unPuzzled: Ephesians

patterns.

Introduction

Are you a puzzle person? Some people are. I am not. I am more of a puzzle(d) person. Dump out a jigsaw puzzle box of a thousand pieces on the kitchen table on a Saturday afternoon and I’m running for the remote control and a spot on the couch.

We live in a puzzled world; all at once created by God and decimated by people. Reading the first two chapters of the Bible is like looking at an artistic masterpiece. Read the next nine chapters and it’s like someone shattered the masterpiece into a million fragmented pieces. In fact, the eleventh chapter of Genesis and the story of the Tower of Babel shows the people of the earth literally being scattered across the planet like so many disparate, confused puzzle pieces.

We’ve been trying to put it back together ever since—to no avail. One need only watch the evening news to see things get more and more puzzled every day. Beginning with the twelfth chapter of Genesis, the God of all creation—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—began a quiet project to put the puzzle back together. It finally came to fruition with the coming of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

Paul’s letters continue this work as the Holy Spirit reveals how and where all the pieces fit. His letter to the Ephesians does a particularly masterful job.

There’s a brilliant story about the first Christians in Ephesus found in the travelogue we call the Acts of the Apostles. As the story goes, Paul made his way to Ephesus where he found several disciples of Jesus. Something must have seemed a bit askew to him based on the question he asked them. Clearly, what Paul observed puzzled him: Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? (Acts 19:2 NIV).

It’s like they had put the pieces to a jigsaw puzzle together in a way that didn’t resemble the box top. Something was missing.

Their reply was one for the ages: No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit (v. 2).

He kept pressing: "So Paul asked, ‘Then what baptism did you receive?’

‘John’s baptism,’ they replied.

With that, Paul had the missing puzzle pieces and brought it all together again.

Paul said, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all. (vv. 4–7 NIV)

Imagine how puzzled these early Ephesians disciples must have felt as they heard stories of signs and wonders and profound growth from across the powerful movement of the body of Christ. What are we missing? they must have thought to themselves, as they compared their fledgling community.

Let’s refer to this conundrum as the Ephesian Puzzle. How do you have an expression of the Church of Jesus Christ without the Holy Spirit? Short answer: you don’t. The reality? Millions of these so-called churches litter the landscape of today’s world. It must be utterly puzzling to Jesus to look upon these anomalous entities attempting to do the work of the kingdom without the authority and power of the King. The leaders and members of these organizations themselves must be somewhat puzzled at how they work so hard with so little to show for it. It must be akin to running on a treadmill that has not been plugged in. And certainly the surrounding culture and world must be puzzled as to what makes these churches any different from the United Way or the Kiwanis Club. Why pay the religious rent when they can belong to a real country club and volunteer at Goodwill, right?

After overcoming the false start and getting the Ephesians church properly planted, Paul pressed on to the next place and its problems. Along the way, Paul was dealt a Go Straight to Jail card. With a lot to reflect on and a ton of free time, Paul wrote letters to these churches. Many consider this letter to the Ephesian Church to be his masterpiece. It became what was known as a circular letter; one that churches passed among themselves through different cities and across national borders.

In this masterful letter, Paul pulls so many pieces together it is as though he is putting together a massive jigsaw puzzle. He shows how spiritual and material fit together, how male and female, slave and free, and even ethnicity and nationality connect and interrelate in this new creation of the kingdom of God. He reveals for us how the disparate pieces, powers, and principalities insert themselves into the affairs of heaven and earth. He gets granular at the level of husbands and wives, employers and employees, and even parents and children and how the gospel must work itself out from cosmic dimensions to every day practicalities. The puzzle really comes together in a marvelous way through this ancient letter to the Church in Ephesus.

We have all experienced the challenge of a good jigsaw puzzle. We know where to begin, right? First find the corners and then all the edges and then work toward the middle. And, of course, the key to putting a puzzle together is to keep the box top in plain view.

The interesting thing about this puzzle is that it has no edges. In fact, putting this puzzle together requires the unconventional method of beginning with the centermost pieces—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. With this centerpiece in place, the circumference moves aggressively outward in the gospel mission as far as the grace of God will go.

The other challenge with this puzzle is there no box top. In place of a box top, Paul masterfully works and weaves the gifts of the Word and Spirit in a profoundly prayerful and prophetic way. The outcome is not a static image but a dynamic, moving vision; a vision of how high and wide and deep and long is the love of Christ. The amazing thing is what will happen in us as we enter into this way of knowing God beyond mere knowledge.

It’s what happens when the Word of God and the Spirit of God interweave themselves into our lives. We begin by thinking our life is the puzzle only to realize our lives are only the pieces. When we glimpse the vision of the greater plan we are hit with the epiphany—God doesn’t have a plan for my life, rather, God has created our lives for his plan.

Here’s the invitation. Over the next forty something days let’s pull our chairs up to the table and spread out as many of the pieces of our lives as we can access. As we read this text together, submitting ourselves to the Word, the Spirit, and one another, we will behold God bringing something together beyond our ability to even comprehend.

Whether we are puzzle people or not, we have a puzzling and puzzled world in front of us. The good news is God is putting it back together again and wants to involve us in that task. I’m putting down the remote control and leaving the couch. It’s time to get this puzzle party started!

For the Awakening,

J. D. Walt

Easter 2018

1

On the Difference Between Living for Jesus and Living from Jesus

EPHESIANS 1:1 | This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus

Consider This

Have you ever gotten a letter from God? I haven’t either.

But wait! Isn’t that what the Bible is—a massive letter from God? Yes, we believe the Bible is God’s Word, but God did not write it. People wrote the Bible. The Bible is a human document. So does this somehow diminish the Bible’s authority? Not for a second, because the Bible is also a divine document. Every word of the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Look at how the apostle Peter describes this mysterious reality:

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:20–21 NIV)

Notice when Paul opens the letter he doesn’t say, This letter is from God. Go back and read it again. His opening five words are, This letter is from Paul. In saying this, Paul takes responsibility for the letter. Watch what he says next: chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus.

Paul claims to possess authority without claiming to be an authority. Jesus Christ is the authority. Paul is his apostle. Because Paul knows he is not the authority, he has the capacity to share in the authority of Jesus. An apostle (or a Christian for that matter) is not a worker for Jesus but a messenger from Jesus. These distinctions may seem like subtleties; they are not.

We do not live our lives for God. We live our lives from God. We do not work for Jesus. We work from Jesus. Our lives are the letter. Paul’s letter and his life are one in the same because they’re all coming from somewhere else—from the person of Jesus Christ, through the presence of the Holy Spirit, resident in him and through him.

Discipleship is not about mastering a body of knowledge or conforming to a behavioral code. Discipleship means learning to live freely under the mastery or lordship of Jesus Christ, which is to stay in the abiding zone of his active presence. It means learning to be carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is not a flat description of something he has mastered. It is an inspired declaration, description, and demonstration of the reality in which he lives.

Prepare yourselves, my friends. We aren’t taking a seat on Paul’s tour bus. We are entering into the zone of divine presence.

The Prayer

Abba Father, we thank you for your Son, Jesus, in whom the very fullness of your presence dwells bodily, and who dwells in us through the Holy Spirit. I want this more than life itself because this is in fact life itself. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

The Questions

What do you make of this distinction between living for and living from Jesus? How would you express that in your own terms?

Do you think of the Christian life as requiring more effort from you or more trust in God than if you did not follow Christ?

Have you ever thought of your life as a letter from God to the world? What implications would that have for you?

2

Why the Bible Was Not Written for the World

EPHESIANS 1:1–2 | I am writing to God’s holy people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.

May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Consider This

We know who the letter is from: Paul. And we know Paul is writing from God, as he is being carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

So who is the letter to? We most often refer to Paul’s letters according to whom they are written. In this case, the common parlance would be, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. That’s exactly wrong. Paul was not writing to the Ephesians any more than he was writing to the Colossians, Thessalonians, Galatians, or Romans (or the Americans, for that matter). Go back and check it for yourself in today’s text.

I am writing to God’s holy people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus.

Paul is not writing an open letter to the citizens of Ephesus. This is not meant to be read in the town square