Orientation

Kyle Kauffman // August 20 2023

This week will begin our series on Ephesians by orienting ourselves to the people and time this book was originally written to and by understanding the main message of the book. We will look at some of the relevant Biblical and cultural background on Ephesus and the church in Ephesus in order to understand who Paul was originally writing. As we do this we will seek to bridge the gap between us and them by making the connections between our life today and their life in Ephesus. We’ll also look at some the structure of Ephesians especially diving into how Ephesians is split up neatly into three chapters of gospel doctrine (1-3) and three chapters of gospel living (4-6). While we will weave these two together throughout the series, it’s helpful to see how Paul always puts gospel indicatives before imperatives. In many ways, Paul’s message is, “This is who you are. Now live like that’s true.” And in this way the Christian life is meant to be an entire orientation around who we are in Christ.

Acts 19; Ephesians 1:1-2