On Election and Predestination: Ephesians 1.4-6

The most recent post in this Bible Study series on Ephesians looked at the wonderful liturgical blessing (1.3-14) with which Paul begins the letter. It’s a beautiful passage that boldly describes both God’s activity on our behalf and our vocation to become “holy and blameless in love” in response. But, some of the language Paul … Continue reading On Election and Predestination: Ephesians 1.4-6

Blessing God: Ephesians 1.3-14

It is customary for Paul’s letters to begin with an often dense exploration of the theological themes that he will unpack in the rest of the text. In this way, Ephesians is no exception, as 1.3-14, the passage we’ll look at today (and in the next few posts), is a single, complicated, two-hundred-word sentence in … Continue reading Blessing God: Ephesians 1.3-14

On Grace and Peace: Ephesians 1.2

In the previous post in this series on Ephesians, we looked at who we meet in the text: who the author is, and who the recipients are — and what the author has to say about both. Today, we’ll explore the second half of the greeting, which can be found in 1.2: Grace to you … Continue reading On Grace and Peace: Ephesians 1.2

Getting to Know You: Ephesians 1:1

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God To the saints who are [in Ephesus] and are faithful in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1.1) In the post introducing this series, I mentioned that it would be front-heavy and today’s post is a good example of this, focusing as it does on this single verse. … Continue reading Getting to Know You: Ephesians 1:1

Life in Christ: Series Introduction

Reading Scripture is one of the most important practices shared by all Christian traditions: whether we read it together in community or in personal study, our lives, beliefs, and behaviours are shaped by this text, or more accurately library of texts, that we call ‘the Bible.’ As we saw in my series this Spring on … Continue reading Life in Christ: Series Introduction