Ephesians 3:1 - Sermon Bible Commentary

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Ephesians 3:1-13.

The Grace Given to Paul.

The enthusiasm with which the Apostle speaks of preaching the Gospel to the heathen is contagious. His words burn on the page, and our hearts take fire as we read them. What was the secret of this exultation in the Gospel and in his commission to make the Gospel known to all mankind? The question is a large one, but considerable light is thrown upon it by the contents of this Epistle.

I. Paul had a vivid intellectual interest in the Christian Gospel. To him it was a real revelation of the most wonderful and surprising truths concerning God and the relations of God to the human race. It urged his intellectual powers to the most strenuous activity; it never lost its freshness; it was never exhausted. I believe that in all the great movements of religious reform that have permanently elevated the life of Christendom there has been a renewal of intellectual interest in the Christian revelation. And if at the present time the religious life of the Church is languid, and if in its enterprises there is little of audacity or vehemence, a partial explanation is to be found in the decline of intellectual interest in the contents of the Christian faith which has characterised the last hundred or hundred and fifty years of our history.

II. The heart and imagination of Paul were filled with the infinite and eternal blessings which were the inheritance of the human race in Christ. For human sin there was the Divine forgiveness; for human weakness in its baffled attempts to emancipate itself from the tyranny of evil passions and evil habits there was the Divine redemption. Paul believed in the unsearchable riches of Christ. We shall never recover his enthusiasm as long as we dwell chiefly on the external and incidental benefits which follow the acceptance of the Christian Gospel.

R. W. Dale, Lectures on the Ephesians,p. 220.

References: Ephesians 3:1-13. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 203.Ephesians 3:3; Ephesians 3:4. H. Wace, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 45.Ephesians 3:3-6. C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 438.

Related Commentaries of Ephesians 3:1

Ephesians 3:1-13

1 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,

2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:

3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,

4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.

8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,

11 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:

12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

13 Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.