Below is an short introduction of Ephesians from www.umcdiscipleship.org. You are invited and encouraged to read and re-read the whole letter (it’s short!) as well as the weekly lectionary readings during the series. Let us listen to how the Spirit might be speaking and moving through scripture, each of us, one another, and the world.
Ephesians is a very different kind of letter to a very different audience and a very different focus than we saw in 2 Corinthians, from which we have been reading up to now.
For starters, Ephesians was a “circular letter”; that is, a letter intended to circulate among seven congregations, six of which had been started by and remained in an oversight relationship with the congregation Paul helped to establish in Ephesus. For that reason alone, Ephesians tends to focus on broader themes of Christian theology and community life rather than on more specific details of the life, concerns, or questions of any particular congregation.
One of the realities of this region is that Jewish people and Gentiles had been living side by side with each other for centuries. This informs a key section of the letter, focused on how in Christ God broke down the “dividing wall” separating "Jew" from “Greek” (gentile), and so the life of Christian congregations both could and did include both Jewish and Gentile members as equal participants.
As a circular letter, Paul's point is not simply to reinforce the value of cross-cultural congregations in each place. Indeed, as we might say in Nashville, this letter isn't for "you" in "your" congregation. Rather, it’s for “all y’all” across an intentional local network of congregations. Paul’s larger agenda here was to support the thriving connection these seven congregations could have with one another, across the different kinds of city and town cultures represented in each. The vision of church Paul advocates for in this letter expresses unity in Christ not simply on a local level, but also, and as importantly, on a regional level. We might even say he was teaching all of these congregations, individually and in their regional network, what it means to be “One in Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world."
Spending these next seven weeks in Ephesians, starting today, becomes an invitation for your congregation, perhaps with several others in your area (even of different denominations!), to be exploring how you can be united in common ministry and supporting each other in that ministry in your larger community or region.