Ephesians 3.1–13
A sermon from St Margaret’s Nedlands 9 August 2026
The early Christians had a problem, and so do we. The problem is Paul; he says such radical things—things we don’t like—he can hardly be from God. Some modern-day Jews are beginning to look with favour on Jesus, but certainly not Paul. Paul was a rogue rabbi who invented Christianity. A lot of modern church scholars feel the same. Paul was a woman-hating homophobe. A recent novel portrays him as a tortured homosexual. Many have tried to explain away his Damascus Road experience as a psychiatric episode. The reality is, that after his transformation from Jesus-hating rabbi to apostle of Christ, he convinced people to believe in Jesus in many cities and towns of the Roman Empire, and planted churches in Arabia, Syria, Cyprus, Turkiye, Macedonia, Greece, Albania, and Crete. Some recent research says his mission was a novum—something new and without precedent in the ancient world. Most modern churches can trace their existence back to Paul.
In our reading today we find him in prison in Rome writing to churches in the Roman province of Asia. He has laid out his understanding of God’s plan to bring history to its conclusion, bringing everything in heaven and earth under the lordship of Jesus—what this means for individuals and for nations. Now he explains his own role in the unfolding plan of God. Listento Ephesians 3.1–14 and make up your own mind about whether he was genuine or not.
For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
We should start by thinking about Paul’s imprisonment. In these days when saying the wrong thing can get you in trouble, I have often thought how horrible it would be to be imprisoned for a long period of time. Even in our comfortable jails, the boredom alone would kill me. Paul’s arrest was fairly humane by ancient standards; he lived in his own rented accommodation and his friends could visit him. But he was chained, day and night, to a soldier, in an age when “chains” were the ultimate shame. But Paul refused to be shamed and got on with what he could do, including a lot of letter writing.
For this reason, I Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles …
Such is his faith in God’s providence that he regards himself not as Rome’s prisoner, but as Christ’s, and for a reason: he is awaiting trial for the sake of his Gentile mission.
You will remember how he returned to Jerusalem from Greece with a substantial gift of money for the poor in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem his name had been blackened. It was said he taught against the law of Moses and fraternized with Gentiles, so his coming to the temple stirred a riot. The Roman commander took him into custody to save his life, then transferred him to the Roman headquarters in Caesarea-on-the-Sea to shield him from assassination, and finally sent him on to Rome to answer Jewish charges in an imperial court. None of this would have happened if he had kept his nose clean and soft-peddled his work amongst Gentiles.
Paul’s demeanour in prison speaks volumes. He knew whether what he preached was true. We believe because of the testimony of witnesses who say they saw Jesus alive after he was executed: Paul was one of them. He knew whether he spoke the truth about his encounter with the resurrected Jesus. His Christ-centredness, his eagerness to go on preaching, even if it means his death, and his contentedness with his sufferings vouch for his truthfulness. It is impossible that he would have said the things he says, if he knew they were a lie.
He speaks of his “stewardship of God’s grace.”
I assume that you have heard of the stewardship (oikonomia) of God’s grace that was given to me for you …
The word oikonomia (from which we get our word economy); is the position given to the manager of a large household or farm or business. Paul is claiming to have been appointed as manager of this new undertaking to make the Jewish Messiah known to non-Jews. It is a claim to authority as well as responsibility. With it went the claim to revelation.
… how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.
We are thrown back again to his Damascus Road conversion and what happened to him afterwards in the city: Jesus blinded him, spoke to him, healed him, and appointed him to his task. And there were further occasions when Jesus spoke to him; he says God made known to him things about his plans that had not been revealed to the world until this point.
When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
Twice he uses the word “mystery” (mysterion); it was a quasi-technical term, meaning something humans could not know by their own intellect or science; it could only be revealed to them by God. The word almost means revelation. Paul is claiming that God revealed to him and to the other apostles things that could only be known by him telling them; this passage is full of the language of revelation.
This is part of why we give Paul’s letters the status of Holy Scripture; they are God’s word to us. They have authority. We don’t ignore them when they tell us things we don’t like to hear. “God’s holy apostles and prophets”—the New Testament prophets— spoke as clear a word from God as did the prophets of the Old Testament.
It is why we lay so much emphasis on the Bible. It is not just our foundation document; it is God’s message to us. Jesus affirmed the Old Testament writings as God’s word; he also trained and appointed “apostles and prophets” to carry on his mission and teaching. This makes the Bible different to every other human writing; it is why we call it the Bible. No Christian with understanding could call the Qur’an or any other writing “holy.” The Bible gives us God’s answer to questions that only God can answer, in this case his plan for the future of this creation, for Israel as his promised people, and for the other nations of the world. Where else could we get this?
This mystery (revelation) is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
“Co-heirs (sunkleronoma), co-body [members] (susoma), co-sharers (summetocha) of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. The gospel is God’s announcement that Jesus is his appointed king and saviour, not just of his historic chosen people, but for all humankind. By attaching ourselves to him we are assured that we, along with believing Jews, will inherit eternal life and all the other blessings originally promised to Israel. There is now one body, one new humanity.
Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ …
Unsearchable riches: We should be thrilled by the thought of the riches that are given us in Jesus? But we humans find it hard to grasp anything beyond what we can see and feel. I was given a Lotto ticket for my birthday. I didn’t know what to do with it; I had to ask. When I saw all those numbers, I knew I had no chance, but I must confess I couldn’t help thinking, “What if …?” I actually won a prize: $8.93.” Hardly to compare with the unsearchable riches of Christ! I had a university friend who said she would not wish to go to heaven because everything would be known, and there would be nothing new to learn. But everything she learned—every pleasure she experienced—was God’s creation, along with her inquiring mind. We can be sure of one thing: there will be no boredom in the age-to-come. Even if we can only think in this world’s terms—what did you think when Henry Olonga opened his mouth last Sunday and filled this building with with his voice? What a wonderful gift is music! It has been said we could get on quite well in a black and white world, but how wonderful that God has given us colour. We could probably survive on bread and water, but has anyone counted the many myriads of tastes and textures, not to speak of the fragrance of flowers, and the joys of human kindness. The gifts of this creation are riches enough to convince us that the riches of the new creation will be beyond our imagining.
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.[1]
Paul’s task is–
–to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
What an extraordinary statement! We think of the church as a declining institution, lacking in relevance, of marginal importance in our society, aging, battling to survive, and, in many minds, unlikely to last beyond the next 50 years. Paul says it is at the centre of God’s plan for the universe, with a relevance not only for the human race, but even for the heavenly powers. Is he mad?
Let us be clear in our minds, first, that he is not talking about St Margaret’s Nedlands, nor about some megachurch in Africa or the US. The Church he speaks of is the whole body of Christian believers, past, present, and future, who, we have seen, will inherit the future world. The body of Christ, Paul calls it in chapter 1: the fulness, or fulfilment of the King and his kingdom. We should not be discouraged by our struggles or our size. The people here at St Margaret’s are of more concern to God than the Labor Party, or the Liberals, or First Nation, or the Greens. They are destined each to have their time under the sun, and then to fade. Jesus has promised that his Church will withstand the powers of death itself—it will last forever. The challenge before us is to be faithful and to get on with whatever good work the Lord may put before us.
But note the stupendous scale of what Paul reveals here about the Church. In our media dominated world, we despair of even getting a look in—of even being noticed. Paul says that the Church will communicate to the heavenly powers the many-sided wisdom of God. The words he uses (principalities and authorities) shows he is thinking mainly of evil powers. What are we to make of this?
When we think about salvation our thoughts turn to God and Christ and ourselves; they don’t often stretch to the angelic and demonic world. But Satan is real, and he was there at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, and it was his conniving that brought about the fall of our first parents, and the mess that envelopes the world today. What is his future in the plan of God, we might ask. The answer is there for us right at the beginning of the Bible: defeat!
Christians often say that prior to tempting Adam and Eve, the Devil aspired to be like God, and fell because of his pride. I do not see this anywhere in the Bible. It was Adam and Eve who aspired to be like God, Satan wasn’t that stupid. What Satan wanted—or rather, what he resented—was the humans’ high calling to be the king and queen of God’s creation. Jealousy drove him to pull them down from his high place. Satan succeeded in disgracing the first humans, disqualifying them from their intended office, and bringing them under God’s sentence of death. We learned in chapter 2 that we were dead in our trespasses and sins. This was Satan’s plan and purpose. But God declared his defeat. How?
I will put hostility between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. You will bruise his heel, and he will crush your head.[2]
God declares that humans will have a future, and ultimately defeat the one who defeated them. This means, of course, since God has condemned them to death, that he must find a way to make them alive again, and this he has done in Jesus.
The Church which our Lord is building is far more than a struggling human institution, it is the community of the new creation which overcomes and overthrows the powers of evil and demonstrates God’s wisdom to the universe. What a privilege to be a member!
I hope, then, we can all grasp the reason for Paul’s excitement—the joy, the thrill—that made his imprisonment and its shame a thing of small importance. I hope we can understand the magnitude of his role in the unfolding plan of God. I hope we can thank God for him, and take confidence from his confidence. I hope we can treasure his writing for what they are: God’s word to us, even today. I hope we can learn from them the unsearchable riches of Christ.
[1] 1 Corinthians 2.9.
[2] Genesis 3.15.