Epistle Research and Sermon Manuscript on
Ephesians 2:1-10
©Cynthia Serio
Intro to
Preaching/March 3, 2009
Dr. John C.
Holbert
By Grace You Have Been Saved! (Ephesians 2:1-10)
Sermon Exegesis
Raymond
Brown summarizes Ephesians 2:1-10 as God’s plan “manifesting the richness of
God’s mercy and love, has converted sinners into saints, the spiritually dead
into the spiritually alive, now saved by faith, which is the gift of God”[1]
which signals three movements in the passage: spiritual death to spiritual
life, salvation by faith not by works, and faith as a gift received from God
not achievement validated by God.
In Ephesians 2:1-10 we find a foundational Christian
claim “by grace you have been saved through faith” yet the pericope is filled
with powerful words and expressions that almost overwhelm the passage and the
central message. Without some
explanation of key terms in context the passage will overwhelm listeners and
invite them to tune out as they rely on old religious, cultural, or nonexistent
understandings. A careful word study will help identify which
words and/or expressions to clarify, if any, in order to bring forth new depths
of meaning for listeners.
Jeff
Paschal recommends spending time “clarifying some of these expressions with the
congregation”[2]
because of a contemporary unfamiliarity with some of the concepts imbedded
within them and our cultural tendency toward “pelagianism – a fearful hope that
[we] are reconciled with God by [our] good works.”[3] A related concept “is ‘functional
atheism,’ the belief that ultimate responsibility for everything rests with us.
This is the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything decent is going
to happen here, we are the ones who must make it happen.”[4]
Word
and Verse by Verse Study[5]
2:1 You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2:2 in which you once lived, following the
course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit
that is now at work among those who are disobedient.
·
(Strong’s) Dead … 3498 nekro,j nekros {nek-ros'} 2)
metaph. 2a) spiritually dead 2a1) destitute of a life that recognizes and is
devoted to God, because given up to trespasses and sins
(TDNT) Paul uses the word dead to declare
the life lived before Christ to have been spiritually dead. However, that seems to contradict prevenient
grace as I understand it.[6]
·
(Strong’s) Trespasses … 3900 para,ptwma paraptoma {par-ap'-to-mah} 2)
a lapse or deviation from truth and uprightness 2a) a sin, misdeed AND
·
(Strong’s) Sins … 66 a`marti,a hamartia {ham-ar-tee'-ah} 1b) to miss the mark 1c) to err, be mistaken 1d) to miss
or wander from the path of uprightness and honour, to do or go wrong 1e) to
wander from the law of God, violate God's law, sin 2) that which is done wrong,
sin, an offence, a violation of the divine law in thought or in act 3)
collectively, the complex or aggregate of sins committed either by a single
person or by many
(TDNT) Paul’s view of spiritual death
through trespasses and sins is oriented to God’s work in Christ, which then
frees us to live in spiritual freedom. Our
spiritual death is the result of our separation from God and our own
willfulness which can become demonic in our enslavement. “Tension exists between the somatic life,
which is given up to death, and the pneumatic life, which has overcome death.”
2:3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh,
following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of
wrath, like everyone else.
·
(Strong’s) Flesh … 4561 sa,rx sarx {sarx} 2c) the sensuous nature of man, "the animal
nature" 2c1) without any suggestion of depravity 2c2) the animal nature
with cravings which incite to sin 4) the flesh, denotes mere human nature, the
earthly nature of man apart from divine influence, and therefore prone to sin
and opposed to God
(TDNT) Paul
relies on the Greek concepts of Epicureanism which “supposedly advocates the
enthronement of bodily desires.” The
fleshly desires would necessarily battle with the desire to know and do God’s
will before finding freedom and spiritual life in Christ.
(NIB 2:1-3)
“The connection between sin and death is characteristic of the Pauline
tradition.” (389) The cosmic imagery of
these verses could have come from several different influences, including the Jewish
apocalyptic imagery of the Essenes, elements of Gnosticism, and features of Hellenistic
paganism. “To the first century reader
familiar with such cosmology, Ephesians 2:2 attributes human sinfulness to the
rulers of the sublunary region” which “is the murky polluted region between the
planet earth and the moon.” (390) These verses demonstrate a cosmic sense that
forces outside of a person can lead a person into sin. It should be noted that in Ephesians 2:3
“Paul does not use ‘nature’ (physis)
to describe a principal that separates humans from God” (391) but rather to
refer to the perceived sinfulness of gentiles, even though he includes himself
by using the word “we.”
2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love
with which [GOD] loved us 2:5 even when
we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace
you have been saved –
·
(Strong’s) Grace … 5485 ca,rij charis {khar'-ece} 2a) of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his
holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases
them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise
of the Christian virtues
(TDNT) Paul
uses cháris to refer
to the salvation event and has the sense of free giving. “It is not simply that God is merciful but
grace finds its meaning in the proclamation of the gospel. It specifically in context rules out
salvation by the law and by extension good works. “Grace is in some sense a state although one
is always called into it and it is always a gift, on which one has no claim
[and] carries an element of assurance, but not of false security.”
·
(Strong’s) Saved … 4982 sw,|zw sozo {sode'-zo} 1)
to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction 1a1) to save
a suffering one (from perishing), i.e. one suffering from disease, to make
well, heal, restore to health 1b1) to preserve one who is in danger of
destruction, to save or rescue 1b) to save in the technical biblical sense 1b1)
negatively 1b1a) to deliver from the penalties of the Messianic judgment 1b1b)
to save from the evils which obstruct the reception of the Messianic
deliverance
(TDNT) In
this context, saved refers to human salvation through the Christ event. The term can also includes a sense of
healing, which may be an interesting nuance and enhancement to the concept of
salvation … bringing with it a sense of ever moving toward wholeness through
sanctification.[7] “In Ephesians the reference is to the message of salvation,
or the message that saves. In 2:5, 8 the perfect tense is used (“you have been
saved”) but the consummation has still to come (vv 6-7).”
2:6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 2:7 so
that in the ages to come [GOD] might show the immeasurable riches of grace in
kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
(NIB 2:4-7) The sinner who is lost is not left alone. Beginning in Ephesians 2:4, we find a
gracious and merciful God, full of love, emerging to save the sinner and to
promise a home in the heavens with the cosmic Christ. In 2:5 the inserted foundational phrase adds
emphasis to God’s graciousness … by that grace we are saved! We find in Ephesians 2:6-7 the sense that
salvation includes exaltation with Christ.
In addition, “Verse 7 provides an apparent reason for the heavenly
exaltation of the righteous: to prove a point and show ‘the immeasurable riches
of his grace.’ … [and] extends the manifestation of salvation … into the
indefinite future.” (392)
2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – 2:9 not the result of works,
so that no one may boast.
·
(Strong’s) Faith … 4102 pi,stij pistis {pis'-tis} 1) in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man's
relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of
trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it 1a) relating to God
1a1) the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things,
the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ 1b) relating to
Christ 1b1) a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the
Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God 1c) the
religious beliefs of Christians 1d) belief with the predominate idea of trust
(or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same.
(TDNT) Pístis has the sense of a. “confidence,”
“certainty,” “trust,” then b. “trustworthiness,” and c. “guarantee” or
“assurance.” We find in Paul’s writings that faith is generally a confessional
act of belief and acceptance of the message of salvation in Christ rather than
a state of being or a disposition.
“Faith is a historical, not a psychological, possibility.” Faith as belief requires an understanding of
being in a duel state of judgment on sin and freedom through grace, through
which the relationship between God and self is manifested in obedience.
2:10 For we are what [GOD] has made us, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of
life.
·
(Strong’s) has made us … 4161 poi,hma poiema {poy'-ay-mah} 2a)
of the works of God as creator
(TDNT)
In Ephesians, “Christians are his poíēma.”
·
(Strong’s) Created … 2936 kti,zw ktizo {ktid'-zo} 2)
to create 2a) of God creating the worlds 2b) to form, shape, i.e. to completely
change or transform
(NIB 2:8-10) In Ephesians 2:8 we hear once again that we have been
saved by grace … and faith now echoes the traditional Pauline concept of
justification by faith. This critical
and foundational phrase emphasizes the verses that follow. We are not saved by our works! The rejection of works righteousness in
Ephesians 2:9 calls us into submission to God’s grace and takes away any reason
for prideful boasting in our own accomplishments. Finally
in Ephesians 2:10 we are introduced to “the image of Christians as God’s special
creation.” (393) A distinction should be made between God’s divine plan of
creation and our designation as the Pauline “new creation.” (393) In this verse
we find the true place of good works – as a sign of our life in Christ.
Literary
& Historical Context
The book of
Ephesians is traditionally labeled as a Pauline Epistle. However, the authorship of Paul is challenged
by most biblical scholars today. While
there are many similarities to the epistles that are considered to be genuine,
there are still some striking theological, linguistic and stylistic differences
which leave the researcher with questions as to its authorship. It is highly likely that the book was written
by a devoted disciple in Paul’s name[8]
and circulated around the churches to encourage both the reconciliation between
Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in the community and to promote unity
in the body of Christ universally.[9] Because of its general and apparently
circulatory nature, it is harder but not impossible to discern a kind of
specific situational context which is true of the genuine Pauline epistles.[10]
It is possible that the emphasis on the
cosmic Christ found in this pericope emerges from Jewish Essene apocalypticism
and yet also seen as a response to the Hellenistic pagan religions of the
Gentiles but highly unlikely as a true parallel to Gnostic texts of the time as
has been suggested.[11] At any rate, at the time of the writing of
the book the cosmology illustrated by the author of Ephesians would have been
more readily understood by the reader/listener than today. Perhaps salvation would have been thought of
as a closer physical reality and not as ethereal as I read it.
Ephesians
2:1-10 is the beginning of the body of the letter which highlights the theological
nature of salvation within the blended body of Christ. The author includes all of “humanity as
being subject to the power of evil.”[12]
There is a sense of weaving the Jewish and Gentile Christians, and by extension
all of humanity, together in the body of Christ by the use of clever use of the
singular “you” interspersed with the plural “us.” This is one of the engaging aspects of this
passage. I can close my eyes and hear
the words resonate in my own soul for I understand what it feels like to be
enslaved to the passions of the flesh and I understand what feels like to know
that I have been saved by grace through faith.
However, Ephesians 2:1-10 makes it sound much easier than I experience
it for I often feel as if I am standing with one foot in the world and one foot
in the kingdom! John M. Vonder Bruegge
nails me as he describes this passage as one that makes the reader look both
ways – backward and forward as he calls readers to take a “brief but
introspective look at what they could not and should not do, while also getting
a glimpse of who they are and ought to be.”[13] He makes it sound like a dance of longing but
I am afraid I am not alone in experiencing it as a struggle of often epic
proportions along the lines of Jacob wrestling with angels.
Social/Psychological
Commentary
Separated from
God we experience spiritual death.
United with God in Christ we experience spiritual life. As I read this pericope I find an image of two relatively distinct and separate
worlds: the world of death and the world of life. Is it truly as simple as moving from one
world to another? I think it is more
like slow movement … salvation as a present and future reality … the journey of
sanctifying grace. Even though people
today will not understand what is meant by the cosmological forces explicit in
verse 2, each person will understand having been controlled by forces both
inside and outside of themselves. Ian S.
Markham states that it is “perfectly proper for the preacher to adapt this
image to include contemporary forces that control people – various addictions
or psychological damages from childhood that might still enslave a person, or
unjust social realities that do the same thing.”[14]
Gerald May, author of Addiction
and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions believed we
all have an inborn longing for God that is somehow interrupted. For many different reasons we are blocked
from finding God so we begin to alleviate our sense of longing with things that
do not satisfy. We give ourselves to
people and to things and to systems that we do not really want to but do not
know how not to. This is addiction,
which is defined by May as “any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits the
freedom of human desire.”[15] While everyone suffers from some form of
habitual behavior to some degree, others become so addicted they are incapable
of breaking free. May calls addiction
“the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity’s desire for God” and believes “in
all truth that the psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged
addiction are actively at work within every human being.”[16] It sounds like “the ruler of the power of the
air” at work. While the results of
addictions to certain substances such as alcohol and drugs are more destructive
of self and others, all addictions function in the same manner and have
identifying characteristics.
The “five essential characteristics that mark true
addiction [are]: tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, self-deception, loss of
willpower, and distortion of attention.”[17] Using these criteria at several workshops May
identified, with the help of participants who labeled their own addictive
experiences, almost 200 different types of addictions. Working people today, especially those dedicated
to helping others as a vocation today are avid workaholics and are quite
susceptible to an addiction to helping others … that is what people are called
to do and the call must be answered … often at all hours of the day and
night! The problems emerge when we are
incapable of setting limits and the result is damaging to our health.
Duke
Divinity School received a $12 million gift from The Duke Endowment in July
2007 to study the health of United Methodist ministers and “to help them with
troubles ranging from lack of exercise to depression to spiritual stagnation.”[18] One of the first steps they will take is to
address the unhealthy expectations of those people we are addicted to helping
because with the proliferation of cell phones and easy access to e-mail, clergy
feel squeezed like never before.”[19] And we are not alone!
May says “for the power of addiction to be
overcome, human will must act in concert with divine will [and] the human
spirit must flow with the Holy Spirit.”[20] That sounds like “for grace [we] have been
saved by faith … and this is not [our] own doing!”
SERMON MANUSCRIPT
Ephesians 2:1-10 is the beginning of the body of a letter which highlights the theological nature of salvation within the universal body of Christ. The author includes all of “humanity as being subject to the power of evil. Most biblical scholars believe Ephesians was written by a devoted disciple of Paul but there is little evidence that this letter was written for a specific church – more likely it was a circulating message read to a community to encourage unity in the body of Christ. And now, let anyone with ears to hear, listen!
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which [God] loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by GRACE you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come [God] might show the immeasurable riches of his GRACE in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by GRACE you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what [God] has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD … THANKS BE TO GOD.
Drama! Drama! Drama! I walk into my office and see the red light flashing on my telephone … As I listen to my messages I hear a desperate voice on the other end of the line … “Call me! It’s a matter of life and death.” Alright I am not sure anyone has ever actually said those words to me. But these kinds of dramatic phone calls usually are a matter of life and death, spiritual life and death that is.
Spiritual death is the result of our separation from God and our own willfulness which can become demonic in our enslavement. Our trespasses and sins are overcome as our lives are oriented to God’s work in Christ through which we are freed from bondage to live a vibrant spiritual life. The writer of Ephesians understood and communicated this cosmic battle between spiritual life and spiritual death using powerfully intense word pictures -- at least to my ears. The images sound like good science fiction and I am fascinated with the way the author unfolds this epic drama between good and evil in 6 verses … during which we hear the glorious declaration: By Grace you have been Saved! Wow!
Grace … Charis is a Greek word which means … merciful kindness by which God, exerting holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ. Gerald May writes about a God-given inborn longing for God in his book Addiction and Grace. However, this turning or longing is sometimes interrupted by harbingers of spiritual death which range from individual destructive addictions and compulsions to unjust communal structures. The cosmic battle is not over … we hear the glorious declaration: By Grace you have been Saved! Wow!
Salvation … Sozo is a Greek word which can mean to save, to keep safe, to rescue from destruction OR it can mean to make well, to heal, to restore. God’s plan of salvation in this passage has a past, a present and a future reality. In verses 5 & 8 the perfect tense is used (“you have been saved”) but the consummation has still to come in verses 6 & 7 (“in the ages to come”). In this sense, God’s plan of salvation is a journey, not a destination. The Journey calls … we hear the glorious declaration: By Grace you have been Saved! Wow!
And yet it is not a journey without pitfalls. Clergypersons are highly susceptible to work-a-holism and often become addicted to helping others … let’s face it … we wouldn’t be here in this room if we weren’t called to help other people … It is a gift of God this calling to help other people … at all hours of the day and night! All of you sleep with your cell phones under your pillow, too … right? I’m not the only … oops!
If we are not careful, we will give ourselves up to people and to material things and to social systems that we simply can’t say no to. Serious problems emerge when we are incapable of setting limits and the result is damaging to our health, our relationships and our own spiritual life. Someone once told me, “If you are incapable of saying ‘no’ then your ‘yes’ has no meaning” and she was right. The inability to say no is a sign of addiction … which may be the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity’s desire for God today. May says the spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being.
I have worked in the area of restorative justice for over 10 years. I have a spirit-empowered passion for this ministry and for these women. A couple of months ago, I joined the Kairos Outside Advisory Council as their spiritual support and I am so excited to see what God will do. However, they decided to meet from 7-10 on Friday evenings once a month and include a social gathering with their meeting. Well, my dear friends, Friday is the only protected day off that I have. My husband and I have been married for 25 years and Friday evening is the only night I have promised to him. When I told him I had made this commitment, he never said a word … he just accepted it because that is who he is. And that made it worse. He took off early and we went for an early dinner. I snapped at him all through dinner. I drove almost an hour to get to the meeting. I didn’t say a word the whole night except during the devotional and prayers. I didn’t eat a bite of food. No less than 4 women asked me if something was wrong and I couldn’t even speak to that without lying. I felt angry and resentful and it was my own fault. As I drove away that evening I realized that I couldn’t breathe.
Have any of you ever flown on an airplane … Have any of you actually ever listened to what the flight attendant says at the beginning of the flight. “We don’t anticipate it, but if the cabin pressure changes an oxygen mask will drop down. If you are traveling with someone who needs assistance, please put the oxygen mask on yourself before you attempt to help another person.” As I drove away that evening I took a deep breath and I realized that Fridays … are my oxygen mask.
In order for the power of addiction to be overcome, the human will must act together with divine will [and] the human spirit must flow with the Holy Spirit.”
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which [God] loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by GRACE you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come [God] might show the immeasurable riches of his GRACE in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by GRACE you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what [God] has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD … THANKS BE TO GOD.
Drama! Drama! Drama! I walk into my office and see the red light flashing on my telephone … As I listen to my messages I hear a desperate voice on the other end of the line … “Call me! It’s a matter of life and death.” Alright I am not sure anyone has ever actually said those words to me. But these kinds of dramatic phone calls usually are a matter of life and death, spiritual life and death that is.
Spiritual death is the result of our separation from God and our own willfulness which can become demonic in our enslavement. Our trespasses and sins are overcome as our lives are oriented to God’s work in Christ through which we are freed from bondage to live a vibrant spiritual life. The writer of Ephesians understood and communicated this cosmic battle between spiritual life and spiritual death using powerfully intense word pictures -- at least to my ears. The images sound like good science fiction and I am fascinated with the way the author unfolds this epic drama between good and evil in 6 verses … during which we hear the glorious declaration: By Grace you have been Saved! Wow!
Grace … Charis is a Greek word which means … merciful kindness by which God, exerting holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ. Gerald May writes about a God-given inborn longing for God in his book Addiction and Grace. However, this turning or longing is sometimes interrupted by harbingers of spiritual death which range from individual destructive addictions and compulsions to unjust communal structures. The cosmic battle is not over … we hear the glorious declaration: By Grace you have been Saved! Wow!
Salvation … Sozo is a Greek word which can mean to save, to keep safe, to rescue from destruction OR it can mean to make well, to heal, to restore. God’s plan of salvation in this passage has a past, a present and a future reality. In verses 5 & 8 the perfect tense is used (“you have been saved”) but the consummation has still to come in verses 6 & 7 (“in the ages to come”). In this sense, God’s plan of salvation is a journey, not a destination. The Journey calls … we hear the glorious declaration: By Grace you have been Saved! Wow!
And yet it is not a journey without pitfalls. Clergypersons are highly susceptible to work-a-holism and often become addicted to helping others … let’s face it … we wouldn’t be here in this room if we weren’t called to help other people … It is a gift of God this calling to help other people … at all hours of the day and night! All of you sleep with your cell phones under your pillow, too … right? I’m not the only … oops!
If we are not careful, we will give ourselves up to people and to material things and to social systems that we simply can’t say no to. Serious problems emerge when we are incapable of setting limits and the result is damaging to our health, our relationships and our own spiritual life. Someone once told me, “If you are incapable of saying ‘no’ then your ‘yes’ has no meaning” and she was right. The inability to say no is a sign of addiction … which may be the most powerful psychic enemy of humanity’s desire for God today. May says the spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being.
I have worked in the area of restorative justice for over 10 years. I have a spirit-empowered passion for this ministry and for these women. A couple of months ago, I joined the Kairos Outside Advisory Council as their spiritual support and I am so excited to see what God will do. However, they decided to meet from 7-10 on Friday evenings once a month and include a social gathering with their meeting. Well, my dear friends, Friday is the only protected day off that I have. My husband and I have been married for 25 years and Friday evening is the only night I have promised to him. When I told him I had made this commitment, he never said a word … he just accepted it because that is who he is. And that made it worse. He took off early and we went for an early dinner. I snapped at him all through dinner. I drove almost an hour to get to the meeting. I didn’t say a word the whole night except during the devotional and prayers. I didn’t eat a bite of food. No less than 4 women asked me if something was wrong and I couldn’t even speak to that without lying. I felt angry and resentful and it was my own fault. As I drove away that evening I realized that I couldn’t breathe.
Have any of you ever flown on an airplane … Have any of you actually ever listened to what the flight attendant says at the beginning of the flight. “We don’t anticipate it, but if the cabin pressure changes an oxygen mask will drop down. If you are traveling with someone who needs assistance, please put the oxygen mask on yourself before you attempt to help another person.” As I drove away that evening I took a deep breath and I realized that Fridays … are my oxygen mask.
In order for the power of addiction to be overcome, the human will must act together with divine will [and] the human spirit must flow with the Holy Spirit.”
And so the Spirit flows … and we hear the glorious declaration:
By Grace you have been Saved!
through faith,
and this is not your own doing!
it is the gift of God— Wow!
Grace is a gift … Salvation is a gift … Faith is a gift …
The journey is a gift … Oxygen is a gift!
And so we breathe in … and we breathe out …
and we become what God has made us to be
And we breathe in … and we breathe out …
and we know we have been created in Christ Jesus
And we breathe in … and we breathe out …
and we accept the life of good works that God has prepared
And we celebrate that glorious declaration together …
I say to you:
BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED!
And you respond:
BY GRACE YOU HAVE BEEN SAVED!
Amen & Amen!
[1] Raymond E.
Brown, Introduction to the New Testament (New
York: Doubleday, 1997) 622.
[2] Jeff Paschal,
“Ephesians 2:1-10 Homiletical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year
B Volume 2, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, et al eds.
(Louisville: John Knox Press, 2008), 111.
[3] Paschal, 111.
[4] Parker J.
Palmer, Let your Life Speak (San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000), 88.
[5] I am selectively
quoting (unmarked) Strong’s Dictionary noted (Strong’s) found in BibleWorks™ Copyright © 1992-2005 BibleWorks,
LLC. I am paraphrasing (with quotes marked) from Gerhard Friedrich and Gerhard
Kittel, eds., TDNT: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995, c1985) noted (TDNT) found in Libronix Digital Library. I am paraphrasing (with
quotes marked) Pheme Perkins, “The Letter to the Ephesians” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume XI,
Leander C. Keck, et al eds. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 389-395 noted (NIB)
[6]
This is my
own reaction to the commentary of the Paul as expressed by TDNT.
[7] This is my
expansion of thought on TDNT’s “curing of illness is another sense.”
[8]
John M.
Vonder Bruegge, “Ephesians 2:1-10 Exegetical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised
Common Lectionary, Year B Volume 2, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown
Taylor, et al eds. (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2008), 111.
[9] Pheme Perkins,
“The Letter to the Ephesians” in The New
Interpreter’s Bible, Volume XI, Leander C. Keck, et al eds. (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1994), 351-355.
[10] Gordon D. Fee,
“Contextual Epistles” in The New
Interpreter’s Handbook of Preaching, ed. Paul Scott Wilson, et al eds.
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008), 73.
[11] Perkins, 362.
[12] Luke Timothy
Johnson, The Writings of the New
Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1999), 414.
[13] Bruegge, 115.
[14] Ian S. Markham,
“Ephesians 2:1-10 Theological Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year
B Volume 2, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, et al eds.
(Louisville: John Knox Press, 2008), 112.
[15] Gerald May, Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality
in the Healing of Addictions (New York: HarperCollins, 1988), 24.
[16] May, 3.
[17] May 26.
[18] Getting Fit: A
New Plan Helps Stressed Clergy Move toward Wholeness” Divinity Magazine: A Publication of Duke Divinity School Fall 2007
Volume 7 No 1
[19] Goldstein
[20] May, 140.
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