The biblical idea of government involves ruling, and ruling involves rules, laws and/or principles. All ruling involves decision-making on the basis of some standard for judgment, and the story of the Bible is the story of the establishment of a…
Category: Ephesians
Church
The Greek word for church is ἐκκλησία, and means called out. But it doesn’t simply refer to a group of people who are supposed to get out of one place to gather in another. Rather, it refers to the place…
High Places
A better translation here (Eph. 1:20) might be “highest heaven.” It is so translated in the Authorized Version, Ephesians 6:12: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of…
Power
(From In Christ—The Church at Ephesus, forthcoming.) That power (Eph. 1:19) includes the power needed to perform miracles, the power to create and mature moral excellence, the power and influence that belong to riches and wealth, the power and resources…
Purpose
(From In Christ—The Church at Ephesus, forthcoming.) Next Paul provided the purpose for all of this: “that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you” (Eph. 1: 18). Having some sense of generic hope is…