RCL reading for Sunday, March 22, 2009:
Excerpt from The New Revised Standard Version
via Oremus (http://bible.oremus.org)
Ephesians 2:1-10
1 You were dead through the trespasses and sins
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.
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.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us
5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—
9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
QUESTIONS
Who is “the ruler of the power of the air”?
What is the relationship between good works and faith? Why does Paul indicate that faith must come first? What about secular humanitarian efforts?
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Although he was certainly not the apostle Paul that we know from Romans and Corithians, the author of Ephesians was a theologian of some subtlety. He starts out with the Devil which we have seen in the gospel and OT as a snake and calls him the power of the air. He characterizes human existence as depraved but for the grace of God. We as saved by faith and faith is the gift of God. Even our faith is not our own doing but the grace of God. The only works he acknowleges are those which God has set out for us to do. This is radical dependency on God's will.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Maimon. I didn't know that Paul wasn't the author of this epistle!
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