important city in the Roman Empire, boasting a population of 250,000 and sitting along the largest trading route uniting the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire. Ephesus boasted the largest building in the known world, the famous temple of Artemis, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Temple of Artemis (the goddess of sexual fertility) was four-times as big as the Parthenon in Athens and bigger than any modern-day football field, which is one reason why Paul probably used a temple-analogy to describe the church:

“…Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (2:20).

Ephesus was also obsessed with magic, the occult, and demons, which is why Paul spoke about cosmic principalities and powers and Christ’s lordship over them (“for we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, but…against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” 6:12). Paul was adamant: Christ is the exalted Lord seated at the right hand of God “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (1:21).

Themes of the Letter

• Our Identity “in Christ”. Paul uses the words “in Christ” or its equivalent 36 times in the letter. Believers are united to the exalted Lord who is the Christ. The precisely grammarly construction “in the heavenly places” is not found elsewhere in Paul but in Ephesians occurs five times (1:3; 20; 2:6; 3:10; 6:12). Believers have been blessed in Christ “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (1:3) and are seated with Christ “in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (2:6) where Christ reigns triumphant over all earthly powers. Our identity is united to a powerful and exalted Christ! In addition, pay close attention to the Pauline phrase “all things” (1:10, 11, 23; 3:9; 4:10, 15; 5:13). Whether Christ’s rule extends over creation, salvation, or the coming consummation, Christ’s dominion extends over “all things” in the cosmos.  

• The Unity in the Gospel for the People of God. A spiritual fellowship unites believers to one another. The word ekklesia (the church) occurs nine times in Ephesians (1:22, 3:10, 21; 5:23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 32); Paul’s favorite images of the church include “the body of Christ” (1:22-23; cf. 2:16; 4:4, 12, 16; 5:23, 30), “the holy temple” (2:22; cf. 1 Cor. 3:16-17), and the “bride of Christ” (5:21-33) – all images which connect the body intimately and spiritually to its head who is Christ.

  As I never tire of saying: “Christ is the Head of the Christ”. Therefore, “All ministry is Christ’s ministry” -- Christ always gets all the glory in His church (“to the praise of His glory”, 1:12, 14, cf. 1:6).

Other themes include: Putting on the new self in Christ in thoughts, motivations, words, and deeds while putting off sinful habits; engaging in a spiritual battle in our pilgrim calling; walking in manner worthy of our identity in holiness and love.

In short, Ephesians is filled with gospel truths for gospel living!