Title Introduction (Ephesians 1:1-2)
One of the things that makes me sad when I look at believers is that they do not know what this faith they are doing, and they simply say that they do it because of their religious beliefs, and when they tell them not to do it, they do not. There is no worry about what a believer is, what the church is, what God is trying to do through us, or what it means to live as a believer. It's just that you think that if you follow what you are told to do and what you are told not to do, you will be fine. And they are just trying to live in such a way that they want to proceed with what they want to do by calling on the name of Jesus.
I have been preaching the Gospel of John on Wednesday for almost a year and a half until the last time. It was a wonderful time of grace when I understood the deep things of the Bible while expounding on the Gospel of John. It was a happy time when I realized and learned a lot about how to view and understand the Bible. The beginning of the Gospel of John also began that man was in darkness. But it also ends with a rebuke to Peter. It was a good opportunity to seriously think about what faith is. I could see that faith does not come from human beings, but comes out of the Lord's grace and is natural.
Starting this week, I will try to expound on Ephesians. Of course, there are many shortcomings, but we are all praying and trying to receive grace together. First of all, in this time today, we are going to look at the overall flow of the book of Ephesians. First of all, the general opinion is that the author is Paul. Ephesians, like Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, are known as Paul's prison epistles. This book of Ephesians teaches us what the church is. In other words, as to by whom the church began, Ephesians says that it was foreordained in Christ before the foundation of the world. And the members of that church are the elect in Christ.
But they are made up of those who had died in their sins and trespasses but were raised to life. But the word choice means that no one can become a church. So, in verse 3, we are told that we have received a spiritual blessing. This is the gathering of the church. Simply put, the church is not randomly created, it is not of the earth, and at the same time, not everyone can become a member of the church. Being a church is a blessing and a blessing in itself.
That is why Ephesians speaks of the church as the body of Christ. To be the body of Christ is to say that Christ is Lord and that Christ is moving in the direction He wants. Therefore, this means that the church is not a gathering of men. It is not made by human plans and ideas. So the church is the center of Christ's work. And the believer who has become a member of the church must realize and know the richness of the breadth, depth, and height of Christ's love. This is the essence of the church. The church is not a place to do anything else, but a place to live intoxicated with the love of Christ. So, that love is what makes us know that we are one. There is one faith and one baptism.
And the church is given a gift. It is the gift of revealing the body of Jesus. And that church must reveal a different face from the world. It is not limited to a certain place of church, but it must be distinguished in the world and within the family. This is the image of the believer and the image of the elect. Ephesians is progressing with these contents. This is the reason why I came to study the book of Ephesians. In order to understand more deeply about the Church. The reason why we are doing this is because we have so much misunderstanding of the Church. Because they keep trying to find the church in the world.
The church is in the Bible. However, we keep comparing the church with the worldly organizations or judging it with the world's values, trying to make the church more like a church. As a result, the church is becoming secular, not church-like. The church is to show Jesus. What kind of Jesus are you? By dying on the cross, he was humbled to show the kind of Jesus who served men and was set apart from the world. Therefore, numbers do not intervene in the church. To say that the increase in numbers is called revival is the result of ignoring the Bible and trying to evaluate the church with common sense.
The ecclesiology must come from the pneumatology, and the pneumatology must start from the Greek theory. But now, about the church, people say that they are evaluating the church centering on mission and evangelism and talking about the church. It is not the church of the Bible. The church is to build up the body of Christ. This is the true face of the church. I will struggle to return to the biblical church through this book of Ephesians. False churches, false believers, and false beliefs will be exposed through the Bible. We will all have to work on this together. Because this age is now an age where lies and truth are confused. This is because the era has become the truth if there is power, and it has become a lie if there is no power. I hope that our Youngbuk Church will be a truly church-like church.