Surely, Paul was a caring priest who knew how to comfort the afflicted. But he was also a fiery prophet, who didn't hesitate afflicting the comfortable and challenging the status quo. And that's what he did in Ephesus. He went for the jugular and attacked the dominant force holding sway over the Ephesians.
A fan behind home plate held up a poster that read: JOHN 3:16--as if to say "This is what's important." I began to think of what best sums up the Gospel. I decided that 1 Corinthians 15:22 would be my poster. "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive." This is the heart of the Gospel.
The Prompter is the person who stands in a little recessed compartment at the front of the stage. He prompts actors if they forget a line. All they have to do is glance down at the prompter, and he'll give them the help they need to play their part. The Spirit is our Prompter.
In our text, there is the assumption of Paul that believers should receive the Holy Spirit "when they became believers." This verse indicates that Paul expected a person to know they had the Holy Spirit upon their conversion to Christ.
"Sin is a relationship to God focused in self-centeredness, which shows itself in unloving attitudes and acts toward our fellow men. It is when we seek our own wills instead of God's will and regulate our lives by such self-seeking that sin corrupts our nature." (Georgia Harkness)
In Athens Paul makes his appeal, not to a Jewish audience, but to the most learned, well-educated, sophisticated scholars of the day. Their response is telling: They're cordial. But here's the catch: They have no interest in committing themselves to any higher authority than the gospel of enlightenment.
Yes, I have seen the movie. I think my reaction is best summed by the cartoon in which a couple are just leaving the theater after having seen Mel Gibson’s Passion. The man turns to his wife and says, “I think I liked the book better.”
What might it mean to live our lives like Easter is more than one day of the year . . . to be transformed by the miracle of resurrection every single day. Helping us explore the possibilities is Diana Butler Bass’s book Christianity for the Rest of Us, in which she identifies several “signposts of renewal”
Paul says, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” When Paul talks about peace, he is not talking about a dreamy-eyed, mellowness that we think of when we remember 1960’s hippies. Rather, Paul is talking about the calm that comes to our very souls as a result of our knowledge of the love of God and the power that love has in our lives.
G. Campbell Morgan sums up Paul's message this way, "If you really want to find God, do not degrade yourselves in erecting images of gold and silver. Listen to the deepest fact of your own being; be silent in the presence of the mystery of what you are; and then look out beyond to that unknown God whom I declare to you."