Week 49 Ephesians 2-3
I made a mistake a couple of days ago when I thought I’d nailed down Paul’s Big Idea in Ephesians: that the Lord had a Plan.
It’s not that the Lord did Not have a Plan. He definitely had a plan. My mistake was thinking that since I knew there was a Plan that that’s all I needed to know. Now as I keep reading I’m seeing that Paul intention is to spell out the content of The Plan.
He plainly says: and this is the secret plan: The Gentiles have an equal share with the Jews. Which is pretty novel. The OT story is that there’s a select group of people (Jewish people) – Insiders. Everyone else is an Outsider.
Now Paul is explaining how The Plan has taken a turn. He tells his Ephesian-Gentile audience about a Before & After.
Before you were:
outsiders by birth
living apart
excluded
without God
But now:
you belong…
There’s peace between us
We’re all one people
There’s no more wall of hostility
the whole system of exclusion is over
The Plan was to make peace between Jewish & non-Jewish people
Now we’re all reconciled to God
All of us…may come to the Father
Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners
They’re citizens
They’re members of God’s family.
The OT was a story of separation.
The NT – the Secret Plan Revealed – is about incorporation.
Note: quotes from Ephesians 3:6 & 2:11 12a 12b 15 12c 13 14a 14b 15a 15b 16a 18 19a 19b 19c 20 (NLT)