The conclusion of the letter

Alright, so we're going to read from verse 18 down through the end of the chapter, and whoever has that, please read, please, for the entire class. Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints. And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth fully to make known the mystery of the gospel. for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak, but that ye also may know my affairs, and how I do. Tychicus, of the loved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall make known to you all things, whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts. Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

All right, thank you Margaret. All right, let's begin at the top. I need to turn this on. All right, so I've combined verses 21 and 22. The punctuation is such that that's appropriate here. But you may also know my affairs and how I'm doing. Take of this, a beloved brother and faithful minister of the Lord will make all things known to you. whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs and that he may comfort your hearts." The point that I think comes out here is that ultimately during his first imprisonment Paul was anticipating his defense before Nero. So remember this period of time we studied in Acts that he's kind of going through this period of kind of It's really kind of an ambivalent period. He's got a lot of freedom to communicate the gospel. People can come talk to him. He's ministering to the churches locally and beyond, but yet he's also preparing to go before Nero. He's a prisoner of Rome. Ultimately, I think this transparency shows up in these first two verses. and also it reflects, I think, the brethren in Rome and around him that ultimately is being taught by him. So let's move forward here.

To know is aiaido, which is fact. But that you may also know, and know the facts of my affairs. Here's what's going on. And it's perfect active subjunctive, which means they may or may not know. I mean, they may know, but if you may know, this is really what I'm experiencing here. I'm in prison.

But yet the church is abounding because I have an opportunity to share with people who come and I minister to them in this particular unusual circumstance in which I find myself. I think it's important to note that despite his imprisonment in Rome, Paul was well-treated and had many opportunities to teach. Randy and Roger and I co-taught Acts. We can turn to Acts 28, 17-31 to show evidence of how much capability to communicate he had while he was imprisoned in Rome. So he's really now letting the church at Ephesus know through Tychicus about all that's going on in Rome. despite the fact that he's in prison.

Thoughts about that? Yeah, Ren. I would say also that it's astute for him not to write specific things in the letter were it to be open and if it had any political connections or assertions about anybody. Sending it with a messenger is a safety mechanism for the church. You can still communicate, but it just gets to be an agent of truth and details that will not cause issues politically.

So you're suspecting then that this letter could have been apparent to people other than to Tychicus and to whom it's being delivered then? Well I mean the Roman government if they were to decide that something needed to be investigated could have commandeered a letter or a messenger on any number of things especially since Tychicus is representing Paul He's a known agent. Paul is and those who affiliate with him.

So there's an affiliation there that I think there's some risk. That's a bit supposition. But I think there's some nuance there politically. OK. Other thoughts about Paul's ability to be transparent here in terms of what's going on? You know, Paul is not whining here. He's not really whimpering and considering himself really put out.

I mean, this is where the Lord has him. And the neat thing about it is he's ministering not only locally, as evidenced in Acts 28, but also he's ministering externally to churches around Asia. Alright, let's go ahead then. Who's Tichitus? Who's this guy? What do we know about him? We don't know a whole lot about him, but if we turn to Acts 24, it's clear that he's an Asian.

He's listed among a couple of other people in Acts 20 verse 4. We don't have to, in fact, we could turn to there. Lots of people are turning there. Let's turn to 24 and document that he's an Asian. So, David, you have 24. You want to read all these names in there? If you get them all right, you're going to get a gold star. You're not even going to attempt it, then, right? No opportunity for failure.

Randy, read those names in Acts 20.4.

By Sopater of Berea, the son of Paris, and by Aristarchus in Secundus, of the Thessalonians, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy, and Tychicus, and Trofimus of Asia." You get a B-plus on that. That was quite good, actually. Alright, so he's an Asian, and he's faithful in a beloved brother and minister. Wow, look at all those adjectives.

Define faithful in the body. How many among us are faithful? We're not passing judgment here. I mean, the concept of what's a faithful beloved brother? What's he or she like? Wouldn't you think it would be someone who's faithful to the message, to the Lord, who understood what the message was and is teaching it or talking about it in the appropriate way that Paul had taught it?

We're going to return in subsequent verses to how faith relates to love. That's one answer. How else will we define? Through the good times and the bad times. So the faithfulness is based on what? We've related to that a couple of weeks ago. The relationship. true and I think it relates to truth, the truth of the gospel and how it's being portrayed. So faithful to the truth of the gospel and manifested by love and we're going to get to that in a couple of verses. Beloved brother, I mean in a sense faith and love are connected here in describing Tichitus. So this is really a very important kind of bonding that we see between faith and love.

And minister, what do we think of a minister? If he's ministering the gospel, he's able to articulate the gospel Presumably he's to carry Paul's letter to the church at Ephesus, but not only is that he's going to do that, he's going to minister the truth of that letter. So this is not just kind of a standby kind of postman, if you will. He understands the gospel, he's faithful and true and beloved, and he's also going to deliver it to the church at Ephesus.

And this is documented in 2 Timothy 4.12, and take it as I have sent to Ephesus. So this is really kind of a ministry that relates to him being a faithful and beloved brother. By the way, there's a similar purpose for letters that went to Colossae and letters that went to Titus, and that's evidenced by the verses that are cited there if you want to look at those. I didn't look at Titus, but his name is mentioned in the Colossians. Right, in the Colossians 4, 7, 8, Tichitus is mentioned. So this wasn't his first road trip. Yeah, so this guy is here, there, and everywhere.

And he was to make all things known to you whom I've sent to you for this very purpose that you may know our affairs and that he may comfort your hearts. Back to what Randy said, we don't have the details here. And I think Randy brought up an excellent point about the fact that details were not needed. But yet, and again, the transparency of Paul under his current circumstances, he wants to make known to those in terms of to whom the letters be delivered of what's really happening.

Known here is Gnorsico and know is Gnosko. So this is more experiential knowledge. This is just not kind of the facts of Paul being in prison in Rome. This is now really the experience that Paul is going through in Rome. So the message that's being transmitted here goes beyond simply the facts. It's kind of how the facts relate to what Paul's experience is and his growth in grace.

So this is kind of more personal. These are the details that Randy alluded to that were not really shared in the letter as far as we have it recorded in the epistle to the Ephesians. Any thoughts about that? And some discouragement surrounded the Ephesian church at this time, and I'll use a verse that's quoted by several commentators, and I went back to look at this.

Ephesians 3.13, Therefore I ask you that you do not lose heart at my tribulation for you, which is your glory. So in the book of Ephesus, it reflects the fact that the Ephesian church knew of Paul and his circumstances and that ultimately he's going to now share experientially what he's really going through. And I suspect that was mostly uplifting despite his imprisonment. And again, keep in mind the circumstances in which Paul existed and Margaret and I have had the privilege of looking at that prison in Rome.

Pretty small space and down deep. You got to go down, you got to go to a circular stairway that's really very narrow. Margaret, you remember that? Yeah, but I'm not even sure. I think they even said that the stairway really wasn't even there originally. It was just a hole in the floor in the stone and they just threw him down in there and it was dark and it's nasty in there. Wasn't much room either. Maybe six feet by six feet or something.

So anyway, Paul knew of the kind of issues going on in Ephesus and I suspect that maybe in this letter he kind of shared maybe the circumstances in which he was living, but to God be the glory, right? Welcome to life for all of us. To God be the glory for our good times and those trials and tribulations we all face. Any other thoughts about those first two verses in terms of kind of before we get into the salutation and the benediction here which will bring about more discussion I promise. Because if it doesn't we'll be done in another five minutes.

The other thing about the relationship between Colossians and Ephesians is they were written at the same time, apparently sent at the same time. They were geographically one related to the other and there's a letter to the Laodiceans that Paul references. It was also sent at this time that we don't have. Apparently it is not important for preservation by God.

So Tychicus, he's told the same thing. The Colossians are told the same thing. Tychicus is going to tell you what's going on. carefully not saying exactly what's going on or that's not effective letter writing use. Right, again we reference the fact that Thicket has had a role in Colossae, a similar role and we'll be studying that in more detail Roger as we go forward.

Alright, so peace be to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It seems like we've kind of seen this kind of thing before. What kind of peace is this do you think? Peace be to the brethren. Is this peace with God or the peace of God? And what are the circumstances surrounding it? Tom? I would suspect it has a lot to do with people knowing enough about Paul that are of the brethren without having to get into agony. without saying it out loud, that it's covered by God's mercy, grace, love, peace, all the good things, and even if it sounds like a very incomplete report, it is what it is, and we appreciate your prayers and ongoing prayers, and may peace be with you.

All right. Now, some think that this could relate to prosperity, but I think it in no way relates to prosperity. If you look up the original Greek here, the translation of this piece often is translated as prosperity and multiple commentators. By the way, when I teach, I look at about 10 different sources of information. So it's not that they're gonna tell me what to say, but by the Spirit leading us as we read the scriptures, we want to consolidate that and hopefully reveal truth as we best see it. So we'll give that to the Spirit, and if I'm wrong here, but prosperity in no way is the translation of this verse.

I'm gonna say that perhaps this is in context, this addresses the body and history between the Jew and the Gentile. I mean, one thing about Ephesians is it brings the idea that we're all one. And this may not be only related to Jew and Gentile, but let's look at verses 14-16 in Ephesians 2.

For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances. for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby."

I think those three verses reflect the kind of, he is the peace, but he has brought consolidated peace among all to oneness in the Lord Jesus Christ. People okay with that? It's the peace of God, peace with God. I think Christ is the center of peace, consolidating all these differences historically, including ordinances. All the legality of the Jewish tradition now has been conquered by the cross shown here, and peace is the result of that. That seemed to fit well with me. Other thoughts? chapter of the book. I mean, it's about, you know, this and he's very clear about what the piece is.

How in the world could they They're trying to go to the Greek language and translating it in the best way they find appropriate for the text. Well, again, it is. It's often though, I mean, if you look at Greek translations, there can be ultimately five or six different translations for the same Greek term, noun, verb or whatever. So I think you have to put it into context in terms of how to best interpret it.

Steve, you had a point? Yeah, just kind of continuing in the same line of thought. It's saying that we're to make Himself 21 in man. It's kind of referring to our new creation in Christ. And then after that, the next phrase is, so making peace. Like peace is a result of our new creation in that position. So is this the peace with God or the peace of God? Unequivocally, the peace of God.

Similar salutations, by the way, what's a salutation? I mean, in a sense, I'd look at the last verse as a benediction and the second last verse as a salutation. I have to look up exactly what's the meaning of a salutation. Well, according to, I'm not sure which dictionary this is, it's gestures made as a greeting of another's arrival or departure. So a salutation, and the next verse is really a benediction, a kind of putting this all into some sort of conclusive take-home message. But the salutation is just kind of a greeting and it reflects another's arrival or departure anyway.

This is not unique to Paul. It's also seen in other epistles. I mean, by the way, the benediction we're going to return to is very similar to other benedictions. But the salutation, this greeting at arrival or departure, is similar to what Peter uses in 1 Peter 5.14 and similar to what John uses in 1 John 3.14. This kind of, well, back to the verse, peace be to the brethren and love with faith from God the Father. That's very similar to salutations that are used by other New Testament authors. Alright, let's go ahead. Mutual love importantly rests on a common faith. Let's discuss that. Look at the verse again. Peace be to the brethren and love with faith. Okay, let's look at love without faith or faith without love.

What's Christ's love? It's not just one characteristic, it's a whole package of things. Love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, meekness, self-control, a whole bunch of others that I can't name because it's bigger than all. It's all-encompassing, wonderful, merciful love. Okay, but what about Christ's love that's different than human love? Sacrificial, unconditional, all the adjectives we can use to describe it. So, how does that relate to faith? Does love drive faith or does faith drive love? The verse says, and love with faith. Are they separable?

Remember, we had a short lesson today. I'm trying to make more of these four verses we have. This is a salutation. We're going to spend three hours on the salutation. Okay, so I'm going to say that this is me only, maybe, but we talked about this a couple of weeks ago. The truth is the foundation of everything. I'm the way, the truth, and the life.

So truth is the foundation of faith and love. And the truth of love is who Christ is, right? So the love, mutual love, rests on our faith and our faith is based on the truth of who Christ is. So I think these two must be connected because it's all part of our identification with the Lord Jesus Christ and his ability to enact each and every thought and deed through us by our faith. So faith and love are connected. And the common faith is what? Mutual love, importantly, rests on a common faith. What's our common faith? This is our common faith, right?

The Word of God. So what's been revealed to us is really our notebook, if you will, of the life that we now live. in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, let's go ahead. Ephesians 3, 17-19 I think puts a little bit more clarity to this, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being rooted and grounded in love, notice the relationship between the two, may be able to comprehend with all saints what's the breadth and the length and the depth and the height and then know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Notice the fact that the love of Christ passes all knowledge really is based on our faith that that's ultimately going to be implemented. So the connection of faith and love as described in this salutation is critical and incredibly important. Galatians also addresses this a bit, for in Jesus Christ neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which works by love. So Paul thematically often represents that same kind of view of the gospel and how it applies to our lives in multiple epistles which he's written.

Alright. I have a question. Yes. In the sentence, it may be able to comprehend with all the saints the breadth, length, and depth, but it doesn't say the breadth, length, and depth of what? Is it God's love? Yes, I think so. Yes, that's what it relates to. Other opinions about that? Alright, from God, the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Not much more to add about that. It's interesting that the love of God doesn't really have breath.

You need a big yardstick here. An infinite yardstick. I think you were in the other Sunday School class that merged in here when we went over this. What's amazing about it is that he wants you to know this thing that passes knowledge. We're going to know it, but it passes knowledge. It's limited and unlimited. Okay, another kind of... Wayne?

I was thinking when you talked about the love of Christ, that's up there in verse 21, talking about taking as a hymn, the beloved brother. We're all accepted into the beloved. And that word, that word is Christ love. And you follow that through scripture and it's just mind-boggling, it really is. And reflects the height and the breadth and the length and the depth. Four-dimensional, if you will.

Okay, another challenging question for the class here to buy some time here this morning. Roger, these are the verses I have to deal with here. So anyway, I thought it might be worthwhile. Randy came up and counseled me a couple of weeks ago about what I should be doing here. Randy, I ignored you completely almost. Don't take it personally.

So, I thought it might be fun to kind of think of this peace, love and faith and compare that with the peace and love and faith of the world. How often do you hear, I'm not only going to put this in kind of mainline sanctuaries around, but praying for peace on earth, you know, yeah, that's all part of the gospel account, but I mean, peace, the world wants peace, doesn't it? Does scripture in any way promise earthly peace?

So the peace of the Lord and the peace we have of God is a whole different kind of peace. It's the security blanket we have. It's the citizenship we have. It's a peace that comes from above. It's not a peace that this earthly series of events and the cosmos world system can ever offer us. We can pray for peace all we want. I don't pray for peace on the earth. It's not that we wouldn't all want that from our earthly perspective, but that's not scriptural.

What about the love? Recently I've seen all this kind of love stuff again from the world system. What kind of love is this that the world system has? Somebody speak up. Mutual selfishness. That sounds like an oxymoron to me. I mean really, the love of the world, what is this love? Well the source of that from the sin nature, it's not anything to do with God or God's love. So I always ask somebody, in the flesh.

We're talking with biblical truth to either the believer who doesn't really understand this or the unbeliever about loving your neighbor as yourself. My next question to them is, how are you doing at that? I mean, the love the world is looking at is the love for our neighbor. Maybe not even as ourselves, they wouldn't even put that much scripture onto it, but our love for our neighbor.

What's that look like? And how unconditional is that love? I mean, I think the love system of the world, the cosmos, is ultimately a love that's very superficial and has no unconditional nature as part of it. It's very self-serving. I'm sorry? It's very self-serving. As Wayne said, I'll love you but only if it works out. If it's beneficial to me. Theoretically the love of the world system would be unconditional in the idea that it doesn't relate to race, religion, sexuality or any other aspect of the earthly existence, right?

But yet, if you think about it, there's only one thing that brings all of this to naught. and it's the cross. I mean that's the only place where everybody in this world system is made equal at the foot of the cross. Government can pass rules and regulations and new laws to make diversity so important and lacking discrimination in every aspect of every part of life we live in, but it's only the cross that leaves that behind, isn't it? And the final one here is faith. What's the faith of the world system? Well, prosperity, right? So what are the metrics of success in the world system? And that can relate to what? It can relate to stage performance. It can relate to academic excellence. It can relate to music. It can relate to sports. You can take it in every arena you want.

So the peace and the love and the faith of the world system can't compare to that that we get from our Heavenly Father. Alright, let's go ahead then to the benediction, if you will. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen. What's amen mean? Alright, so grace.

Charis is the word. I mean, Mike Doyle's class has taught this for years and years and years. We're going to cover it in 30 seconds here. I talked to Phil, he made the walls nice and thick. So in a sense grace is often the way Paul begins and ends his epistles and even in Ephesians we see this, grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is steeped in grace. And to read Paul's epistles and not see this is to have missed everything that Paul's representing and really that's the foundation by which we all exist is God's great grace. And so Grace is used similarly.

So Randy, I did follow this advice in Paul's benedictions. I was listening to this. I said, Randy, if he's here, he'll be pleased that at least, you know, but I didn't dissect them word for word to make sure. So anyway, we see it Romans, the both books to the Corinthians, Galatians. Philippians, Colossians, the Thessalonians, 1st, 2nd Timothy, Titus, and Philemon.

So this is an appropriate kind of use of this term in Paul's benedictions in all these epistles. So Macaulay, we need to quote somebody else here, graces the distinguishing mark of all Paul's letters. It has recurred throughout Ephesians and numerous verses are listed there. And it has a definite article with it indicating previous reference. the grace that he has previously written so much about in this epistle.

So that's kind of what Macaulay's view of this benediction emphasizing the importance of grace. So remember we're saved by grace through faith. So we're not saved by faith, we're saved through grace by faith. Without Ephesians 2.8, I believe. So grace is the pathway, faith is our driving down that pathway to get saved. And that salvation, of course, is when we were saved, being saved, and will one day be saved.

Many commentators translate grace here as insincerity, that which is incorruptible. Do you agree with that? I saw that repeatedly. There must have been three or four commentators that translated the term grace, charis, as insincerity. Now, what if you substituted insincerity for grace here? How would you deal with that?

I think it's because those commentators don't understand grace. They don't have a clue. And I was just thinking about, Paul's epistles are so much a part of the New Testament, and yet you can go in any mainline church and they don't have a clue about grace. So to name them specifically, Barnes and Clark and Gill all use insincerity to translate this term charis in this particular context. Now, what about insincerity? Does that work at all here? Would you ever equate insincerity with the term grace as we understand it?

Yeah, Randy? This is a translational move that people will use where they, like if you are familiar with the NIB or those kinds of translations where it's not word for word, it's thought for thought, and grace was a common Roman greeting. In modern vernacular we might say, I'm sincerely Randy Peterman, or best regards, but the point of grace, as you pointed out, Paul has commandeered grace, it's no longer the Roman popular culture definition. So you're thinking you're putting it colloquially in time, in terms of maybe the current colloquial definition of how it might be used. Tom, go ahead. Thanks.

It just kind of strikes me that if you use the word like that in a separate word, sincerity, and you focus on what the everyday people world sees as what they think it means, they're being very insincere. Well, I think we have this contrast between maybe what the colloquial utilization was versus the scriptural and that's where you come back to Macaulay and you see the repeated emphasis that Paul has placed on the term grace spiritually in Ephesians and what it has to offer us.

That's what we're learning in Galatians. He looked through all Paul's epistles and he said, wow, he had a common theme and grace is one of those biggies. I mean, he operates The Christian life is offering grace and Paul just over and over and over again tells us that. And I think Macaulay picked up on that. In his benediction he uses that. Some people might say, well I use that benediction too, I just want to have a good day or something like that. Well if we turn it back up to this bullet point, I mean this is thematic throughout Paul. This is just not here. So to think that this means insincerity, if it is the colloquial utilization of this translation, it doesn't make sense in terms of what these scriptural accounts are repeatedly by Paul and all his other epistles.

I was kind of thinking that it might be the difference between if you were talking to a believer and you left him and he said, brother, the Lord's grace be with you or whatever or something like that. You would see differently from him because you know or heard where they're at, they're coming from a believer's position. And if a neighbor says that, which you don't know, you'd probably just say, have a good day. So it depends on who's saying it.

And obviously Paul's saying it here, so we take it in a different light. Other thoughts here about this? Well, we're going to be done a little bit early, but I'm going to thank the Lord for this epistle. I mean, it's incredibly foundational for our position. If you think about the order of the New Testament and the books that are provided to us, I mean, Acts is such a translational book. I mean, it really kind of sets the stage for everything to follow. We learn a lot about Paul in Acts that ultimately follows through the epistles. But what follows Acts? What book follows Acts? Romans, right?

And you know, we take new believers to the Gospel of John, which I wouldn't criticize necessarily. I mean, John has a lot about the Lord Jesus Christ. It's really his truth and who he is. what he's done, what he represents, but ultimately the growth in grace begins really in Romans, I think, after Acts. So as you continue to approach through the New Testament, you find that the epistles of James and Peter and John are written near the terminus of the New Testament for good reasons. Because I think God has needed to found us in position and grace and truth first, and I think that's why this epistle is so critical, because Galatians, from Romans through the Corinthians, I mean the Corinthians is kind of a little bit of a diversion a little bit.

There's a lot of sound doctrine in 2nd Corinthians, but then you move to Galatians where law entered in, and that's what you and Mike are going to be teaching going forward. But then after that, after we kind of dismiss law or this other gospel, now we're getting founded positionally for really what it takes to to grow in God's great grace.

Other thoughts about this book? Randy, are you doing the summary next week? That's great, I look forward to that. Other thoughts about today's salutations, benedictions, and other things? Roger, close this in prayer please. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for a time in the book of Ephesians, Father. We thank you for the summary next week by Randy. Thank you for your care for this body. In Christ's name, amen.