The Thursday after the Third Sunday after the Epiphany of our Lord
Posted on January 30, 2025 by under
Scripture: Ephesians 3:1-12 (NKJV)
3:1 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles—2 if indeed you have heard of the 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.
8 To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who all things through Jesus Christ; 10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, 11 according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.
Devotion
A ‘mystery’ in the Scriptures is something which man cannot figure out on his own. We cannot learn it from logical reasoning or experience; the mystery must be revealed by God. In today’s reading, the mystery revealed is the fellowship of the Gentiles in God’s Church. Although the Gentiles were strangers to the covenant of circumcision, God received them together with the Jews as “fellow heirs of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel.”
This mystery is not easy to wrap our heads around. The fellowships that we know from this world are united by shared interests, cultural traditions, or family ties. God’s fellowship goes far beyond such things. This communion of saints is united by the blood of Jesus. We are blood-brothers with our fellow Christians because we are all baptized into Christ. It does not matter whether we share the same hobbies, the same traditions, or the same social status as the other members in our congregation. What matters is that we are united in faith. We are all partakers of God’s promise in Christ. We are all members of His Body through Baptism. We confess the same doctrine and we express our fellowship at the altar: “For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17).
Collect: Almighty and Everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities, stretch forth the right hand of Thy Majesty to help and defend us; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
