(Audio/Video/Text)
*Note, for the video of this sermon, copy/paste the link below to view on Facebook.
https://fb.watch/u4hPUxI1Te/Title: The Great Tangent (Part One)
Intro:
How Marc told a story. Master of tangents.
NKJV:
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— 2 if indeed you have heard of the [a]dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, 3 how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery (as I have briefly written already, 4 by which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), 5 which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: 6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel, 7 of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power.
NASB:
3 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles— 2 if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; 3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. 4 By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets [c]in the Spirit; 6 to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, 7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.
(At this point, the logical question is: How does Dan’s translation handle this? Well, fear not, I’ve looked that up as well)
Dan Phillip’s Bible:
Jesus loves you! (And Paul said some super neato stuff too!)
Paul BEGINS a thought in verse ONE, he then goes on a tangent explaining the nature of his own special insight about the union between Jew and Gentile in verses TWO through THIRTEEN. He gets back to his original thought in verse FOURTEEN!
So let’s begin the journey through this introduction and first part of the tangent. We will go slowly and deliberately, and my prayer is that the seemingly confusing and wordy nature of this text will not be so intimidating in a few weeks…
“For THIS reason…”
Q: What is the reason?
A: Under Christ, Jews and Gentiles are equal within the Church. (Eph. 2:19)
“Prisoner of Jesus Christ for the sake of you Gentiles…”
-Paul is under house arrest in Rome when he writes Ephesians
Acts 28:16, 30
(Here Paul begins the great tangent)
“…if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you; that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief.”
Most believe that the phrase “as I wrote before in brief” is a reference to 1:9-10 where Paul wrote:
9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10 with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.
The key here is this: the word “us.”
Paul is not talking about the whole church, or all believers, rather he is saying that a precious few (The Apostles) were chosen to receive and teach the Gospel with the authority of Christ.
These teachings are the letters and Gospels that became the New Testament. That is why, for a book to have been considered scripture it was either written by an apostle (Paul, John, Peter, etc.), or an eyewitness to an apostle. (Luke, Jude, author of Hebrews)
4 “By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ,”
Essentially, Paul is saying, “this is why you can trust both my authority and my teachings.”
It was important for Paul to explain to his audience why he was uniquely positioned to explain the mysteries of Christ.
Undoubtedly, this leads into a bigger question that many of us have faced, with both believers and non believers:
“Why do we trust that the Bible is true?”
(Take Answers)
3I=A
3 “I’s lead to A”
Inspiration, Infallibility, Inerrancy, make scripture Authoritative.