Top O’ da mornin’, even tho tis evnin’, to ya.
Must be left over’s from St. Patty’s day.
So, there was this group of people called the Ephesians. This was mostly because they lived in a little place called Ephesus.
These Ephesians were mostly Greco-Roman. Greek thinking Romans. Gentiles. The lived like gentiles lived, worshipped the god’s of the Greek thinking Romans, and worshipped Caesar above all.
That was until Paul showed up and started converting them to Christianity. This Christianity was crazy. It’s God was unlike any other God that had ever existed in any religion ever.
In a letter to these people, Paul told them how this God had sacrificed everything just bring salvation to these people. This was powerful for them because up to that point, no God had ever sacrificed anything for them. Their gods constantly demanded sacrifice from them. Their food. Their land.
Their children.
But instead, this God sacrificed HIS child for THEM. It was crazy. It was insane.
To them, it was beautiful. That someone would go that far just for them, a worthless lowly people.
Paul told them that, afterward, God had rewarded his son for the sacrifice by giving him the inheritance of the Father’s kingdom and power. But even more, that anyone who was willing to serve this God who had done this for them, they could share that inheritance with the Son, this Jesus who had died for them.
The inheritance of a God to a people who lived in poverty and squalor. It was unimaginable. There was nothing that compared to this anywhere. One day, they would be princes to the God who saved them, brothers of the one who died for them, adopted as royalty without penalty.
But over time, other Christians came with selfish ambitions. Jewish Christians who were elitist and racist. They didn’t like that these gentiles, these heathens, could have the grace of God like them, without penalty. They weren’t even circumcised. How could their God bring in this abomination?
Paul showed them that God didn’t have favorites. He told them how this God didn’t have a hierarchy within his people. They were all the same to him. And to a people who were slaves, ground down under the heal of oppression from not only their own emperor, but even their fellow Christians… this gave them hope.
This God wanted to treat them all the same. This God said that they were just as good as those Jews who had known God first and been chosen by God. Now, these Ephesians were being chosen by God as well. This God believed that these Ephesians were just as important as their Caesar. Which was hard because to them, Caesar had been a god himself.
Paul told them how God wanted them to come to Him. They didn’t need a priest in a temple to gain access to God. They could actually talk directly to Him. They didn’t need to bribe the temple priests, and pay temple prostitutes to grant them favors in order for this God to hear them. He was free. He was easy. He wanted them to bother Him. He wanted them to come to him, not timid and afraid, but confident and bold. They could come, and He would listen.
Not only that, but this God wanted to give them a portion of his power. His spirit. He wanted to put part of him in them. No other god had ever done that for his followers. Sometimes the gods would bless an individual with power and renown. But this new God wanted to give ALL his followers this power and spirit.
The Ephesians learned that this Paul had once killed Christians. He had been an enemy of God’s son. Paul and tried to undo everything God was trying to make happen. But instead of punishing Paul, God took him introduced him to the son that had died, and made Paul and important servant with great power. A man who would change the world for this God. A man who single handedly changed the course of Rome itself.
The Ephesians wondered that, if this is what this God does for his enemies, what might he do for his friends?
Paul told them how God had revealed the truth and knowledge of His plans to them. This God wanted them to know everything that was going on. To these Ephesians, this was against everything they knew. The gods didn’t share their plans. They were above that. Humans were but mere insects in the eyes of the gods and not worthy of the plans of the gods and for a God to share his most secret plans of history with them was unimaginable.
Zeus didn’t share his plans. Poseidon didn’t share his plans. Aphrodite didn’t share her plans. But this God?
He shared everything.
But he didn’t just share it with them, he shared with every being in existence. To all those “rulers” of the heavens and earth and under the earth. This was crazy. How powerful was this God if he knew things that the other rulers didn’t? If there were beings in the heavenly realms that didn’t know things this God did, how powerful was he? How big was His domain?
The gods were all limited to their place. Ares was powerful in war, but not in love. Poseidon had power over the sea, but no where else. Zeus was the God of lighting, but not the sea. Some gods ruled the hills, others the valleys.
But this God ruled them all. Had power over them all. Had knowledge of everything and everywhere.
There were rulers and beings and spiritual things. And there was this God who was more than all of them combined.
How could such a thing exist?
But not only that, this God wasn’t petty. Sometimes in history his followers made him seem that way. But all he wanted was to make everyone part of his family. He loved them with a love that had no measure. It couldn’t be imagined.
The Ephesians couldn’t grasp this well. They knew that the gods didn’t love them. The gods tolerated them. The gods demanded them to be afraid and to pay for their lives with their own blood.
But this new God loved them and was willing to pay for them with His own blood.
The Ephesians had known love, but never from a God. And here was a God that claimed to love them so much that there was nothing they could ask for, nothing they could even think of or imagine that he wasn’t able to do for them and that one day He would do for them.
How would this have affected this people? This people who were so poor and powerless and trampled down that they weren’t capable of fulfilling the love they had for the people they loved. They didn’t have the money or influence to make the dreams they had for their loved ones come true. And their gods never were interested in helping.
But this God would. He could do things that they were not able to imagine. He loved them, and had the will and ability to do something about it.
Paul told them how this God loved them, and that this love was greater than all knowledge. Love was more important than all knowledge. Compassion was more important than anything.
This was powerful to these Ephesians because most religion was about secret rights and knowledge. Especially amongst an upstart group trying to bring down the Christians called the Gnostics. To them, salvation was about knowing more. Learning more truth. Learning some piece of secret information that gained them immortality.
But this God was saying that if they would just accept his love and pass it one, that was that was needed to have that salvation and immortality. This God only asked that they would care for everyone they would come in contact with. And that, by doing so, they would understand the character of this God. The God that loved and ruled out of love and not out of fear or anger.
2000 years later, we still haven’t learned this lesson. We are trying to find that piece of information that will redeem us. We hope to gain knowledge as a means unto itself. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
Knowledge is good. Great even. But love is better.
God has come under attack in so many ways, mostly because of how his followers have presented him. But most of it isn’t even true. Our God only wanted us to understand what love was and what love means and how to live love in our lives every day toward everyone.
God didn’t ask for religion. He asked for love. God didn’t ask for more rules. He asked for love. God didn’t ask for more doctrine. He asked for love. God didn’t ask for separated groups. He asked for love.
God asked for one thing.
Love.
