00:00:00:36 – 00:00:26:37
Clint Loveall
Hey friends, thanks for joining us on this Wednesday. We are, nearing the end. We are at the end of the book of Ephesians. Finish up just the last few verses today, tomorrow, if you can join us, probably, offer some thoughts on this book, its place, its themes and maybe what we’ve seen in it this time through, and hopefully you’ve found something in it helpful as well.

00:00:26:42 – 00:00:54:31
Clint Loveall
This last section is kind of what Paul does when he finishes letters. You know, most people who have ever written a letter do something along this lines. It’s correspondence at the end, kind of a wrap up. Not really. It’s not theological in nature, though. I think we’ll try to make a case. There’s some theology in it, but let me read it to you and then we’ll come back to it so that you may also know how I am and what I’m doing.

00:00:54:32 – 00:01:19:34
Clint Loveall
Tickets will tell you everything. He is a dear brother and a faithful member in the Lord. I’m sending him to you for this very purpose, to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts. Peace be to the whole community and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who have an undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.

00:01:19:39 – 00:01:40:44
Clint Loveall
This is again pretty typical of Paul’s letter. Near the end, there’ll be some kind of, greeting and then some kind of goodbye. And here he mentions that he has this coworker, take. I don’t think we don’t take gifts from other parts of the scripture. At least it’s not a, if we if he’s mentioned anywhere else.

00:01:40:44 – 00:02:08:55
Clint Loveall
I’m not aware of it. But Paul said probably he’s delivering the letter, and he’s also going to give them an update on Paul and how things are going. He gives them a compliment. He’s a dear brother. He’s a faithful minister. I’m sending him to let you know how it is and to encourage your hearts. These are the parts of the Bible, these kind of passages in letters, Michael, I think are easy for the rest of us to read over.

00:02:09:00 – 00:02:38:54
Clint Loveall
They, have names in them that we don’t know. They’re not usually rich in content, but I do think it’s an interesting reminder of how fundamentally relational Paul’s work with these churches is, that in the last word, he wants to speak to them about how he is, that they could be encouraged. And he he he thinks of them in that way, and he’s aware of those things.

00:02:38:54 – 00:03:00:41
Clint Loveall
And and I, I yes, I know that it can often feel tacked on. I mean, you’re never likely these aren’t passages that get taught much or preached much, but I do think they say something to the nature of the connection between people and one another, Christians and other Christians. And in this case, a pastor or, minister.

00:03:00:46 – 00:03:07:25
Clint Loveall
A founding minister, perhaps, and the people who are still there and, and I think that means something.

00:03:07:30 – 00:03:33:00
Michael Gewecke
I think that we actually see this very practically today. Still, I think when you get a letter from a minister, maybe a missionary serving in another country, or you get a letter from, leader in the nonprofit doing Christian ministry, you know, there’s a sense of disconnection in that. And sometimes we have to if we’re not regularly connected to someone, we don’t feel a natural closeness to them.

00:03:33:00 – 00:03:58:25
Michael Gewecke
We don’t feel a natural relatedness to them and their ministry. We sometimes need to intentionally enter into that and intentionally look for the good and the connection. I think that here when we see a text like this, what we’re seeing is a visual demonstration of a few things. One, Paul, as he is writing, is not doing so alone.

00:03:58:30 – 00:04:25:24
Michael Gewecke
This is not a one man show. This is not him sitting in some ivory tower pulling all of these strings. This is a complicated, interrelated relational network. And many, many people are involved. And Clint, your point about, ticket, ticket or, tickets, he, is actually mentioned in acts 20 verse five as being one or verse four amongst.

00:04:25:24 – 00:04:46:18
Michael Gewecke
I just want to point this out to you is on the right side of your, Oh, you can’t probably see that. I’m sorry. Everybody, but, you got Jesus and Timothy and Titus and, trophy mass. You got all these people. And the point of bringing this up is very simply to say this, this is a team effort, and it is all the way through.

00:04:46:19 – 00:05:11:06
Michael Gewecke
Paul is sending this letter to this community. It’s going to be hand delivered by this, this friend, this minister. And he’s then going to offer an explanation of how Paul’s doing and what Paul’s up to. And that would be easy for us to read by, except for there is a kind of visible demonstration of practicing and modeling for us what our lives of faith are supposed to be like.

00:05:11:16 – 00:05:35:10
Michael Gewecke
We too, are supposed to feel a sense of connection, a sense of responsibility, a sense of interrelatedness with all of these other Christians all throughout the world. And we would do well to try as best as we can to practice that relatedness to pray for one another, to reach out to those people who are doing work in other places and encourage and support them in it.

00:05:35:15 – 00:06:01:55
Michael Gewecke
I think to your point, Clint, this is a text where we could very easily read by as the final note at the end of a letter, wrapping it up, getting to a conclusion. And if we do that, we miss an opportunity here to see that though we don’t share our relationship with this particular man, his name stands in the Bible as one of those who were faithful to the gospel.

00:06:01:55 – 00:06:30:41
Michael Gewecke
He stands as one of those who was a necessary, important partner for Paul and his work as he was seeking to support and encourage congregations. That is a thing that we should strive to do ourselves in our own time and place. Our names won’t wind up in Scripture, but we should live as if the scriptures are being written, because the scriptures were written to help show us how our lives are supposed to embody the faith in the world in which we live.

00:06:30:43 – 00:06:54:09
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and I’m exactly, I’m exactly the point of what you’re saying, Michael, because it turns out, Tyche. Guess tequila’s mood. We can look that up in Greek, I suppose, but whatever. How that would be pronounced is mentioned five times in the New Testament. And I don’t know a thing about him, though. None of those are anything more than this.

00:06:54:09 – 00:06:55:19
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, right. But they’re.

00:06:55:19 – 00:07:28:34
Clint Loveall
No they but he’s he is attested in the New Testament as one of that broader group of people working with Paul and serving churches and being as he is in this case, kind of boots on the ground delivering letters and giving reports. I also think we see in that, certainly that the idea of relationship. But. You we give Paul a great deal of credit for the work that he did, as we should.

00:07:28:39 – 00:08:05:06
Clint Loveall
But it is always the case that, we work with others, that the church is mobilized by people whose names are less known and perhaps unknown, who are doing some of the work. And I think, you know, here we get an illustration of that. Then we move to the last two verses here. And, there’s I always think it’s fascinating to to see what Paul in the last word, how he ends those letters and what he wishes for the church.

00:08:05:06 – 00:08:36:57
Clint Loveall
And here he he lists four things peace, love, faith and grace. If there are four more important, important ingredients for the church being the church, for the church, standing up in the world, for the church not being divided, for all of those things that Paul’s been trying to teach, the things that he believes will be instrumental in them doing that work, boil down to those four attributes peace, love, faith, and grace.

00:08:36:57 – 00:08:50:30
Clint Loveall
And I think I’m always instructed by what Paul thinks is important as a final hope for the churches he writes to. And in this case, I don’t know that you could do any better.

00:08:50:34 – 00:09:18:10
Michael Gewecke
So I just want to make note. I don’t want to overplay this. And I think we’ve we’ve emphasized this strongly, but just make note we are only six verses from the helmet of Salvation and the sword of the spirit. We’re literally barely a few sentences beyond. And here we get one of the most beautiful summaries of the fruits of the spirit that you’re going to get in any of the letters.

00:09:18:15 – 00:09:55:55
Michael Gewecke
A Trinitarian exploration, you’ve, in this case, the spirit’s not listed explicitly, but you have this relational expression of the father and the son. You have an expression of the deepest values of the fruits of that spirit that work in the community. And you have it being the last word. And, Clint, this is one of the examples par excellence of a thing that sounds so simple is immeasurably difficult.

00:09:56:00 – 00:10:25:15
Michael Gewecke
Thing in which you would think you just show up in Christian community and you will live into peace, and you’ll find love and grace will flow out of you. Know anyone who’s been the church for any amount of time knows that these are disciplines. These are tasks. These are things that we practice the fundamentals in the small because over a life span, they renew and transform our imaginations and our hearts, and we begin to see in new ways how this can live and grow in and through the church.

00:10:25:15 – 00:10:47:16
Michael Gewecke
I, I just think this is a wonderful exploration of the of the mortar that you need to have around the larger bricks that make the Christian community work. If these things are not present, if they’re not fostered, if they’re not cultivated. And, friends, we are going to have hollow Christian community. And this is exactly where Paul’s going to leave the last word.

00:10:47:31 – 00:11:00:36
Michael Gewecke
And I assume, you know, there’s going to be a conversation to follow this in the room where it gets read, right? I mean, this leader is going to be deliver. This can be read for the community. And now they’re going to get to talk about what it means and how they’re going to live it out.

00:11:00:41 – 00:11:35:18
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And community is a wonderful word. You know, in, in Greek that literally says something like to the brothers and in the sense of we know that that applied to men and women community is probably a more applicable word. It probably is the equivalent of what Paul has in mind, but it loses that sense of family. The reminder that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, that we are connected.

00:11:35:18 – 00:12:07:18
Clint Loveall
We we certainly strive to be community, but that community is born of sibling like relationships. Because of Jesus Christ, we are so connected in Jesus as to be family, as to be blood to one another. And I certainly don’t have any qualms about the word community, but it is helpful, I think, to know what’s underneath of that, because it’s a it’s a pretty powerful idea.

00:12:07:22 – 00:12:52:09
Michael Gewecke
So it’s interesting you say that just today I was reading a book where there was an argument being made about how and Ephesians was quoted in this chapter about how husbands and wives are called to live in, kind of rebellious and, and, mystical, kind of self-giving. This love is not a thing you just discover anywhere. And the interesting thing I thought while reading that book was, while that’s true, our minds are blown by the idea that the argument being made in Ephesians is that our Christian community should look that way.

00:12:52:13 – 00:13:28:54
Michael Gewecke
We, anyone who’s been married, knows how unbelievably unmeasurable, complex, and difficult it is to live life with another person in increasing intimacy and vulnerability and love and self-giving and all of these things that we know we should be better at. But we we struggle with the the truly mind blowing argument being made here by Paul is that the thing that we struggle with, with one person is actually the kind of thing we’re called to do with the whole family, that the church is a place that this should be taking root and growing out.

00:13:28:58 – 00:14:06:14
Michael Gewecke
If you get a sense, even just a sliver of a sense of the force of that, I think all of us would be set back in our seats a little bit. This is an astonishing image of what it would mean to be family, to be brothers and sisters in Christ. For that to not be a metaphor that we say just because it makes us feel good, but a kind of family commitment, a kind of desire that we’ll see each other through life and we’ll bear with one another, even with our disagreements and even with our, our gaffes, when things go wrong or we say things wrong, when we hurt one another like that, that

00:14:06:14 – 00:14:25:06
Michael Gewecke
we will actually pursue reconciliation. This is an astonishing image. We’re reading a lot into a few sentences, but if you read this in the context of the book, I think you see, this is a beautiful way to to put a final note at the end of the book which sums these themes we’ve seen through the whole thing.

00:14:25:19 – 00:14:50:46
Clint Loveall
And I think if you take seriously that call to that sort of relationship in Christ, then again, it it is only more telling that Paul says peace, love, faith and grace because those are the steps and possibly the only steps. Those are certainly the things we would need to try to pursue that kind of community, that kind of relationship with one another.

00:14:50:51 – 00:14:53:08
Clint Loveall
Really, really good stuff.

00:14:53:13 – 00:15:15:21
Michael Gewecke
That’s going to wrap up the conversation for today. Don’t miss tomorrow and we’ll wrap up the themes of this entire book. Talk a little bit about the contributions in the New Testament, as well as what we can take from it as we’ve studied it together. Don’t miss that. Like this video if you found it helpful, do be back tomorrow and then we will continue on after about a week break with our next study and subscribe so you don’t miss that.

00:15:15:23 – 00:15:16:09
Michael Gewecke
We’ll see you all soon.

00:15:16:10 – 00:15:16:49
Clint Loveall
Thanks everybody!