This is one of those passages that Paul sets before his readers like a thick, beef stew. It’s loaded with carrots and potatoes and onions and peas and celery and, if you’re lucky, fried mushrooms. As you ladle a steaming portion onto your plate your mouth waters, and you wonder why you don’t eat stew more often.
Just look: in a few dozen words Paul shares all the ingredients of God’s marvelous plan of salvation for mankind. We have God the Father’s “glorious grace,” our adoption “as sons through Jesus Christ,” and “the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.” Here we have the Trinity in action, nurturing our faith and nourishing our lives unto Kingdom come. And all this, God “lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ.”
And dutiful as ever, Paul show us God at work in our lives. This passage alone, were a person to commit it to memory, would both satisfy one’s spiritual palate and, at the same time, yield fresh flavors of truth for the believer. Here the apostle serves the reader a banquet of divinely inspired, Spirit-guided truths meant not just for the church at Ephesus, or even for the fellowship of believers throughout Asia Minor, but for the whole world, including you and me.
Bon Appétit!
THE PRAYER: Heavenly Father, Your Word nourishes your children like nothing else. Give us a hunger to come taste of its bounty every day. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
This Daily Devotion was written by Paul Schreiber.
Reflection Questions:
1. How do you determine the type and size of Bible text you will study?
2. How many different theological ideas do you find in the passage above? Writing them down would be helpful.
3. Can you pick a verse from the Bible and memorize it this week?