Ephesians, Day 1
The First Mass Mailing
Over the years of being on staff at a church, I’ve been on the receiving end of quite a number of mass mailings. The contents ranged anywhere from “Check out our great product” to “Please consider donating to our cause.” The oddest one I ever received was when, in 2019, a number of churches received a fax with a promotion for a Valentine’s Day fundraiser. There was a flyer with a stuffed bear holding roses with a handwritten note on the bottom saying, “Please give to youth pastor,” and a phone number to call. 105 other youth pastors commented in a Facebook group for youth workers, sharing they had received the same letter. While not all mass communications have noble intents, the one thing they all have in common is that they want to reach as many people as possible with their information. This is likely the intent of the book of Ephesians. The Faithlife Study Bible says that Ephesians was intentionally written to a wide audience and sent to many places.1 Unlike some of Paul’s other letters, this letter was not written to address problems within the church, but instead to explain some of the great doctrines and themes of Christianity.2
The main theme of the letter is found in Ephesians 1:10: “as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” The purpose of the book of Ephesians, as Bob Utley puts it, was to “emphasize the unity of all things in Christ. Christ restores the image of God in humanity and in the world.”3
While I don’t always enjoy receiving mass mailings or robocalls, I can’t help but admire their tenacity and drive to get their message out. We’ve all been on the receiving end of unwanted calls for an organization or product we never knew existed. The questions I have for us today are, “What would happen if we had the same passion and dedication? What if we were relentless in sharing the Good News of Christ to whoever would listen?” I’m not sure mass mailings are the way to go about it — I feel the Gospel message has the most impact when presented in the context of relationship. However, how many times have we shied away from sharing the message of Christ with someone in our life? We have a message worth sharing! It’s a message of forgiveness and redemption, a message of unity and hope, all found in a relationship with Christ. That is the message we find in the book of Ephesians. In fact, this book is often referred to as “the quintessence of Paulinism” by commentators because it summarizes the leading themes of Paul’s writings and carries the thoughts of previous letters into a new stage.4 In other words, as Spurgeon puts it, the book of Ephesians contains the entire treatise of Christianity in one document.5
That is something worth sharing with the world!
Adam Deering
- Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Eph 1:1 – 2). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
- https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide2017-Eph/Eph-1.cfm?a=1098001
- http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/new_testament_studies/VOL08/VOL08B_introduction.html
- https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide2017-Eph/Eph-1.cfm?a=1098001
- https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide2017-Eph/Eph-1.cfm?a=1098001