Ephesians 3
Dear RTB’ers,
I wrote yesterday of Paul’s unity message in Ephesians: that the Gentiles are …no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. (Eph. 2:19) He continues that theme in today’s reading, strengthening the Gentiles’ position by referring to them as …fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (v. 6) The NASB translation uses a “fellow” triad, in my mind more effectively: … that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers…
One of my Study Bibles makes a really good point about this level of Gentile-Jew unity: “That Gentiles would turn to the God of Israel and be saved was prophesied in the Old Testament (see Romans 15:9-12); that they would come into an organic unity with believing Jews on an equal footing was unexpected.” I would encourage you to go to that Romans citation and see the extent to which the Old Testament predicted that the Gentiles would be brought to faith, where Paul has references to Deuteronomy, II Samuel, Psalms, and Isaiah.
There is another point worth making with respect to these Old Testament verses. Earlier in this chapter Paul had written that this Gentile-Jew unity …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. (v. 5) Imagine what Paul would say to us Gentiles today who are living two millennia later, we who have not only the Old Testament prophecies, but also the New Testament gospels and epistles and tons of research scholarship to reinforce that Gentile-Jew unity. If Paul could see the extent that the Gentile wing in this unity has (numerically) overwhelmed his Jewish Christian brothers – and the extent to which he had been the lead evangelist in this outcome – he would be amazed. He claimed to be the very least of all the saints (v. 8), but we can all be thankful for his evangelical zeal!
Blessings!
See also: October 29 (2021) / Ephesians 3:1-21.