-What does God want - the ultimate question of questions, this. God wanted Paul to be an apostle, a sent-out one, sent out to spread the Good News among the Gentiles, the ethné, the nations. It was not at all a question of what Paul wanted. God wanted Paul to go out, and so he went out. It is so easy just to blast off into our days and lives without ever stopping to ask the question, ‘What do you want, Lord? What do you want to say to me right now? What do you want me to do today?’ And then we need to actually pause, and listen...
-Destination: Ephesus. At least that’s what it says - some expositors have called this into question, as nowhere in this letter does Paul mention ANY believers by name, as he was wont to do in his letters, nor does he even mention his having been to Ephesus, which is remarkable in that Paul had spent as much time in this strategic port city as any place he ministered, something approaching three years by most reckonings (brief visit in Acts 18.19-21 after his first visit to greece, a 3-month visit in Acts 19.1 & Acts 19.8 which extended to two years Acts 19.10 with a possible additional ‘while’ in Acts 19.21-2, then one last farewell visit on his way back to Jerusalem where he would be finally arrested before being sent to Rome. In that farewell we glimpse the closeness of the relationship Paul had with the Ephesian church, Acts 20.16-17, 20.36-38). Paul is certainly in prison at the time of writing, cf Ephesians 3.1, 3.13, probably in Rome - most affirm that Paul’s roman imprisonment where he enjoyed a modest level of freedom as well as opportunity to preach fits nicely with Paul’s prayer request in this letter for boldness while in prison, Ephesians 6.19-20. But a few of the earliest manuscripts do not contain the phrase ‘in Ephesus’. Some suggest that Tychicus (an Ephesian who accompanied the slave Onesimus back to his owner Philemon along with the letter from Paul which bears his name as well as the letter to the Colossians) carried this letter to be circulated among predominantly Gentile assemblies located along the main roman road from Ephesus to Colossae, churches which Paul had not founded or even visited (Ephesians 1.15, 2.11, 3.1-3). And since that road started in Ephesus, that could explain how this letter came to be associated with that great city, but if the letter was always intended as more of a circular letter it thus would not contain any of the personal pleasantries which Paul usually includes in his letters. one of the cities on that road to Colossae was Laodicea - some think this could actually be the letter to Laodicea mentioned in Colossians 4.16.
-Now, Paul is writing not to the Baptists or to the Catholics or to the Pentecostals in Ephesus. No oxymoronic divisions in the body of Christ here. There is only one body, one assembly, one church. All who are in Christ and thus made holy, set apart to celebrate and show off God’s breathtaking goodness, they all belong to the same family. Paul (should) need only write one letter to those who follow Christ in any locale, and of course all those who follow Christ in Ephesus are being addressed by Paul in this letter.
-And he calls them faithful. Loyal, constant, steadfast. Ones you can trust and count on. Faithfulness, never to be underestimated, yet so often in such short supply. So easy it is to succumb to temptation, to vacillate with the vagaries of health and weather and economics, to waffle based on how I feel or what I had for dinner or what the preacher said or did or didn’t do. In my flesh, in my own stabs at faithfulness I find that I am in fact rather weak and fickle, too easily offended or distracted or defeated, a creature of whim and caprice, here today and hopefully tomorrow, but we’ll have to see how I feel.
-Faithfulness is in fact a fruit of the Spirit, a divine attribute which God possesses to an infinite degree and which He Himself desires to reproduce in my life in superabundance, a superntural quality which shows off in so many ways the amazing goodness of the One Who Himself is constantly and forever faithful. Who cannot readily attest to the wondrous blessing that is a faithful friend, a faithful son or daughter, a faithful spouse, a faithful parent, a faithful colleague or employee, a faithful minister, a faithful servant? These are the unsung heroes, rarely if ever the lead story or trending topics on twitter. But who has not felt the sting of betrayal and disappointment of one who was unfaithful? Sad indeed that these instead wind up making the headlines. We expect faithfulness, and yet take it so for granted and rarely hear about it. Never underestimate the precious worth of faithfulness, whose fountainhead is God, the Faithful God (Deuteronomy 7.9).
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