Lee’s Reviews > The Vision of Ephesians: The Task of the Church and the Glory of God > Status Update

Learned a new word:
“You see, we live between resurrection Mark One (Jesus’ own resurrection) and resurrection Mark Two (when all God’s people will be raised); or if you like, between Pentecost and Parousia.”

…the Union of God and his people enfleshed, incarnated, in the mystery of the Lamb and the Bride; …heaven and earth; Judean and Gentile; the one body; God and his people;…no wonder marriage has been under attack in our increasingly pagan society…(marriage) remains a signpost to the new creation, which is characterized by differentiated unity.

🤯 🤯 re: 5:28-32 (Paul) quotes Gen 2:24 (man leaves parents becomes one flesh with woman) and reads it as referring to Messiah and Church. He interprets Gen 2 as a long range prophecy of God’s son leaving his original home and going to find his appointed bride. … looking on toward Rev 21 where coming together of heavens and earth is symbolized perfectly in marriage of Lamb and Bride.

“…for Paul, what ‘being filled with with spirit’ looks like (anticipating, we recall, God’s filling of all creation) is a life of music and thanksgiving, of delight that turns into song, and of a singing joy which leads naturally into mutual submission as we share in the powerful love of God.”

“The memory of Jesus, and his extraordinary and tender love for them, resonated powerfully with his first followers, and was reinforced by the continuing sense of his strong, loving presence with them in their worship and prayer.”

I love how Wright phrases things. Speaking about 4:22 he says “…hardened hearts and darkened minds cover up their condition precisely by advertising themselves as clever, ‘modern’, ‘ahead of the curve’, whatever. This is what ‘deceit’ is all about. Twisted desires do not present themselves by whispering, ‘If you come this way you will go mouldy and fall apart.’”

Eph 4:11-13 “…unity doesn’t mean uniformity, but plurifomity doesn’t mean chaos. How easy it has been for leaders with different gifts and styles to develop ministries around themselves, after their likeness, pulling away from what’s going on elsewhere in God’s purposes and priding themselves on doing their own thing”

Paul would be shocked by the very idea of ‘denominations’, close to one another in the same street but not even trying to join in sharing missions and resources…given recent centuries in Christian history it’s better at least to have unity of fellowship, prayer and mutual support…reading Eph 4 we can’t imagine our present multiple disunities don’t really matter.

“…in Genesis, the story is about the creator’s purpose for his creation, and the human responsibility for sharing in that purpose. The failure of humans was as much a failure of vocational obedience as disobedience to one rather strange command.”

Paul, prays for wisdom. “Wisdom“, as in Proverbs, is what you need to be truly human, to take responsibility in God’s good world... Isaiah 11 reflects the same theme: the messiah is the truly wise human &now the “in–Messiah“ people should have that same spirit of wisdom&insight & knowledge of God. This comes through the eyes of the inmostself being opened to the true God dimension of all the world.