Paul is writing to a church in the middle of the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire had very strong opinions about how a household should run. At the top sat the paterfamilias, the father of the household. His word was law. Husbands held full authority over their wives, who were essentially viewed as property. Fathers decided where their children went to school, who they would marry, and even, in a chilling practice common across the empire, whether a newborn infant would be

What does it actually mean to live differently as a follower of Jesus? Paul had a city full of very different people - and a surprisingly practical answer. When you walk into the ruins of ancient Ephesus, the first thing you notice is what used to be there: the Temple of Artemis, once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Today it's just a handful of columns. But the city itself, the library, the marketplace, the enormous amphitheater that seated tens of thousands -

A Reflection on Ephesians 4:1-24 There's a shift that happens in the middle of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, and it's the kind of shift that changes everything. For three chapters, Paul has been building a case. He's laid out the breathtaking reality of what God has done for us in Christ: redemption, forgiveness, adoption into God's family, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as a guaranteed inheritance. We are God's temple, the very place where he dwells. It's stunning stuff

Imagine being shackled in a prison cell with every freedom stripped away. Your food is sparse and moldy. Your bedding reeks. The screams of other prisoners keep you awake through the night. Most of us, given a chance to write letters home, would spend every word complaining, begging for rescue, cataloging our misery. Paul isn't most people. Writing from a Roman prison, lacking basic necessities and depending entirely on the generosity of others, Paul has one word for his situ

from Ephesians 3 Imagine writing one of the most encouraging letters of your life from a prison cell. That's exactly what Paul did when he wrote to the church in Ephesus. He was locked up; the Roman Empire was at the height of its power; and the Christians he was writing to were scattered in small house churches throughout one of the busiest, most cosmopolitan cities in the ancient world. They were worried. Their founder was behind bars. The odds were stacked against them. Th

Based on Ephesians 2:11-22 There's a phrase most of us have heard, probably on a meme: "My body is a temple." It gets used to justify healthy eating, justify not healthy eating, and everything in between. But it raises a genuinely important question. What do we actually mean when we say "temple"? Here's a working definition worth holding onto: a temple is the unique location where God's space (heaven) and human space (earth) overlap. It's the meeting point between God and hu

1. The Breathtaking View from "Inspiration Point" If you’ve ever stood at Inspiration Point in Yosemite, you’ve experienced the "breathtaking panorama" that silences the soul. Interestingly, when the scholar Mark Roberts reflects on this vista, he notes that while the "Point" offers the view, the actual High Sierra peaks are fifty miles away. You are standing in one place, yet your eyes are drinking in a reality that spans the horizon. The Apostle Paul opens his letter to the

Ephesians 1:3-14 | Palm Sunday Did you know that children between the ages of 2 and 5 ask an average of 200 to 300 questions per day? Over those few years, a child will ask more than 40,000 questions. No wonder new parents are exhausted. But here's what's interesting: even as adults, some questions remain unanswered. Scientists still don't fully understand why we cry, why we laugh, why we sleep, or why we dream. We don't understand how anesthesia works, what causes déjà vu, o