Week 47 Ephesians 3
I noticed the word “mystery” used several times in Ephesians so I got out a word book. “Mystery” is used 28-times in the bible:
6-times in the OT (by Daniel)
22-times in the NT (17 by Paul. 6 of those in Ephesians).
Some mysteries stay mysterious but Paul revealed one of the OT mysteries: this is the secret plan: the Gentiles have an equal share with the Jews in all the riches inherited by God’s children.
All through the OT the Hebrew tribes/nation didn’t know about this plan (even though technically they were insiders). So it’s no big surprise that Gentile-outsiders didn’t know either.
But…(and this is the interesting part to me) there was another group that wasn’t aware of the mystery either: God’s purpose was to show his wisdom…to all rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.
I realize that the Total Geographic Extent of Bible World includes a) the real-natural world and b) an invisible mostly-inaccessible-to-me region. I know almost nothing about the Inaccessible Region and I don’t know who the rulers and authorities are – they might be angels and demons – but whoever they-all are my sense is that they’re probably smarter than humans. But Paul’s point is that no one anticipated the heavy-weightedness of Jesus – not a) people in the regular world and not b) supra-beings in the supra-regular world.
I’ve tended to assume that supra-beings pretty much know it all. But it looks like they have knowledge constraints too.
Note: quotes from Ephesians 3:6 10 (NLT)