Month: October 2020

Finally, grow strong in the Lord, with the strength of his power.

According to tradition, the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians while he was in prison in Rome (around AD 62). While in Rome, I was blessed to visit the restored “house” where Paul was held under house arrest. Thinking of the great Apostle confined in those rooms, I can imagine this giant of a man whose missionary activity had touched the entire then-known world reflecting upon the purpose of life and the larger mission of Christianity in the world. I resonate, at least in a small way, in a similar time in my life in the weeks and months after my stroke when I had to come to grips that without God’s permission I could do nothing: I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t walk. As super as I had thought I was, busy, effective, bursting with ideas and energy, in reality I learned I was totally dependent on God.

People who are blessed with the ability to get things done, to envision the future, to organize and administrate—all of which were gifts Paul himself had received and which sustained him in his years of labor for and in Christ—know intimately that lightning-quick inner movement that constructs a roadmap for arriving at solutions and resolutions to issues when they arise. I like to think that Paul, in this reading, is showing us what he had gradually learned about living “in the Lord,” a truth that makes all activity fruitful.

He is telling the Ephesians and us, “Be empowered through your union with Christ, draw from Christ—and not yourself—the boundless strength he provides. For our strength as Christians cannot subsist outside of Christ. In Philippians he had written: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (cf. 4:13)

This is important to note because the armor which is described in the following verses as our proper attire is therefore of divine workmanship. The armor of God is given to us. It isn’t something we take up by creating it or choosing it ourselves. A soldier wears armor to protect and defend himself, whereas the armor that is described by Paul here, which God gives to us, consists of virtues which are useful for 1) defending us against the attack of the enemy, and 2) giving us strength in battle against the skillful, experienced, and malicious enemies which are the devil and his angels. A soldier’s armor protects him, but is powerless to strengthen him on the battlefield.

Therefore, put on the armor which God himself provides you: truth, righteousness and integrity. Run with stability and promptness to announce the Gospel of peace. Cover yourself with faith and wield the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Be continually filled with the Holy Spirit. Don’t fall into the trap of assuming you can stand against the wiles of the evil one with your natural strength.

“In all your prayer and entreaty keep praying in the Spirit on every possible occasion….”

No matter how virtuous we think we have become, how zealous we as missionaries, ministers, and Christians may be, how fantastic our projects and successful our plans, Paul is calling us through prayer to jettison self-reliance and to rely wholly on the Spirit’s enablement. Prayer is the very air we breathe. Prayer keeps us spiritually alive. Prayer makes us one with Christ.

What the Church and the world need today are people mighty in this battle of spiritual warfare, people who are filled with the Spirit and who run to do the Spirit’s bidding. Without prayer, to return to the imagery of the soldier’s armor, we shall be defeated in battle. And if we look to God in prayer, we shall triumph in the battle against every evil.

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The union between Christ and the Church is, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “a great mystery” (Eph. 5:32). For that reason, he and the other New Testament writers used a number of descriptive images to give a multifaceted picture of the Church: it is at once the household or family of God, the kingdom of David, the kingdom of heaven, as well as the Body of Christ and a sacred temple. In our first reading taken from Ephesians 2, we see several such concepts used simultaneously: the Apostle Paul described “the household of God” not only as a kingdom with citizens, but also as a sacred structure “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”

In the Gospel reading we see Jesus in the act of prayerfully building his Church, his temple, by picking out those who would form its foundation, the Apostles (Lu. 6:12-16). These men are the only people in the New Testament to whom Jesus gives the authority to “bind and loose” as is evident in Matthew 18:18: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Binding and loosing referred to the unique authority that had previously been held by the scribes and Pharisees.

Even though Jesus gave intense critiques of the personal character of the scribes and Pharisees, we can see in Matthew 23:2-3 that he still respected their teaching office and expected his followers to do the same: “The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice.” This expression, “to sit on the seat of Moses,” meant that the scribes and Pharisees inherited Moses’ authority to bind and loose; in other words, as his successors, they had the power to interpret the Law.

Therefore, when Jesus gave his apostles the authority to bind and loose, he was transferring the authority of the scribes and Pharisees to the twelve and establishing new offices invested with teaching authority. The same Holy Spirit who would inspire the infallible authorship of the New Testament, became the divine guarantee that what was “bound on earth” would truly be “bound in heaven.”

We can easily observe this understanding of apostolic succession at work in the early Church by examining the writings of Christians such as Irenaeus, who had been taught by Polycarp, who in turn had been taught by the Apostle John; also, Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, who had heard from John himself. For their writings and more, check out The Faith of the Early Fathers (Vol. 1) by William Jurgens.

Ultimately, apostolic succession explains why Jesus would represent the Apostles as the stones upon which he would build his temple. Through the authority of their office, the Church was given divine protection from error and the unwavering certainty that despite the turbulence of life’s storms, God’s will would prevail.

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